32 PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



know, for all surrounding, except the road I followed, and even 

 it, in places, was burnt over. Fewer of the Field Sparrows 

 sang than of the Chewinks, but it was not their young that ac- 

 counted for their less frequent singing, for the Chewinks, too, 

 were busy with fledglings. Some of the young Chewinks were 

 hopping about on the burnt-through leaf carpet of the barrens, 

 their reds and browns, and the like-colored plumage of their 

 mothers, according well with the scorched leafage, as did the 

 black backs of the males with the charred mould. 



Many Robins were flying over, and twice a pair of Doves, 

 whose dusting holes were conspicuous in the dry road I was 

 following, flew over as only they can fly. A nesting Robin 

 screamed from an oak untouched by the fire. At the same time 

 a Flicker scolded from a dead stub near by. Chickadees lisped 

 from the burnt brush, two Yellow-throats sputtered wren-like 

 near me, a Thrasher flew low over the ground, chutting. By 

 these signs I judged I was getting well through the burnt 

 section and so it proved, though the birds had wandered a 

 good way into the smoking woods. I stopped again to listen to 

 their cries and calls, their twittering and song. The Chewinks 

 were still singing; one Field Sparrow was venturing his wistful 

 notes; a Pewee was calling; and, about me, as about me all the 

 way across the burnt-over mountain, the Barn Swallows 

 wheeled, never ceasing their little gratulations so suggestive of 

 home. And all this on the fifth day of August after six weeks 

 of drought and in barrens still smoking from woods-fire. 



The burnt barrens drew me back again next day. This time 

 I followed up the Buck Hill Branch all the way to the Pocono 

 Heights House, which lay just on the other side of the fire's 

 sweep. By taking this route I skirted the northern front of the 

 fire's extent. I was curious to see if I should find many birds 

 here, where I thought, perhaps, they would have sought refuge 

 and forage, but I found none at all, — and the day before in 

 burnt woods I had seen many! 



Wildcat Hollow was wild indeed this morning, a morning 

 that had in it much of the menace of an autumn evening. The 

 lowering skies seemed close, as if they were not higher than the 

 tops of the low mountains that ascended so steeply on either 



