A DAY IN JUNE 145 



pine siskin. A black-billed cuckoo and a 

 Maryland yellow-throat, on the other hand, 

 the yellow-throat especially, seem less in 

 place. What can have brought the latter 

 to this dry, rocky hilltop is more than I can 

 imagine. A big black-and-yellow butterfly 

 (Turnus) goes sailing high overhead, borne 

 on the wind. For so unsteady a steersman 

 he is a bold mariner. A second look at 

 him, and he is out of sight. Common as he 

 is, he is one of my perennial admirations. 

 The peak of Lafayette is no more a miracle. 

 All the flowers up there know him. 



Now it is time to go. I have been here 

 an hour and a half, and am determined to 

 have no hurrying on the way homeward, 

 over the old Notch road. Let the day be 

 all alike, a day of leisure and of dreams. 

 A last look about me, a few rods of picking 

 my steep course downward over the rocks 

 at the very top, and I am in the woods. 

 Here, "my distance and horizon gone," I 

 please myself with looking at bits of the 

 world's beauty; especially at sprays of 

 young leaves, breaking a twig here and a 

 twig there to carry in my hand ; a spray of 



