IN THE ADIRONDACKS 143 



Just before sunset when the lake and 

 its surrounding hills looked their loveliest 

 I would take an Adirondack boat and row 

 over its waters. A chimney swift, a tree 

 swallow, a scattering of barn and a large 

 company of cliff swallows during August 

 would spend those best hours of the day 

 with me on the lake. It was a pleasure 

 to see the eave swallows in such evidence. 

 With the smoke that drifted down from 

 the mine furnaces would come a caw of a 

 crow. He was a rare bird about the lake. 

 A spotted or a semipalmated sandpiper 

 one might find feeding on the protruding 

 sand-bars ; how far the ringneck plover 

 that whistled from the sky seemed from 

 his element near that untide-washed 

 beach ! 



As the sun stole down in the 

 sag of Hardwood Hill, a great 

 change would take place in the 

 lakes' and mountains' coloring. 

 The waters would turn to molten 

 silver, the hills into a leaden olive. With 

 the chill of twilight, night hawks would 

 come and with their crazy flight seem imi- 

 tating the bats that dodged imaginary ob- 

 stacles over the water near the shores. A 



