118 NATURE AND WOODCRAFT. 



vaded its haunt, and are near its nest. The 

 warbler and its kind we have come to woo — to 

 pry into their secrets. Show the bird that you 

 partake of its nature, and it will trust you. 

 The most shy and retiring ones soon do this. 

 And so we watch and wait and are patient. 



Wood-flowers are all about us. These are 

 stunted, and their colours subdued ; the sun 

 only quivers through the beechen boughs in 

 frescoes. The slender pines better let down 

 the lines of light. Beneath them the flowers 

 respond ; they seek to kiss the light, and shoot 

 upward. Where we lie the flowers are of 

 spring ; those under the pines are of summer. 

 The colours of these are bleached ; those are 

 intensified. Here are hyacinths, anemones, 

 and wood-sorrel ; there foxgloves, woodbine, 

 bellflowers. As Summer advances she deepens 

 her train. Follow her, and she goes from 

 green to gold, from gold to russet. Only 

 the birds that have business seem to be in 

 the wood. Except the sounds of our wood- 

 bird's " cheep," everything seems afar off. In 

 the deepest recesses of the wood there is little 

 food, but outside yonder myriads of gauze 

 wings disport in the sunlight. Still we are 



