80 FRUIT KANCHIXG. 



same fruit, their very daintiness and their playful 

 ways would have earned them forgiveness. But to 

 flit from fruit to fruit, and from tree to tree, sipping 

 the honey of plum and pear, spoiling, not consuming 

 — that was more than the selfish heart of a fruit-grower 

 could tolerate or forgive. 



Bird life was very abundant all the summer at 

 Bonnington. Most of the species were birds of 

 passage. One of the prettiest was the Blue Bird, 

 about the size of a robin. Indeed, it is sometimes 

 called the Blue Robin. Its note is very sweet and 

 liquid, and has been happily described as the ** violet 

 of sound." The bird is a favourite all over the 

 American continent. Lowell, the poet, sings of 



" The blue bird, shifting his light load of song 

 From post to post along the cheerless fence." 



On another occasion I saw a single specimen of a 

 remarkably handsome species. Despite a merely 

 fugitive glance, I was able to see that the bird 

 wore a most gay and brilliant apparel, the pre- 

 dominating tints being orange, scarlet, and glossy 

 black. I suppose this was the American Oriole, 

 better known as the Baltimore Bird. 



Woodpeckers, too, were plentiful in the woods; 

 and in the winter the landscape, generally so still and 

 serene, is wont to be enlivened by the flittings to and 

 fro of flocks of snow-buntings, and by the plaintive 

 "cheep, cheep," of the solitary "chickadee," both 

 being about the same size as the ordinary Knglish 

 sparrow, which they resemble in plumage. Another 

 conspicuous visitant, especially in the fall (autumn), 

 though it is by no means plentiful in point of num- 



