(g>o6 ani ^ome iDt^tt ^ixis 



was young. One believes in fairies when the soli- 

 taire sings. Some of my friends have predicted 

 that I shall some time meet with an accident and 

 perish in the solitudes alone. If their prediction 

 should come true, I shall hope it will be in the 

 summer-time, while the flowers are at their best, 

 and that during my last conscious moments I 

 shall hear the melody of the solitaire singing as 

 I die with the dying day. 



I sat for hours in the woods one day, watch- 

 ing a pair of chickadees feeding their young ones. 

 There were nine of these hungry midgets, and, 

 like nine small boys, they not only were always 

 hungry, but were capable of digesting everything. 

 They ate spiders and flies, green worms, ants, 

 millers, dirty brown worms, insect-eggs by the 

 dozen, devil's-darning-needles, woodlice, bits of 

 lichen, grasshoppers, and I know not how many 

 other things. I could not help thinking that 

 when one family of birds destroyed such num- 

 bers of injurious insects, if all the birds were to 

 stop eating, the insects would soon destroy every 

 green tree and plant on earth. 



One of the places where I used to camp to 



155 



