170 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



pewees, both with musical whistles, one like 

 a challenge, the other an elegy; a family 

 group of chestnut-sided warblers, parents 

 and young, conversing softly among them- 

 selves about the events of the day, mostly 

 gastronomic ; a robin and a white-throated 

 sparrow in song ; three or four chickadees, 

 lisping and deeing ; a siskin or two, a song 

 sparrow, and a red-eyed vireo. The whole 

 tract was purple with willow herb which 

 follows fire as surely as boys follow a fire en- 

 gine and white with pearly immortelles. 



Once out of this open space this forest 

 cemetery, one might say, though the dead 

 were not buried, but stood upright like 

 bleached skeletons, with arms outstretched 

 I was again immersed in leafy silence, 

 which lasted till I approached the lake. 

 Here I heard before me the tweeting of sand- 

 pipers, and presently came in sight of two 

 solitaries (migrants already, though it was 

 only the 4th of August), each bobbing ner- 

 vously upon its boulder a little off shore. 

 The eye of the ornithologist took them in : 

 dark green legs ; dark, slender bills ; bob- 

 bing, not teetering Tetanus^ not Actitis. 



