ALL FLESH is GRASS. 153 



the breach of nature! There to learn, as best 

 thou canst, what of weal and what of woe has 

 befallen thy chosen friends, the birds and bugs 

 and flowers, during thy fortnight's absence. 



From the crest of the ridge where I first 

 lounge beneath a spreading maple, I note a flock 

 of forty or more half-grown turkeys, led by a 

 sedate and austere gobbler, come marching up 

 the valley, not in a compact squad, but spread 

 out in a broad, fan-shaped line. Each individ- 

 ual scans closely a foot or two of earth on either 

 side of him as he onward strides; each being 

 ready to pounce upon and swallow anything in 

 the form of insect which makes a move before 

 the advancing line. Grasshoppers, crickets and 

 their kin, juicy, luscious and full of nutriment, 

 are especially sought, and their ranks doubly 

 decimated each day the onward moving army 

 of turks patrol the pasture. Grass into grass- 

 hopper, grasshopper into turkey, turkey into fox 

 or man, is seemingly the order or change which 

 part of the matter in this old woods-pasture 

 undergoes in the course of a year. Only the 

 arboreal or tree inhabiting insects escape the 



