72 BY- W AYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 



blooms, amongst which bees and other insects 

 were glancing and humming, and a number of 

 small yellow green fly-catchers were actively 

 engaged in a restless pursuit of their proper 

 food. I gathered a big bunch of these odorous 

 plum-sprays and bound it fast to the handle of 

 my brake lever so that I could have with me 

 in my further journeying the fruity breath of 

 the wild orchard. 



Running down a long rut-furrowed slope, and 

 then over a damp flat in a cool, shady hollow, I 

 came to a nasty little stream sweeping through 

 a narrow bog. Here I called a halt for con 

 sultation. That mud looked deep and treacher 

 ous. I saw where a wagon had been pried 

 out of it with fence rails. There was nothing 

 to do but get across, however, so I fell to 

 work, carrying pieces of logs, rails, fallen 

 boughs, etc., until I had made a quite respect 

 able corduroy bridge, over which I pushed my 

 machine with perfect safety ; then I had to 

 lift it over a large log that had fallen across 

 the road. In fact I did not mount again for a 

 quarter of a mile, at the end of which I found 

 myself at the source of the road, where it ap 

 peared that I was caught fast between a huge 

 old red barn and a weather-beaten but com 

 fortable looking farm-house. 



A brawny, grizzled man with a hammer and 

 monkey-wrench was tinkering with a disabled 

 plough. I approached him cap in hand, and 

 mopping the perspiration from my face. He 

 immediately showed a deep but quasi-con 

 temptuous interest in the mechanism of the 

 tricycle. I plied him with questions as to his 

 crop-prospects, and was soon on easy terms 

 with him. I got a drink out of a sweet old 



