148 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



had traveled it was in May. Then every 

 tree had its bird, and every bird a voice. 

 Now it was August the year no longer 

 young, and the birds no longer a choir. 

 And when birds are neither in tune nor 

 in flocks, it is almost as if they were absent 

 altogether. It seemed to me, when I had 

 walked a mile, that I had never seen Fran- 

 conia so deserted. 



An alder flycatcher was calling from a 

 larch swamp; a white-throated sparrow 

 whistled now and then in the distance ; and 

 from still farther away came the leisurely, 

 widely spaced measures of a hermit thrush. 

 When he sings there is no great need of a 

 chorus ; the forest has found a tongue ; but 

 I could have wished him nearer. A solitary 

 vireo, close at hand, regaled me with a sweet, 

 low chatter, more musical twice over than 

 much that goes by the name of singing, 

 the solitary being one of the comparatively 

 few birds that do not know how to be un- 

 musical, and a sapsucker, a noisy fellow 

 gone silent, flew past my head and alighted 

 against a telegraph pole. 



Wild red cherries (Prunus Pennsylva- 



