44 I n Apathetic August 



days they will be gone. Not gone, I hope, 

 into the jaws of some prowling mink, for I 

 caught a glimpse of one while hunting for 

 the nest. Indeed, this blood-thirsty imp, 

 and not myself, may have been the cause of 

 the bird's distress. It is interesting to note 

 what a cover for wild-life is provided by an 

 unchecked growth of weeds. No tropical 

 jungle could be more dense than that of 

 sturdy growths through which I struggled as 

 I came here. The tall sassafras by which I 

 stand reaches upward from a clean grassy 

 knoll like the mast from the deck of a ship, 

 but all above me are weeds, breast-high and 

 pathless. No cow, even, has broken her 

 way through them, and where I passed is 

 only shown by a dark line where the dew 

 was brushed away. In such a tangle a mink, 

 or even a larger creature, finds safe quarters 

 through the summer. In faft, a whole regi- 

 ment of vermin might take refuge here and 

 defy detection. Perhaps, it has been thought, 

 such places are the slums of wild-life ; but 

 has wild-life any degraded and ignoble forms? 

 How common to find absurd impressions as 

 to the phases of wild-life that are uncouth in 

 our eyes ! Snakes, lizards, and snapping-tur- 



