There is scarce a tree of mine but has had, at some time or
other, a happy homestead among its boughs, to which I cannot say,
"Many light hearts and wings,
Which now be dead, lodged in thy living bowers."
My walk under the pines would lose half its summer charm were I to miss
that shy anchorite, the Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying time
the metallic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of
_scythe-whet_. I protect my game as jealously as an English squire. If
anybody had ooelogized a certain cuckoo's nest I know of (I have a pair
in my garden every year), it would have left me a sore place in my mind
for weeks. I love to bring these aborigines back to the mansuetude they
showed to the early voyagers, and before (forgive the involuntary pun),
they had grown accustomed to man and knew his savage ways. And they
repay your kindness with a sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed
contempt. I have made a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the
Puritan way with the native, which converted them to a little Hebraism
and a great deal of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me
(as most of them will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,--a much
better weapon than a gun. I would not, if I could, convert them from
their pretty pagan ways.
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