A June 
afternoon on 
the river 
(written in 
ray canoe) 
4/2, //f 
I have caught her sitting since the 17th, when I started 
her from the empty nest. 
Gat-birds were singing freely in ray swamp and 
a Flicker across the river, ] 
5 F. M. Lee Davis 1 s Hill . Sitting in my canoe 
writing these lines in the shade, the sun having sunk behind 
the tops of the pines to the West. Great sulphurous, white 
clouds floating in a pale blue sky. The foliage of the 
white maples along the river and the edges of the meadow 
tossing in the wind, looking thin and dishevelled and showing 
the whitish under surfaces of the leaves. About the canoe 
the water is covered thickly with the floating leaves of the 
pond lily, floating heart, marsilea and the long-leaved 
Polygonum. Further inshore rise the erect stems of Pon- 
tederia, each bearing at its top the single large, lance¬ 
shaped, oily green leaf. They form a fine belt of green 
above the margin of the placid stream. Still further in, 
marking the beginning of the real land, are young maples, 
willows, alders and birches overrun with grape-vines and 
green briars with here and there a tuft of cinnamon ferns 
and one large cluster of wild roses in full bloom. Behind 
and above this lower wall of diversified but generally 
tender green foliage rise the somber pines and tall old 
oaks for which the hill is famous. 
A Pine Warbler is singing in the pines, a Veery, 
Cat-bird, Chestnut-sided Warbler and Maryland Yellow-throat 
