42 NEW HAMPSHIRE 



or two on the wing. The species is very common 

 this season in Franconia, — where it was ex- 

 tremely scarce a year ago, — and I was pleased 

 at the summit when a lady standing near me 

 remarked to her husband, " Why, that is the 

 note we have been hearing so continually at the 

 Rangeleys." It was so incessant there, she told 

 me, as to be almost a trouble. Let us hope that 

 this autumnal abundance in New Hampshire 

 foreshadows a nuthatch winter in Massachusetts. 



The aU but total absence of birds at the 

 summit was a most striking thing. It helped 

 greatly to intensify the loneliness and the 

 silence; that wonderful mountain silence — no 

 leaf to rustle, no brook to murmur, no bird to 

 sing — which, wherever I walked, I was always 

 stopping to listen to. I should love to praise it, 

 but language for such a purpose would need to 

 be found on the spot, the stillness itself suggest- 

 ing the words ; and I came down from the 

 summit more than a week ago. It must have 

 been, I think, something like that apocalyptic 

 " sUence in heaven." 



As for the birds, I should have felt their 

 absence more disagreeably but for the fact that 

 I had a novel and absorbing occupation with 

 which to enliven my walks, and even to beguile 

 effectually what othei-wise might have been the 



