oods,
connecting the trees by a gentle arc of crimson and white! This is
another bird with a military look. His deliberate, dignified ways, and
his bright uniform of red, white, and steel-blue, bespeak him an
officer of rank.

Another favorite beat of mine is northeast of the city. Looking from
the Capitol in this direction, scarcely more than a mile distant, you
see a broad green hill-slope, falling very gently, and spreading into
a large expanse of meadow-land. The summit, if so gentle a swell of
greensward may be said to have a summit, is covered with a grove of
large oaks; and, sweeping black out of sight like a mantle, the front
line of a thick forest bounds the sides. This emerald landscape is
seen from a number of points in the city. Looking along New York
Avenue from Northern Liberty Market, the eye glances, as it were, from
the red clay of the street, and alights upon this fresh scene in the
distance. It is a standing invitation to the citizen to come forth and
be refreshed. As I turn from some hot, hard street, how inviting it
looks! I bathe my eyes in it as in a fountain. Sometimes troops of
cattle are seen grazing upon it. In June the gathering of the hay may
be witnessed. When the ground is covered with snow, numerous stacks,
or clusters of stacks, are still left for the eye to contemplate.

The woods which clothe the east side of this hill, and sweep away to
the east, are among the most charming to be found in the District. The
main growth is oak and chestnut, with a thin sprinkling of laurel,
azalea, and dogwood. It is the only locality in which I have found the
dogtooth violet in bloom, and the best place I know of to gather
arbutus. On one slope the ground is covered with moss, through which
the arbutus trails its glories.

Emerging from these woods toward the city, one sees the white dome of
the Capitol soaring over the green swell of earth immediately in
front, and lifting its four thousand tons of iron gracefully and
lightly into the air. Of all the sights in Washington, that which will
survive the longest in my memory is the vision of the great dome thus
rising cloud-like above the hills.

1868.

VI

BIRCH BROWSINGS

The region of which I am about to speak lies in the southern part of
the state of New York, and comprises parts of three counties,--Ulster,
Sullivan and Delaware. It is drained by tributaries of both the Hudson
and Delaware, and, next to the Adirondack section, contain