WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 11 



sing in orange groves and vine-clad magnolia 

 woods in winter, in thickets of dwarf birch and 

 alder in summer, and sing and chatter more or 

 less all the way back and forth, keeping the 

 whole country glad. Oftentimes, in New Eng- 

 land, just as the last snow-patches are melting 

 and the sap in the maples begins to flow, the 

 blessed wanderers may be heard about orchards 

 and the edges of fields where they have stopped 

 to glean a scanty meal, not tarrying long, know- 

 ing they have far to go. Tracing the footsteps 

 of spring, they arrive in their tundra homes in 

 June or July, and set out on their return journey 

 in September, or as soon as their families are able 

 to fly well. 



This is Nature's own reservation, and every 

 lover of wildness will rejoice with me that by 

 kindly frost it is so well defended. The discov- 

 ery lately made that it is sprinkled with gold 

 may cause some alarm ; for the strangely excit- 

 ing stuff makes the timid bold enough for any- 

 thing, and the lazy destructively industrious. 

 Thousands at least half insane are now pushing 

 their way into it, some by the southern passes 

 over the mountains, perchance the first moun- 

 tains they have ever seen, — sprawling, strug- 

 gling, gasping for breath, as, laden with awkward, 

 merciless burdens of provisions and tools, they 

 climb over rough-angled boulders and cross thin 

 miry bogs. Some are going by the mountains 



