44 /A r THE HEMLOCKS. 



In spring the farmer repairs to their bordering of ma- 

 ples to make sugar ; in July and August women and 

 boys from all the country about penetrate the old Bark- 

 peelings for raspberries and blackberries ; and I know 

 a youth who wonderingly follows their languid stream 

 casting for trout. 



In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright June 

 morning go I also to reap my harvest, — pursuing a 

 sweet more delectable than sugar, fruit more savory 

 than berries, and game for another palate than that 

 tickled by trout. 



June, of all the months, the student of ornithology 

 can least afford to lose. Most birds are nesting then, 

 and in full song and plumage. And what is a bird 

 without its song ? Do we not wait for the stranger to 

 speak ? It seems to me that I do not know a bird till 

 I have heard its voice ; then I come nearer it at once, 

 and it possesses a human interest to me. I have met 

 the gray-cheeked thrush (Tardus alicice) in the woods, 

 and held him in my hand ; still I do not know him. 

 The silence of the cedar-bird throws a mystery about 

 him which neither his good looks nor his petty lar- 

 cenies in cherry time can dispel. A bird's song con- 

 tains a clew to its life, and establishes a sympathy, an 

 understanding, between itself and the listener. 



I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks 

 through a large sugar-bush. When twenty rods dis- 

 tant, I hear all along the line of the forest the inces- 

 sant warble of the red-eyed fly-catcher ( Vireosylvia oli- 



