May-Day out of Town. 91 



perfect, and would have repaid the rambler had 

 silence for the whole day succeeded it. But this 

 was not to be. Pausing for a moment, as if by 

 common consent, the brief interval was seized by 

 a rose-breasted grosbeak that perched upon the 

 slender top of a tapering cedar and gave himself 

 up to song. Every feather trembled, and, bowing 

 and bending to the world below, melody poured 

 from his brilliant throat and flooded earth and air. 

 It was a happy thought on the part of the bird, 

 for scarcely had he ceased when the first level 

 rays of the rising sun smote his gorgeous breast. 

 Truly, May-day had had an auspicious opening. 



What a suggestive spot to others than those on 

 natural history bent is an old field ; the scene of 

 busy husbandry when our grandfathers were 

 young : now an open common, a bare, bold, half- 

 deserted tract, its sad fate to become a town-lot ! 

 Soon to be cut and carved until beyond recog- 

 nition. Once a forest, and so truly grand; then 

 a field, and but little less impressive; now, as a 

 common, little better than a desert ; the last step, 

 a heap of dirt ! 



There are traces yet of the last furrows that 



