SPRING 69 



with a dozen spears of vegetation have 

 at least two or three forms of plant life. 



There is one lack in city farming, how- 

 ever, and that is birds. The chatter- 

 ing, quarreling English sparrow, who has 

 driven American birds away, infests us, of 

 course ; but the robins, the bluebirds, yel- 

 low-birds, and orioles, that I used to see in 

 town in my youth they are gone : hidden 

 in the country, some ; sacrificed for wo- 

 men's hats, others. Once I did hear a robin 

 in a tree a few rods away, and an unknown 

 bird was singing in our hearing at an- 

 other time. There is a plenty of songsters 

 in the park, and I often run out there on 

 my wheel to hear them. The park is only 

 a mile away, yet almost never does one 

 of these birds alight in our preserve. 



The night-hawk is our only visitor who 

 is truly wild, and he has never come to 

 earth in my sight. He appears in May, 

 and his harsh squawking is heard often on 

 consecutive evenings until fall. As he ar- 

 rives in the twilight it is hard to get a peep 

 at him; but one afternoon he began to cry 

 before sunset, and it was easy to place him 



