the trees swaying to its caress.
Moose-birds began to gather around us, calling out with voices ranging
from the shrillest to deep raucous cries, sometimes changing to
imitations of other birds. They became very tame at once, and hopped
impudently among us, cocking up their saucy little heads and watching us.
Susie happened to put a little bacon on a piece of bread, beside her on
the clean moss, the better to handle a very hot cup of tea, and one of
the jays pounced upon it and dragged it away.

"Git out o' there, ye imp!" she cried. "Them birds would pick the nails
offen yer boots if they was good ter eat."

"They are ever so pretty," I said. "And oh! look at that poor little
chap. He hopped into the frying pan and scalded his toes."

The indignant bird flew away, uttering perfectly disgraceful language,
but the others seemed to be quite indifferent to his fate and remained,
bent on securing every discarded crumb.

After this a flight of yellow-leg snipe passed by. Dr. Grant began to
whistle their soft triple note and the wisp of birds circled in the air,
coming nearer and nearer until, becoming suspicious, they winged their
journey away. And then we were invaded by a troop of grosbeaks who
gathered in the neighboring bushes, their queer, tiny voices, seeming
quite out of place, coming out of such stocky, strong little bodies. In
the meanwhile a woodpecker was tap-tapping on a dead juniper. It was all
so very different from the cruel, ragged coast with its unceasing turmoil
of hungry waves breaking upon the cliffs. Here there reigned such a
wonderful peace, interrupted only by the song of birds. There were soft
outlines in the distance, and everywhere the scent of balsams. Of course
it was all very desolate; a vast swamp dominated by sterile ridges of
boulder-strewn hills; an immense land of peat-bogs and mosses, grey and
green and purplish, upon which only the caribou and the birds appeared
able to live. Yet it was no longer a place where the fury of the elements
was ever ready to unchain itself against poor people clinging to their
bare rocks. The breath of one's nostrils went ever so deep in one's
lungs, and one's muscles seemed to gather energy and respond ever so much
more efficiently than they ever did in big towns.

"I don't think I ever before realized the beauty of great waste places,"
I said. "It looks like a world infinite and wonderful, over which we
might be traveling in quest of some Holy Grail that