WOODLAND PATHS 



Just as many a man here in Massachu- 

 setts lives his life and dies without ever 

 having seen or heard of a polyphemus 

 moth or a bufflehead, though both may 

 fly over his own head on many a dusky 

 twilight, so the migrating thousands of 

 ducks each year fly over our cities and 

 know little of their uproar and bustle, 

 nothing of their yearnings toward art or 

 theology, or of the inspiration of poets 

 or the agony of the down-trodden. Their 

 world is all-important to them; ours is 

 nothing, so they escape our guns, which 

 they vaguely feel will harm them. 



Even we with our books, our labora- 

 tories, and our concerted research into 

 all things under heaven and in earth, do 

 not get very far into the lives of other 

 creatures. I have said all the moths are 

 still in their cocoons. Perhaps they are, 



all but one, at least. That is a small 

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