310 
RURAL HOURS. 
time referred to, passing up and down before tlie windows twenty 
times a day, and several others were going in and out of holes 
and chinks of the trees in sight. One night there came a hard 
frost, followed by a fall of snow ; the next day six of these pretty 
blue-birds were picked up dead in one cluster in our own garden, 
and several others were said to be lying about the grounds. They 
seemed to have collected together to warm themselves. That 
summer we saw very few blue-birds, and the following autumn 
there was scarcely a large flock of them seen in the neighbor- 
hood. 
Fine sunset ; the evening still and quiet. The lake beautiful 
in its reflections of the sky. Soft barred clouds w^ere floating 
above the hills, and the color of each lay faithfully repeated on 
the water ; — pink, violet, gray, and blue in successive fields. 
Thursday, 28th. — In our walk, this afternoon, observed a 
broad field upon a hill-side covered with the white silvery heads 
of the everlastings. The country people sometimes call these 
plants " moonshine," and really the eff"ect in the evening upon so 
broad a field reminded one of moonlight. These flowers deserve 
the name of " everlasting ;" some of them begin to bloom early 
in the spring, and they continue in blossom until the latest days 
of autumn. They are extremely common here ; one of our char- 
acteristic plants. 
A noisy flock of blue-jays collected in the wood behind us as 
we were standing on Mount . They were hunting for nuts, 
and chattering like monkeys. Their cry is anything but musical, 
but they are certainly very handsome birds. There is another 
kind of jay — the Canada jay — sometimes seen in this State ; it is 
not so fine a bird as the common sort. These birds are said to 
