UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



trunks of the trees, in which they make their 

 homes. 



Little currents of wild life hourly flow about me. 

 Yesterday, amid the slow rain and mist and general 

 obscurity, there was suddenly an influx of birds in 

 all the old apple-trees about me. ^Robins appeared by 

 twos and threes in some choke-cherry bushes a few 

 yards below me, and with much cackling and flutter- 

 ing helped themselves to the fruit. A hermit thrush 

 perched on a dry limb in front of my tent and in 

 many different postures surveyed me in my canvas 

 cavern, uttering a low note which I took to be his 

 comments upon me. You may always know the 

 hermit thrush from the other thrushes by that 

 peculiar, soft, breathing motion of its tail. A male 

 redstart came and flitted and flashed about the 

 apple-branches without heeding me at all. Whitman 

 asks: — 



" Do you take it I would astonish? 

 Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart 



twittering through the woods? 

 Do I astonish more than they? " 



The redstart, with his black-and-orange suit, and 

 his quick, lively motions, does not astonish, but few 

 birds give the eye more pleasure. How gay and 

 festive he looks, darting and flashing amid the 

 gnarled and scaly branches of the decaying apple- 

 trees! It seems as if all his motions were designed 

 to show off his plumage to the best advantage. 

 5 



