74 B Y- WA YS AND BIRD-NOTES. 



beauty? These flowers are but the bubbles 

 thrown up from her inexhaustible veins of vital 

 force. Is not this woodsy fragrance which 

 loads the air of spring mere surplus steam 

 from Nature's alembics ? and in breathing it do 

 we not take into our blood a trace of her elixir ? 

 One's imagination renews itself by absorbing 

 and assimilating the precious exhalations from 

 the countless valves of woods and fields. How 

 evenly and perfectly our book-lore blends and 

 shades into what we gather from nature ! 



" Spirit of lake, and sea, and river — 

 Bear only perfumes and the scent 

 Of healthy herbs to just men's fields." 



All herbs and plants are healthy and whole- 

 some, too, in their way. I saw a flicker eat 

 the berries of the dreadful night-shade — not 

 on this tour, for the plant comes later — and I 

 have known a quail to swallow the seeds of 

 the Jamestown weed with no bad result. But 

 to my tricycling. 



I soon came to where a broad road, leading 

 homeward, crossed mine at nearly right-angles, 

 and I set my face towards town with a three- 

 mile run before me, over a fine rolling way be- 

 tween incomparably fertile farms. A fox- 

 squirrel ran ahead of me on a fence until I 

 came so near him that he sailed off into a 

 field of wheat, and went bounding through the 

 waving green blades to a lone walnut tree, up 

 which he darted and disappeared in a hole. 



The spires of our little city came in sight, 

 gleaming above the maple trees that border 

 the streets. I bumped across the railway 

 track, whirled over a long hill, and descended 

 into the suburbs with my blood tingling, and 

 my memory full of fresh sights and sounds. 

 At nine o'clock sharp I was at my desk. 



