IN THE MOUNT LAFAYETTE FOREST 61 



sibly I should care less for them if they made 

 themselves neighborly the whole year long, like 

 their relatives, the white-breasts. 



A goldfinch is passing far above, dropping 

 music as he goes. He is one of the high-fliers. 

 Wherever you may happen to be, at the summit 

 of Mount Washington or where not, you will 

 pretty often hear his sweet voice as he wanders 

 under the sky, dippii^g and rising, dipping and 

 rising, voice and wing keeping step together. 



Here and there one or two clouded-sulphur 

 butterflies (PhUodice) take wing as I disturb 

 them. They have been most extraordinarily 

 abundant of late. A fortnight ago we drove for 

 almost a whole forenoon through clouds of them, 

 bunches of twenty or more constantly rising from 

 damp spots of earth by the wayside ; and in a 

 meadow all bespangled with purple asters they 

 were so thick as almost to conceal the flowers. 

 Twinkling in the sunlight, they looked a thousand 

 times more like stars than the asters themselves. 

 Even the entomologists of the valley, in whose 

 company I was driving, had never seen the Hke. 

 Here in this shaded road such lovers of the sun 

 are naturally less numerous. In truth, the won- 

 der is that they should be here at all. And yet 

 the wonder is not so very great ; they wander at 

 their own will, and the will of the wind. Only 



