A QUIET MORNING 213 



full of the hum of insects, but they are all 

 innocent. I sit under my own beech and 

 maple tree, with none to molest or make me 

 afraid. How many times I have heard 

 something like that on a Sunday forenoon ! 

 Year in and out, our dear old preacher could 

 never get through his " long prayer " with- 

 out it. He would not be sorry to know that 

 I think of him now in this natural temple. 



An unseen Nashville warbler suddenly 

 announces himself. " If you must scribble," 

 he says, " my name is as good as anybody's." 

 The little flycatcher has not yet dislocated 

 his neck. Chehec^ chehec, he vociferates. 

 The swallows no longer come about me. 

 They care not for groves. They are for the 

 open sky, the grass fields, and the sun ; but 

 I hear them twittering overhead. If I could 

 be a bird, I think I would be a swallow. 

 Hark! Yes, there is the syllabled whistle 

 of a white-breasted nuthatch. He must go 

 into my vacation bird-list — No. 79, Sitta 

 carolinensis. If he would have shown him- 

 self sooner he should have had a higher 

 place. And now, to my surprise, 1 hear the 

 rollicking voice of a bobohnk. The meadow 



