io8 mature Studies in Berkshire. 



or that it " wore " well. And he confesses frankly to 

 a preference for the common sights and scenes. M A 

 wooded mountainside, a green valley, running water, 

 a lake with islands, best of all perhaps (for me, that 

 is, and taking the years together), a New England 

 hillside pasture with boulders and red cedars, berry 

 bushes and fern patches, the whole bounded by stone 

 walls and bordered by grey birches and pitch-pines, 

 for sights to live with let me have these and things 

 like them in preference to nature's more freakish 

 work." This is the type of scenery through which 

 the Housatonic runs. 



The river brings to its final channel the waters of 

 all three of the ranges of the north county the Ta- 

 conic, the Greylock, and the eastern hills ; and as it 

 flows, it gathers to itself the clear streams from scores 

 of woody ravines and lower-lying meadows. Sackett 

 and Ashley and Roaring Brooks out of the fastnesses 

 of Washington, and Warner, and October Mountains ; 

 Hop Brook from the hills of Otis and the picturesque 

 valley of Tyringham ; these from the east, with the 

 Agawam and Konkapot in Stockbridge, before the big 

 ridges east of Barrington and Sheffield drive the 

 streams of Monterey and New Marlboro around by 

 way of Ashley Falls and Canaan, to find and join our 

 river there. From the west come Yokun's River, and 

 Williams, and Green, with Hubbard's Brook from the 

 heights of Mount Washington township by a north- 

 erly route, and Schenob Brook, out of the same wild 

 region by way of Sage's Ravine and the plunge at 



