IN THE HEMLOCKS. 57 



In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this 

 bright June morning go I also to reap my 

 harvest, pursuing a sweet more delecta- 

 ble than sugar, fruit more savory than ber- 

 ries, and game for another palate than that 

 tickled by trout. 



June, of all the months, the student of 

 ornithology can least afford to lose. Most 

 birds are nesting then, and in full song and 

 plumage. And what is a bird without its 

 song ? Do we not wait for the stranger to 

 speak ? It seems to me that I do not know 

 a bird till I have heard its voice ; then I 

 come nearer it at once, and it possesses a 

 human interest to me. I have met the gray- 

 cheeked thrush (Turdus alicice) in the 

 woods, and held him in my hand, still I do 

 not know him. The silence of the cedar 

 bird throws a mystery about him which nei- 

 ther his good looks nor his petty larcenies in 

 cherry time can dispel. A bird's song con- 

 tains a clue to its life, and establishes a 

 sympathy, an understanding, between itself 

 and the listener. 



I descend a steep hill, and approach the 

 hemlocks through a large sugar-bush. When 

 twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line 

 of the forest the incessant warble of the red- 



