BIRDS 
57 
with Heath and Fern, with here and there 
a Chestnut and an Oak, I go to hear in 
July the Wood-Sparrow, and returning by 
a stumpy shallow pond, 1 am sure to find 
the Water-Thrush. 
Only one locality within my range 
seems to possess attractions for all com¬ 
ers. Here one may study almost the en¬ 
tire ornithology of the State. It is a 
rocky piece of ground, long ago cleared, 
but now fast relapsing into the wildness 
and freedom of Nature, and marked by 
those half-cultivated, half-wild features 
which birds and boys love. It is bounded 
on two sides by the village and highway, 
crossed at various points by carriage- 
roads, and threaded in all directions by 
paths and by-ways, along which soldiers, 
laborers, and truant schoolboys are pass¬ 
ing at all hours of the day. It is so far 
escaping from the axe and the bushwhack 
as to have opened communication with 
the forest and mountain beyond by strag¬ 
gling lines of Cedar, Laurel, and Black¬ 
berry. The ground is mainly occupied 
with Cedar and Chestnut, with an under¬ 
growth, in many places, of Heath and 
