WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



yet, only little, wrinkled babies of leaves, each 

 exquisitely browned and varnished along the 

 edge, while the midrib remains a rich green, so 

 that each is like some quaint Japanese device 

 stamped out of their red bronze. The maples, too, 

 are reddish at first, and thus the nearer thickets, 

 where these two kinds of trees prevail, show an 

 autumnal gloss of warm brown and dashes of 

 crimson mingled with the pure verdure of their 

 fellow -shrubs; but at a distance all this blends 

 into the season's broad effect of greenish yellow. 



What could be more fit amid such delicate leafage 

 than the silky, olive-gray coats of that exquisite 

 among our birds, the greenlet or vireo? One 

 sits near me in the top of a black birch a tree 

 fraying out into hair-lines of fine twigs atop, like 

 a pointed brush and twitters a gay chanson over 

 and over, careless whether I listen or not. It 

 must be French, and very likely he picked it up 

 last winter in some one of the Gallic Antilles from 

 that loquacious race which has carried the art of 

 saying pleasant things to its highest point. All 

 the words I can recognize are chere amie and dix- 

 huit the latter very plain, and with the final t 

 rather too evident. Perhaps his little dear is 

 just eighteen! A distant dog's barking stops his 

 ii 161 



