S UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



riabl_y wished that I had been mj grandfather. I felt 

 fully a century too late. 



If half the tales they told me were true, nothing of 

 to-day equals that which was found here when they were 

 young. If this had been an old man's fancy it would have 

 only provoked a smile ; but, alas ! it was so far true as 

 to cause me at the time endless regret. It was by no 

 means a sugar-coated pill that I was forced to swallow 

 when one of these gray-beards quietly remarked, " You 

 seem to know something about animals, but we had the 

 critters themselves." 



This was not cheering to one who was ambitious of 

 seeing something of wild life, but I had one consola- 

 tion ; my old friend had not seen the country in its 

 best days, as judged from his point of view. As proof 

 of this, compare his remarks with the following, from 

 an old diary: 



"Ninth mo., 1T34. Father reports Friend Stacy as 

 saying that formerly ducks and geese were more abun- 

 dant than they now are. He thinks the use of great 

 noisy guns has reduced their numbers. How they 

 could be more abundant than of late puzzleth me to 

 comprehend. Watson's Creek is often truly black with 

 them, and gatherings of fowl of many kinds do now 

 pass up the Crossweeksen, such as take several minutes 

 to pass by. The geese are always in wedge-shaped com- 

 panies, and are never so numerous as in the smaller 

 sorts. I do seldom see the great swans, but father says 

 they are not unusual in the wide stretches of the Dela- 

 ware. The Indians that lately tarried by the great 

 spring on our hillside did shoot several near where the 



