rds, the animals, the insects; and presently, after his
eye has got accustomed to the place, and to the light and shade, he
will probably see some plant or flower that he had sought in vain for,
and that is a pleasant surprise to him. So, on a large scale, the
student and lover of nature has this advantage over people who gad up
and down the world, seeking some novelty or excitement; he has only to
stay at home and see the procession pass. The great globe swings
around to him like a revolving showcase; the change of the seasons is
like the passage of strange and new countries; the zones of the earth,
with all their beauties and marvels, pass one's door and linger long
in the passing. What a voyage is this we make without leaving for a
night our own fireside! St. Pierre well says that a sense of the
power and mystery of nature shall spring up as fully in one's heart
after he has made the circuit of his own field as after returning from
a voyage round the world. I sit here amid the junipers of the Hudson,
with purpose every year to go to Florida, or to the West Indies, or to
the Pacific coast, yet the seasons pass and I am still loitering, with
a half-defined suspicion, perhaps, that, if I remain quiet and keep a
sharp lookout, these countries will come to me. I may stick it out
yet, and not miss much after all. The great trouble is for Mohammed to
know when the mountain really comes to him. Sometimes a rabbit or a
jay or a little warbler brings the woods to my door. A loon on the
river, and the Canada lakes are here; the sea-gulls and the fish hawk
bring the sea; the call of the wild gander at night, what does it
suggest? and the eagle flapping by, or floating along on a raft of
ice, does not he bring the mountain? One spring morning five swans
flew above my barn in single file, going northward,--an express train
bound for Labrador. It was a more exhilarating sight than if I had
seen them in their native haunts. They made a breeze in my mind, like
a noble passage in a poem. How gently their great wings flapped; how
easy to fly when spring gives the impulse! On another occasion I saw a
line of fowls, probably swans, going northward, at such a height that
they appeared like a faint, waving black line against the sky. They
must have been at an altitude of two or three miles. I was looking
intently at the clouds to see which way they moved, when the birds
came into my field of vision. I should never have seen them had they
no