I particularly had to see black
duck to-day."

"What do you have to see?"

"Nothing special. Just plain spring."

That is the charm of the Yellow Valley. It offers no spectacular
inducements, no bargain-counter attractions in the shape of new arrivals
among the birds or flowers. One returns from it with no trophies of any
kind, nothing to put down in one's notebook, if one keeps a
notebook,--from which industry may I be forever preserved! But it is a
place to go to and be quiet, which is good for us all, especially in the
springtime, when there is so much going on in the world, and especially
lately, since "nature study" has driven people into being so unceasingly
busy when they are outdoors. Opera-glasses and bird books have their
place, no doubt, in the advance of mankind, but they often seem to me
nothing but more machinery coming in between us and the real things.
Perhaps it was once true that when people went out to view "nature,"
they did not see enough. Now, I fancy, they see too much; they cannot
see the spring for the birds. Their motto is that of Rikki-Tikki, the
mongoose, "Run and find out"--an excellent motto for a mongoose,--but
for people on a spring ramble!

The unquenchable ardor of the bird lover, so called, fills me with
dismay. One enthusiast, writing in a school journal, describes the
difficulties of following up the birds: "Often eyes all around one's
head, with opera-glasses focused at each pair, would not suffice to keep
the restless birds in view." If this is the ideal of the bird lover, it
is not mine. I wonder she did not wish for extra pairs of legs to match
each set of eyes and opera-glasses, and a divisible body, so that she
might scamper off in sections after all these marvels. For myself, one
pair of eyes gives me, I find, all the satisfaction and delight I know
what to do with, and I cannot help feeling that, if I had more, I should
have less. The same writer speaks of the "maddening" warbler notes. Why
maddening? Because, forsooth, there are thirty warblers, and one cannot
learn all their names. What a pity to be maddened by a little warbler!
And about a matter of names, too. After all, the bird, the song, is the
thing. And it seems a pity to carry the chasing of bird notes quite so
far. They are meant, I feel sure, to be hearkened to in quietness of
spirit, to be tasted delicately, as one would a wine. The life of the
opera-glassed bird hunter, compared to mine, seems to me like th