WOODLAND PATHS 



mer midday he pipes his cheerful little 

 three-note song. Like the cicada, he 

 seems to sing best when it is hottest, and 

 the thought of his song inevitably brings 

 to mind the drone of the summer-loving 

 insect, the prattle of the brook at the foot 

 of the hill, and the lazy dappling of the 

 sunlight as it falls perpendicularly to the 

 feathery fronds of the cinnamon ferns far 

 below. 



He who would find humming birds' 

 nests would do well to first take a course 

 in hunting those of the wood pewee. The 

 two seem to have the same type of mind 

 when it comes to nest-building, though the 

 wood pewee's is five times the size of the 

 other and proportionally easy to find. 

 Each saddles his nest on a limb and covers 

 it outside with gray lichens from the trees 

 nearby, so that from below it looks like 



merely a lichen-covered knot. As the 

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