94 East and West 
Flora than to Apollo, sacred above all to the 
god of the Open—the beautiful god—is the 
only temple on earth where there is no cant, 
no twaddle, no hypocrisy, and no croaking 
about our sins. Yet it has the fewest wor- 
shippers of any. 
' As the fields belong to the bobolinks and 
meadow larks and the old orchards to the 
house wren, so are these woods pre-eminently 
the private estate of the wood thrush. Around 
the clearings where the dogwood grows, the 
white-eyed vireo builds, and the yellow- 
throated overlays her nest with spider web; 
and I have known the Carolina wren to nest 
in the swamps—surely one of the most im- 
portant facts in the history of Long Island. 
But it is the wood thrush who dominates the 
sylvan hollows and little winding valleys and 
hillocks of the terminal moraine where wake- 
robin, jack-in-the-pulpit, and geraniums bloom 
in these peaceful shades, and the home tree 
is the dogwood. Often you may encounter 
the mild-eyed bird upon her bulky nest in the 
fork of some little dogwood just within the 
twilight of the woods, peering anxiously over 
the rim, and as she flits silently away, you 
may peep at the eggs and receive the most 
charming impression of innocence and of 
