WOOD ROADS 



the marsh and the bog in the alluring 

 spring sunshine, I found a whole bird 

 convention. Such an uproar! It was as 

 if the suffragettes in one grand concerted 

 movement had swooped down upon Par- 

 liament by the air-ship route, as the 

 cable says they threaten, and were in the 

 heat of battering down its walls of deaf- 

 ness with racket and roaring, after the 

 fashion of the attempt on Jericho of 

 old. 



The blackbirds were in the greatest 

 numbers and made the most noise indi- 

 vidually. There were a hundred of them, 

 more or less, sitting about in the trees and 

 bushes, a few on the ground, and all of 

 them practicing every call or song that 

 blackbird was ever known to make. All 

 the harsh croaking of frogs that as young 

 birds they heard from the nest by the bog 

 they voiced in their calls; all the liquid 

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