54 JOURNAI^ AND PROCEEDINGS. 



unsightly of all the unsightly things in the world which she does not 

 try to cover with her fresh growths ; she greens over battle and ruin 

 and wipes off the blackening of fire. We do our best to shut her 

 out in our cities, but it is all in vain. She sends her little blades of 

 grass to push themselves up beside the flagstone ; her ivy climbs the 

 stone churches and castles, hiding the ravages of time, and her trees 

 are the fullest representation of herself; the agent of Him at whose 

 fiat the world emerged from chaos. 



But, to resume our walk : Abounding everywhere, and full of 

 interest, are the birds we meet with in the deep solitudes of the 

 woods ; the lugubrious cawing of the crow grates upon the ear with 

 hollow voicCj which has for ages been an object of evil omen to the 

 credulous and the ignorant ; the monotonous sound of the distant 

 wood-pecker, "tapping the bark of the hollow beech tree," or making 

 the woods resound wdth his notes of laughter, takes up the tale ; the 

 bluebird, the titmouse, or " chicadee," that happy restless easy-going 

 creature, who scorns to leave us for the snow of winter, and picks 

 up a scanty living round the outhouses of the farm ; the finch tribe 

 with their never ceasing cry, make the very copse alive with their 

 melody ; whilst the bobolink on the wing, surveying the grassy plains 

 below him, chants forth a jinghng melody of short variable notes, 

 with such confusion and rapidity that it appears as if a whole colony 

 of birds were tuning their notes for some great gathering in Nature's 

 concert hall. x-Vnd, as he is so well known a bird, I cannot refrain 

 from dwelling on his character a little while. Rivalling the European 

 lark, he is the happiest bird of spring ; he comes amidst the pomp 

 and fragrance of the season, his life seems all sunshine, all song. 

 He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest 

 meadows, and is most in song when the clover is in bloom. Near 

 by we may see a tyrant kingbird, poised on the topmost branch of 

 some veteran tree, who now and then dashes down, assassin-like, 

 upon some homebound honey-laden bee, and then with a smack of 

 his bill, resume his predatory watch. Over the pool, the swifts, the 

 martens and the swallows, seem to vie with each other in acrobatic 

 flight ; now skimming the surface of the water, now making with a 

 touch of the wing a scarcely perceptible ripple. 



Besides the birds, flicker and flit hither and thither the butter- 

 fles, small and large, white, grave and gay ; grasshoppers are noisy 



