June and Early July 



do duty for the most exquisitely tinted 

 and delicately modelled of Nature's prod- 

 ucts. And I think that one recalls more 

 vividly in the galleries of Florence than 

 in those of Fifty-seventh Street the near 

 effect of the flower-spangled fields which 

 border our Hudson. 



Bounding one favorite meadow is a 

 row of tall elms, and a winding, shadowy 

 thicket. Here red - winged blackbirds 

 flash in and out : song-sparrows give vent 

 to their inexhaustible joy in life; and 

 the restless brown thrasher catches the 

 sunlight on its tawny coat. Just such a 

 neighborhood is sure to tempt one away 

 from the frank loveliness of the open fields 

 for the mere possibilities of I hardly 

 know what. Perhaps some low-built nest 

 with its cluster of bluish-green, or white, 

 brown-flecked eggs, guarded by the anx- 

 ious mother-bird, whose high, terrified 

 notes we fancy we recognize as we ap- 

 proach. Or perhaps one of the rarer or- 



57 



