NEAR VIEWS OF WILD LIFE 



a long time — squirrel time — making little, spas- 

 modic movements on the flat stone above his den. 

 At a motion of my arm he darted into his hole with 

 an exultant chip. He was soon out with empty 

 pockets, and he then proceeded to sound his little 

 tocsin of distrust or alarm so that all the sylvan 

 folk might hear. As I made no sign, he soon 

 ceased and went about his affairs. 



All this time, behind and above me, concealed by 

 a vase fern, reposed that lovely creature of the 

 twilight, the luna moth, just out of her chrysalis, 

 drying and inflating her wings. I chanced to lift 

 the fern screen, and there was this marvel! Her 

 body was as white and spotless as the snow, and 

 her wings, with their Nile-green hue, as fair and 

 delicate as — well, as only those of a luna moth 

 can be. It is as immaculate as an angel. With 

 a twig I carefully lifted her to the trunk of a maple 

 sapling, where she clung and where I soon left her 

 for the night. 



While I was loitering there on the threshold of 

 the woods, observing the small sylvan folk, about 

 a hundred yards above me, near the highway, was 

 a bird's nest of a kind I had not seen for more than 

 a score of years, the nest of the veery, or Wilson's 

 thrush. Some friends were camping there with 

 their touring-car outfit in a fringe of the beech 

 woods, and passed and repassed hourly within a 

 few yards of the nest, and, although they each had 



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