children of the pines, looking so like a very 

 part of the trees that it seems they must have 

 been made by snipping off the pitch-pines' scaly 

 twigs and giving legs to them. They are the 

 aborigines, the primitive people of the barrens ; 

 and it is to the lean, sandy barrens you must 

 go if you would see the swifts at home. 



In these wide, silent wastes, where there are 

 miles of scrub-pine without a clearing, where 

 the blue, hazy air is laden with the odor of resin, 

 where the soft glooms are mingled with softer, 

 shyer lights, the swifts seem what they actually 

 are— creatures of another, earlier world. When 

 one darts over your foot and scurries up a tree 

 to watch you, it is easy to imagine other ante- 

 diluvian shapes moving in the deeper shadows 

 beyond. How they rustle the leaves and scratch 

 the rough pine bark ! They hurry from under 

 your feet and peek around the tree-trunks into 

 your face, their nails and scales scraping, while 

 they themselves remain almost invisible on the 

 deep browns of the pines ; and if you are in- 

 clined to be at all nervous, you will start and 

 shiver. 



The uncanny name "lizard" is partly account- 

 [82] 



