238 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



set. Last winter I was walking across a frozen 

 marsh where in late summer the blue blind gentian 

 hides. The long tow-colored grass of the tussocks 

 streamed out before a stinging wind which howled 

 at me like a wolf. I crept through thickets to the 

 centre of a little wood, until I was safe from its fierce 

 fingers among the close-set tree-trunks. There I 

 found the last-year's nest of a wood thrush built on 

 a bit of bleached newspaper. Pulling out the paper, 

 I read on it in weather-faded letters, "Votes for 

 Women!" There was no doubt in my mind that 

 the head of that house was a thrushigist. That is 

 probably the reason too why Father Thrush takes 

 his turn on the eggs. 



Once in the depths of a swamp in the Pocono 

 Mountains I was hunting for the nests of the northern 

 water thrush, which is a wood-warbler and not a 

 thrush at all. That temperamental bird always 

 chooses peculiarly disagreeable morasses for his 

 home. In the roots of an overturned tree by the side 

 of the deepest and most stagnant pool that he can 

 conveniently find, his nest is built, unlike his twin- 

 brother, the Louisiana water thrush, who chooses 

 the bank of some lonely stream. On that day, while 

 ploughing through mud and water and mosquitoes, 

 I came upon a wood thrush's nest beautifully lined 

 with dry green moss, with a scrap of snowy birch- 

 bark for its marker. 



The song of the wood thrush is a strain of wood- 

 wind notes, few in number, but inexpressibly true, 

 mellow, and assuaging. "Cool bars of melody 



