IN THE MOUNT LAFAYETTE FOREST 61 



sibly I should care less for them if they made 

 themselves neighborly the whole year long, like 

 their relatives, the white-breasts. 



A goldfinch is passing far above, dropping 

 music as he goes. He is one of the high-fliers. 

 Wherever you may happen to be, at the summit 

 of Mount Washington or where not, you will 

 pretty often hear his sweet voice as he wanders 

 under the sky, dipping and rising, dipping and 

 rising, voice and wing keeping step together. 



Here and there one or two clouded-sulphur 

 butterflies (Philodice) take wing as I disturb 

 them. They have been most extraordinarily 

 abundant of late. A fortnight ago we drove for 

 almost a whole forenoon through clouds of them, 

 bunches of twenty or more constantly rising from 

 damp spots of earth by the wayside ; and in a 

 meadow all bespangled with purple asters they 

 were so thick as almost to conceal the flowers. 

 Twinkling in the sunlight, they looked a thousand 

 times more like stars than the asters themselves. 

 Even the entomologists of the valley, in whose 

 company I was driving, had never seen the like. 

 Here in this shaded road such lovers of the sun 

 are naturally less numerous. In truth, the won- 

 der is that they should be here at all. And yet 

 the wonder is not so very great ; they wander at 

 their own will, and the will of the wind. Only 



