86 ON THE BIRDS' HIGHWAY 



occasionally swung with the southerly- 

 wind. The fragrance of the sweet fern 

 laded the summer air. Where an old 

 log spanned a rushing brook, a shy chick- 

 adee peered and with a dreamy note 

 seemed to silence all but a croaking bull 

 frog. The spell remained un- 

 broken until a purple finch 

 warbled softly, up near an old 

 cemetery, and a field sparrow 

 sang. When one songster' pipes 

 up after one of those silent mo- 

 ments when all Nature seems 

 dozing at midday, it is the signal for 

 other voices. The field sparrow's trill 

 had hardly died away before a chewink 

 twanged his instrument and ran his scale, 

 two passing cedar birds whined and a 

 brown thrasher chucked. 



Pushing out among the lilies and stumps 

 in the flat-boat, a spotted sandpiper took 

 a loop down the shore and a green heron 

 " pucked " nasally as he flew low following 

 the bank around the pond. At the south 

 end of Meadow-brook Pond a small for- 

 est of dead trees protrudes above the 

 water from one to fifteen feet high, and 

 from one of the lowest of these a king- 



