A QUIET MORNING 213 



full of the hum of insects, but they are all 

 innocent. I sit under my own beech and 

 maple tree, with none to molest or make me 

 afraid. How many times I have heard 

 something like that on a Sunday forenoon ! 

 Year in and out, our dear old preacher could 

 never get through his " long prayer " with- 

 out it. He would not be sorry to know that 

 I think of him now in this natural temple. 



An unseen Nashville warbler suddenly 

 announces himself. " If you must scribble," 

 he says, " my name is as good as anybody's." 

 The little flycatcher has not yet dislocated 

 his neck. Chebec, chebec, he vociferates. 

 The swallows no longer come about me. 

 They care not for groves. They are for the 

 open sky, the grass fields, and the sun ; but 

 I hear them twittering overhead. If I could 

 be a bird, I think I would be a swallow. 

 Hark! Yes, there is the syllabled whistle 

 of a white-breasted nuthatch. He must go 

 into my vacation bird-list No. 79, Sitta 

 carolinensis. If he would have shown him- 

 self sooner he should have had a higher 

 place. And now, to my surprise, I hear the 

 rollicking voice of a bobolink. The meadow 



