wondered, as there was no grain or seeds or any dry
food that it would be safe to store underground for the winter.

Beholding me sitting there within two yards of his den was a great
surprise to him. He eyed me a long time--squirrel time--making little,
spasmodic movements on the flat stone above his den. At a motion of my
arm he darted into his hole with an exultant chip. He was soon out with
empty pockets, and he then proceeded to sound his little tocsin of
distrust or alarm so that all the sylvan folk might hear. As I made no
sign, he soon ceased and went about his affairs.

All this time, behind and above me, concealed by a vase fern, reposed
that lovely creature of the twilight, the luna moth, just out of her
chrysalis, drying and inflating her wings. I chanced to lift the fern
screen, and there was this marvel! Her body was as white and spotless as
the snow, and her wings, with their Nile-green hue, as fair and delicate
as--well, as only those of a luna moth can be. It is as immaculate as an
angel. With a twig I carefully lifted her to the trunk of a maple
sapling, where she clung and where I soon left her for the night.

While I was loitering there on the threshold of the woods, observing the
small sylvan folk, about a hundred yards above me, near the highway, was
a bird's nest of a kind I had not seen for more than a score of years,
the nest of the veery, or Wilson's thrush. Some friends were camping
there with their touring-car outfit in a fringe of the beech woods, and
passed and repassed hourly within a few yards of the nest, and, although
they each had sharp eyes and sharp ears, they had neither seen nor
heard the birds during the two days they had been there.

While calling upon them I chanced to see the hurried movements of a
thrush in the low trees six or seven yards away. The bird had food in
its beak, which caused me to keep my eye upon it. It quickly flew down
to a small clump of ferns that crowned a small knoll in the open, about
ten feet from the border of the woods. As it did so, another thrush flew
out of the ferns and disappeared in the woods. Their stealthy movements
sent a little thrill through me, and I said, Here is a treasure. I
parted the ferny screen, and there on the top of the small knoll was the
nest with two half-fledged young.

A mowing-machine in a meadow in front of my door gave an unkind cut to a
sparrow that had a nest in the clover near the wall. The mower chanced
to see the