DRAGON'S BLOOD 



quartette I am left to follow the trail that seemed in 

 those days to have no ending. The same years, 

 however, have made me some amends. Once again 

 there are four of us who spend all our holidays in 

 the open. We collect orchids and bird-songs, and find 

 new birds and nests, and quest far among the wild- 

 folk in our search for secrets and adventures. Some- 

 times we go south, and become acquainted with blue- 

 gray gnatcatchers and prothonotary warblers and 

 summer tanagers and mocking-birds and blue gros- 

 beaks, and other birds which we never see here. 

 Sometimes we explore lonely islands hidden in a maze 

 of sand-bars, and discover where the terns and the 

 laughing gulls nest; or we find wonderful things wait- 

 ing for us on mountain-tops or hidden among 

 morasses and quaking bogs. 



Two years ago we decided to follow Spring north. 

 First we welcomed as usual the spring migrants and 

 the spring flowers in April and May. When the sky- 

 pilgrims had passed on, and the lush growth of sum- 

 mer began to show, we traveled northwards to the 

 top of Mount Pocono, the highest mountain of our 

 state, and found Spring waiting for us there. The 

 apple blossoms were just coming out and the woods 

 were sweet with trailing arbutus. There we found 

 the nests of the yellow-bellied and alder fly-catchers, 

 solitary vireos, and black-throated blue and Canada 

 and Blackburnian warblers. As once more Summer 

 followed hard on our heels, we took passage and trav- 

 eled to a lonely camp in northern Canada. The sec- 

 ond day of our trip we overtook Spring again, and 



