swimming within a short distance of
him. I marvelled much with what skill he shot, for his arrow
pierced the head of the duck which gave no alarming cry.... Oconio
now did fashion a circlet of green boughs, and so placed them about
his head and shoulders that I saw not his face; he otherwise
disrobed and walked into the stream. He held in one hand a shotten
duck, so that it swam lustily, and, so equipped, was in the midst
of a cluster of fowl, of which he deftly seized several so quickly
that their fellows took no alarm. These he strangled beneath the
water, and, when he had three of them, came back with caution to
where the thick bushes concealed him. He desired that I should do
the same, and with much hesitation I disrobed and assumed the
disguise Oconio had fashioned; then I put forth boldly towards the
gathered fowl, at which they did arise with a great clamour, and
were gone. I marvel much why this should have been, but Oconio did
not make it clear, and I forbore, through foolish pride, to ask
him. And let it not be borne in mind against me [pleads the good
Quaker boy] that, when I reached my home, I wandered to the barn,
and writing an ugly word upon the door, sat long and gazed at it.
Chagrin doth make me feel very meek, I find, but I set no one an
example by speech or act, in thus soothing my feelings in so
worldly a manner.

This example may be commended to players of golf, who are inclined to be
"worldly." The episode of Oconio at the best is too long to quote; it,
too, has its lesson! One reads Mr. Abbott's defence of the skunk
cabbage, for it harbours at its root

the earliest salamanders, the pretty Maryland yellow throat nests
in the hollows of its broad leaves, and rare beetles find a
congenial home in the shelter it affords.

"Upland and Meadow" gives one occasion for thought on the subject of
raccoons. "Foolish creatures, like opossums, thrive while cunning coons
are forced to quest or die."

For a stroll by the Thames--I mean the New England Thames--there is no
book like Ik Marvel's "Dream Life," but for a day near the
Delaware--imperial river!--give me "Upland and Meadow."

And then with what assurance of satisfaction may one turn for
refreshment to the continual charm of John Burroughs's books, "Riverby"
and "Pepacton." Burroughs's opinions upon the problems of humanity are
mo