286 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



of fear that we may bite a piece from the Clip's rim. 

 I have often been tempted to do so. 



When homeward bound, I gathered a handful of 

 meadow bloom. To specify it botanically I am sorry I 

 cannot, but I can be intelligible, perhaps, while yet so 

 ignorant. There was scarlet lobelia and white feathery 

 bloom of sweet odor, and snowy globes from the elder ; 

 primroses, and bits of pink, purple, and red from among 

 the tall grasses in the meadow. As a gathering of bloom, 

 it was rich in color, sweet in fragrance, and dainty in out- 

 line — so much so that I was charmed with it, and scarce- 

 ly felt my ignorance of botany, a subject that should be 

 in the range of every countryman's knowledge. 



Birds again in plenty ! and how little seems needed 

 to make any place complete, if there be birds and birds I 

 Even should they quarrel, we are entertained, and rush 

 through tangled briers and over quicksands to see 

 which whips. I have seen more than one wildly ex- 

 cited mortal following a pair of fighting humming-birds, 

 through trouser-tearing thickets; yet they would grow 

 indignant were they invited to a cock-pit. There is a 

 difference, I suppose ; but, after all, is it so very great ? 



Of all animal life, startling and strange as so much of 

 it is, there is no one form that is so marvellously incon- 

 sistent and unfathomable as a human being. 



Soon after reaching home, and while dining, sudden- 

 ly the windows rattled, then the Jiouse shook, and every 

 one stared at his neighbor. Each demanded of all the 

 others, " What is it ?" and no one thought of an earth- 

 quake until it was over ; but such it was. It lasted ten 

 seconds, and it is astonishing how much may transpire 



