22 JIY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



unheard at any othei* time. He saddens with the sea- 

 son, and, as summer decKnes, he changes his note to eheu, 

 pexvee ! as if in lamentation. Had he been an Itahan bird, 

 Ovid would have had a plaintive tale to tell about him. 

 He is so familiar as often to piu'sue a fly through the 

 open window into my library. 



There is something inexpressibly dear to me in these 

 old friendships of a lifetime. There is scarce a tree of 

 mine but has had, at some time or other, a happy home- 

 stead among its boughs, to which I cannot say, 

 " Many light hearts and wings, 

 Which now be dead, lodged in th}'^ living bowers." 



My walk under the pines woidd lose half its summer 

 charm were I to miss that shy anchorite, the Wilson's 

 thrush, nor hear in haying-time the metallic ring of 

 his song, that justifies his rustic name of scythe-whet. 

 I protect my game as jealously as an English squire. 

 If anybody had oologized a certain cuckoo's nest I 

 know of (I have a pair in my garden every year), 

 it would have left me a sore place in my mind for 

 weeks. I love to bring these aborigines back to the man- 

 suetude they showed to the early voyagers, and before 

 (forgive the involuntary pun) they had grown accustomed 

 to man and knew his savage ways. And they repay your 

 kindness with a sweet familiarity too delicate ever to 

 breed contempt. I have made a Penn-treaty with them, 

 preferring that to the Puritan way with the natives, 

 which converted them to a little Hebraism and a great 

 deal of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough 

 to me (as most of them will), I bring them close with an 

 opera-glass, — a much better weapon than a gun. I 

 would not, if I could, convert them from their pretty 

 pagan wa^-s. The only one I sometimes have savage 

 doubts about is the red squirrel. I think he oiilogizes. 

 I know he eats chei'ries (we counted five of them at one 



