BY MlLL-POND AND MEADOW. 153 



inence is occupied and half the birds are singing. 

 This evening hymn here in the lowlands, like the 

 song of the vesper-sparrow in the fields, has a charm 

 that loses nothing even when we recall the thrushes 

 and grosbeaks of early summer. 



Let us go back to the mill-pond by way of the 

 meadows. There is a path along the crooked little 

 creek, now as narrow and as ill-defined as was the 

 old Indian trail that once passed this way, if indeed 

 they are not identical, a weed-grown, winding way 

 with the wide world at our elbow. It is well to 

 have nature within easy reach. Mere natural prod- 

 ucts are not amiss, but who cares for potted plants 

 when orchids at home cluster about our feet? 

 There are black and white birches to shade us 

 all the way should we need shelter from the sun, 

 and never were warblers more plentiful among these 

 trees, every wrinkle in whose bark being a cup of 

 cheer. All too soon we come to the great high 

 dam, hidden in a young but thrifty forest of tall 

 trees, and here, above the roar of the waters, we 

 can detect the rattling clatter of the kingfisher. It 

 is a thoroughly wild sound amid much that is arti- 

 ficial. This kingfisher, when in the gorge, is all 

 activity, as if it caught the spirit of the leaping 

 waters at all times, if not the silvery minnows from 

 the black pool. We used to be taught that animals 

 were perfect when amid their natural surroundings, 

 that they were only awkward when away from home ; 

 but the kingfisher does not always aim aright, and, 

 judging from its actions, has not grown accustomed 



