CHAPTER ^III. 

 TRUMPET-CREEPERS AND THE RUBY-THROATS. 



I KNOW of a little garden planted one hundred and 

 forty years ago, and wholly neglected for the past half- 

 century. Were it not that the squat wooden fence sur- 

 rounding it had the stoutest of locust posts for its sup- 

 port, this would long since have wholly disappeared. As 

 it is, but a small portion remains, and the few fragments 

 of lichen-coated and worm-eaten palings that still cling 

 to the posts will scarcely bear handling. In their place, 

 however, is a wayward, untrimmed growth of goose- 

 berry-bushes that conceals what little remains of the old- 

 time fence. This, even as it now is, forms a pretty 

 hedge, and is the delight of sundry song-sparrows that 

 haunt its tangled recesses the year through. I have 

 often thought that nowhere else have 1 heard as sweet 

 music from sparrows as when listening to the occupants 

 of these bushes. 



In one corner of this gooseberry -hedge stands a quince- 

 tree that is a veritable relic of the past. Tradition has 

 it that it was brouglit from England as far back as 

 1684, which is probably true. However this may be, 

 it is now a gnarly, bent, and rheumatic-looking growth, 

 quite dead at the top, and when at its best so sparsely 

 covered with leaves that one may well question whether 

 it is not more dead than alive. So far as can be ascer- 



