124 AT TEE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
in a twinkling the air will be full of graceful 
forms, and a flock of white-breasted swallows, 
barn swallows, or night-hawks will sweep over 
the blue water, rise, vanish over the meadow, 
reappear, fly towards the peak, wheel, return, 
and then perhaps speed away, not to greet the 
fair lake again until ice and snow have come 
and gone, and the number of their own light 
forms has been sadly diminished in the south. 
A field of buckwheat or other small grain is 
a magnet in the days when the birds are wan¬ 
dering. To it come the song sparrows, chip¬ 
ping sparrows, white-throats, juncos, purple 
finches, field sparrows, goldfinches, and bay¬ 
winged buntings. They love to linger many 
days in the stubble; and when bird music is 
rare, their occasional songs are precious to the 
ear. If the field is approached softly there 
seems to be no life hidden in its midst, but sud¬ 
denly wings whirr noisily, and bird after bird 
flies up into the neighboring trees and bushes. 
Sparrows love fences, stone walls, and their ac¬ 
companying growths of berry-bushes and small 
trees. The latter are our New England sub¬ 
stitutes for the hedgerows of the Old World, and 
I believe the sparrow tribe takes as much com¬ 
fort in wall and briers as in hedge and ditch. 
The ditch is more than replaced by countless 
brooks, always clear and pure, and the wall 
