scattered freely over the
grayish hills. These huddling, low-lying plants were among the things
which bestowed upon Longnook its pleasing and remarkable mountain-top
aspect. The rest of the vegetation was more or less familiar, I believe:
the obtuse-leaved milkweed, of which I had never seen so much before;
three sorts of goldenrod, including abundance of the fragrant _odora_;
two kinds of yellow gerardia, and, in the lower lands at the western end
of the valley, the dainty rose gerardia, just now coming into bloom; the
pretty _Polygala polygama_,--pretty, but not in the same class with the
rose gerardia; ladies' tresses; bayberry; sweet fern; crisp-leaved
tansy; beach grass; huckleberry bushes, for whose liberality I had
frequent occasion to be thankful; bear oak; chinquapin; chokeberry; a
single vine of the Virginia creeper; wild carrot; wild cherry; the
common brake,--these and doubtless many more were there, for I made no
attempt at a full catalogue. There must have been wild roses along the
roadside and on the edge of the thickets, I should think, yet I cannot
recollect them, nor does the name appear in my penciled memoranda. Had
the month been June instead of August, notebook and memory would record
a very different story, I can hardly doubt; but out of flower is out of
mind.

In the course of my many visits to Dyer's Hollow I saw thirty-three
kinds of birds, of the eighty-four species in my full Truro list. The
number of individuals was small, however, and, except at its lower end,
the valley was, or appeared to be, nearly destitute of feathered life. A
few song sparrows, a cat-bird or two, a chewink or two, a field sparrow,
and perhaps a Maryland yellow-throat might be seen above the last
houses, but as a general thing the bushes and trees were deserted.
Walking here, I could for the time almost forget that I had ever owned a
hobby-horse. But farther down the hollow there was one really "birdy"
spot, to borrow a word--useful enough to claim lexicographical
standing--from one of my companions: a tiny grove of stunted oaks, by
the roadside, just at the point where I naturally struck the valley
when I approached it by way of the Hill of Storms. Here I happened upon
my only Cape Cod cowbird, a full-grown youngster, who was being
ministered unto in the most devoted manner by a red-eyed vireo,--such a
sight as always fills me with mingled amusement, astonishment,
admiration, and disgust. That any bird should be so be