IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



A /T OST people receive with incredulity a statement 

 of the number of birds that annually visit our 

 climate. Very few even are aware of half the number 

 that spend the summer in their own immediate vicinity. 

 We little suspect, when we walk in the woods, whose 

 privacy we are intruding upon, — what rare and ele- 

 gant visitants from Mexico, from Central and South 

 America, and from the islands of the sea, are holding 

 their reunions in the branches over our heads, or pur- 

 suing their pleasure on the ground before us. 



I recall the altogether admirable and shining family 

 which Thoreau dreamed he saw in the upper chambers 

 of Spaulding's woods, which Spaulding did not know 

 lived there, and which were not put out when Spauld- 

 ing, whistling, drove his team through their lower halls. 

 They did not go into society in the village ; they were 

 quite well ; they had sons and daughters ; they neither 

 wove nor spun ; there was a sound as of suppressed 

 hilarity. 



I take it for granted that the forester was only say- 

 ing a pretty thing of the birds, though I have observed 

 that it does sometimes annoy them when Spaulding's 

 cart rumbles through their house. Generally, however. 



