Onteora Notes 79 
de virtu, as indeed it is. A pair of sap- 
suckers who live high in a dead birch on the 
hillside are my savage friends, belonging to an 
untamable tribe and clinging fondly to its 
primeval traditions,—loving not man but the 
wilderness ever. They are often to be heard 
calling in their rude language and their 
speech is wild and good to my ear. Itisa 
satisfaction to know there exists aught so 
untamed in proximity to our cultivation, 
which is a taming quite as much as it is a 
refining process. These birds are true abo- 
rigines living in the heart of a tree, woods- 
men, who know naught of lumber but much of 
trees, making the tree serve them in the matter 
of both food and shelter, with feet made to 
walk upon bark, with tails made for a sup- 
port, and bills that are axe and saw to them. 
We, who come into the woods to live for a 
season, drawn by some longing for freedom 
and simplicity, come never as near the woods 
as they and our wood-life is only a pretence, 
judged by the standards of these primitive 
tree-men. 
The inspired dweller about my camp is the 
veery and it might seem that he has erected 
some temple rather than such a nest as other 
birds construct. It has been observed by 
