52 IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



with ferns and mosses and lichens. The soil is mar- 

 rowy and full of innumerable forests. Standing in 

 these fragrant aisles, I feel the strength of the vege- 

 table kingdom and am awed by the deep and in- 

 scrutable processes of life going on so silently about 

 me. 



No hostile forms with axe or spud now visit these 

 solitudes. The cows have half-hidden ways through 

 them, and know where the best browsing is to be 

 had. In spring the farmer repairs to their bordering 

 of maples 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, pursu- 

 ing 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 

 mow 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 (Tur- 

 dus alicicB) in the woods, and held him in my hand 

 etill I do not know him. The silence of the cedar 



