Up the Creek 113 



are deserted for hidden cool retreats, where 

 the songster takes its ease, as we, far from 

 town, are taking ours. There is much in 

 common between birds and men. 



How, as we lingered over our glasses, 

 counting the lemon-seeds embedded in sugar, 

 we would have enjoyed a wood-thrush's 

 splendid song or a rose-breasted grosbeak's 

 matchless melody ! but the to-whee of the 

 pipilo scratching among dead leaves, the 

 plaint of an inquisitive cat-bird threading 

 the briers, the whir of a humming-bird 

 vainly seeking flowers, these did not pass 

 for nothing ; and yet there was comparative 

 silence that suggested a sleeping rather than 

 a wakeful, aftive world. 



Here let me give him who loves an outing 

 a useful hint : be not so anxious for what may 

 be that you overlook that which is spread be- 

 fore you. More than once to-day our dis- 

 cussion of the " silence" of a midsummer 

 noontide drowned the voices of singing-birds 

 near by. 



How often it has been intimated to us that 



" two's company and three's a crowd" ! but 



to really see and hear what transpires in the 



haunts of wild life, one is company and two's 



h 10* 



