1 6 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE, 



hours. But it was Sunday, and I gave him the benefit of it 

 gracious truce of God. 



Certain birds have disappeared from our neighbourhood 

 within my memory. I remember when the whippoorwill 

 could be heard in Sweet Auburn. The night-hawk, once 

 common, is now rare. The brown thrush has moved farther 

 up country. For years I have not seen or heard any of the 

 larger owls, whose hooting was one of my boyish terrors. 

 The cliff-swallow, strange emigrant, that eastward takes his 

 way, has come and gone again in my time. The bank- 

 swallows, wellnigh innumerable during my boyhood, no 

 longer frequent the crumbly cliff of the gravel-pit by the 

 river. The barn-swallows, which once swarmed in our barn, 

 flashing through the dusty sunstreaks of the mow, have been 

 gone these many years. My father would lead me out to see 

 them gather on the roof, and take counsel before their yearly 

 migration, as Mr. White used to see them at Selborne. Elien, 

 fugaces! Thank fortune, the swift still glues his nest, and 

 rolls his distant thunders night and day in the wide-throated 

 chimneys, still sprinkles the evening air with his merry twit 

 tering. The populous heronry in Fresh Pond meadows has 

 been wellnigh broken up, but still a pair or two haunt the old 

 home, as the gypsies of Ellangowan their ruined huts, and 

 every evening fly over us riverwards, clearing their throats 

 with a hoarse hawk as they go, and, in cloudy weather, scarce 

 higher than the tops of the chimneys. Sometimes I have 

 known one to alight in one of our trees, though for what pur 

 pose I never could divine. Kingfishers have sometimes puz 

 zled me in the same way, perched at high noon in a pine, 

 springing their watchman s rattle when they flitted away 

 from my curiosity, and seeming to shove their top-heavy 

 heads along as a man does a wheelbarrow. 



Some birds have left us, I suppose, because the country 

 is growing less wild. I once found a summer duck s nest 

 within quarter of a mile of our house, but such a trouvaille 

 would be impossible now as Kidd s treasure. And yet the 

 mere taming of the neighbourhood does not quite satisfy me 

 as an explanation. Twenty years ago, on my way to bathe 

 in the river, I saw every day a brace of woodcock, on the 

 miry edge of a spring within a few rods of a house, and 

 constantly visited by thirsty cows. There was no growth 

 of any kind to conceal them, and yet these ordinarily shy 



