14 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



ond empty canoe with its nose against the 

 bank. 



This was on a Saturday. Saturday after- 

 noon and Sunday are busy people's days in 

 the woods. For their sakes I am always 

 glad to meet them there bird students, 

 flower pickers, or simple strollers; yet I 

 have learned to look upon those times as 

 my poorest, and to choose others so far as I 

 can. One does not enjoy nature to great 

 advantage at a picnic. There are woods and 

 swamps of which on all ordinary occasions I 

 almost feel myself the owner, but of which 

 on Saturday and Sunday I have scarcely so 

 much as a rambler's lease. This I have 

 learned, however, and I pass the secret 

 on, that the Sunday picnic does not usu- 

 ally begin till after nine o'clock in the fore- 

 noon. 



When bird study becomes more general 

 than it is now, as it ought to do, the com- 

 munity will perhaps find means or, to 

 speak more correctly, will use means, since 

 there is no need of finding them to re- 

 strain the present enormous overproduc- 

 tion of English sparrows, and so to give cer- 



