puzzled. But all disappear again, one by one, apparently without a
word of condolence or encouragement to the distressed pair. I have
often noticed among birds this show of sympathy,--if indeed it be
sympathy, and not merely curiosity, or desire to be forewarned of
the approach of a common danger.

An hour afterward I approach the place, find all still, and the
mother bird upon the nest. As I draw near she seems to sit closer,
her eyes growing large with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look.
She keeps her place till I am within two paces of her, when she
flutters away as at first. In the brief interval the remaining egg
has hatched, and the two little nestlings lift their heads without
being jostled or overreached by any strange bedfellow. A week
afterward and they were flown away,--so brief is the infancy of
birds. And the wonder is that they escape, even for this short time,
the skunks and minks and muskrats that abound here, and that have a
decided partiality for such tidbits.

I pass on through the old Barkpeeling, now threading an obscure
cow-path or an overgrown wood-road; now clambering over soft and
decayed logs, or forcing my way through a network of briers and
hazels; now entering a perfect bower of wild cherry, beech, and soft
maple; now emerging into a little grassy lane, golden with
buttercups or white with daisies, or wading waist-deep in the red
raspberry-bushes.

Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown partridges start up like
an explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in the
bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind the screen of ferns
and briers, and hear this wild hen of the woods call together her