HURRAH! FOE THE COUNTRY! 29 



wood robin, the blue-jay, the wood sparrow, and a hundred 

 other nameless birds that live and build their nests and sing 

 among these old woods. 



But go a little nearer the lake, and you will have a concert 

 that will drown all these voices in its tumultuous roar. 

 Compared to these feeble strains, it is the crashing of Julien's 

 hundred brazen instruments to the soft and sweet melody 

 of Ole Bull's violin. Come with me to this rocky promon- 

 tory ; stand with me on this moss-covered boulder, which 

 forms the point. On either hand is a little bay, the head of 

 which is hidden around among the woods. See ! over 

 against us, on the limb of that dead fir tree, which leans out 

 over the water, is a bald eagle, straightening with his hooked 

 beak the feathers of his wings, and pausing now and then to 

 look out over the water for some careless duck of which to 

 make prey. See ! he has leaped from his perch, has spread 

 his broad pinions, and is soaring upward towards the sky. 

 See ! how he circles round and round, mounting higher and 

 higher at every gyration. He is like a speck in the air. 

 But see I he is above the mountains now, and how like an 

 arrow he goes, straight forward, with no visible motion to 

 his wings. He has laid his course for some lake, deeper in 

 the wilderness, beyond that range of hills, and he is there, 

 even while we are talking of his flight. A swift bird, the 

 swiftest of all the birds, is the eagle, when he takes his de- 

 scending stoop from his place away up in the sky. He 

 cleaves the air like a bullet, and so swift is his career that 

 the eye can scarcely trace his flight. 



