A DAY IN JUNE 123 



inclosing each a bunch of dark pin-points. 

 Now a lovely clear-wingecl moth hovers over 

 a dandelion head ; and a pleasing sight it is, 

 to see his transparent wings beating them- 

 selves into a haze about his brown body. 

 And now, by way of contrast, one of our 

 tiny sky-blue butterflies rises from the 

 ground and with a pretty unsteadiness flits 

 carelessly before me, twinklmg over the 

 sand. 



A bluebird drops into the white birch 

 under which I am standing, and lets fall a 

 few notes of his contralto warble. A deli- 

 cious voice. For purity and a certain affec- 

 tionateness it would be hard to name its 

 superior. A vesper sparrow sings from the 

 grass land ; and from the woods beyond a 

 jay is screaming. His, by the bye, is an- 

 other of the voices that are bettered by dis- 

 tance, although, for my own part, I like the 

 ring of it, near or far. Now a song sparrow 

 breaks out in his breezy, characteristically 

 abrupt manner. He is a bird with fine gifts 

 of cheeriness and versatility ; but when he 

 sets himself against the vesper, as now, it is 

 like prose against poetry, plain talk against 



