to
the greater beauty of that which is to come.

WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS

VI. WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS.

_Whether we look or whether we listen
We can hear life murmur or see it glisten._
--LOWELL.

As we walk along the bank of the creek on a warm afternoon in June we
realize how true are these lines of Lowell. The frog chorus is dying
down, though now and then we catch sight of a big fellow blowing out his
big balloon throat and filling the air with a hoarse bass, while another
across the creek has a bagpipe apparently as big but pitched in a higher
key. Two months ago one could not get near enough to see this queer
inflation, but now the frogs do not seem so shy. Garter snakes wiggle
through the grass down the bank of the creek and the crickets are just
beginning to chirp the love chorus which is soon to swell incessantly
till the fall frosts come. Butterflies, dragon flies, saw flies and gall
flies are busy and we see evidences of their work in the crimson galls
on the willow leaves and the purple-spotted oak apples, some of which
have fallen to the ground from the scarlet oak above. Nature's first
great law is the perpetuation of species, and everything we see in the
June woods and fields, from the giant white oak to the busy ant, is
diligently obeying that law. The red-winged blackbird circles over our
heads with sharp, anxious chirps, for we have disturbed the young
red-wings down in the sedge who are taking their first lessons in flying.
The catbird's nest, with four greenish-blue eggs, is in a wild gooseberry
bush and the catbird is up among the shad-trees feasting on the ripening
June berries. The gentle notes of soft pedal music come floating sweetly
down. Did you ever stop long enough to listen to the full song of the
catbird? First, the brilliant, ringing strains, often softening into a
subdued sympathetic melody, and then, just as the music seems almost
divine, the long cat-like squeal which ends it all--much like an old
organist and choirmaster of boyhood days who used to break in with a
horrible discord at the lower end of the keyboard when the anthem
rehearsal wasn't going to his liking.

A fruit-lover is the catbird, beginning with the June berries on the
banks of streams near which she often builds her nest and continuing with
wild strawberries, blackberries, wild grapes and the berries of the
Virginia creeper--sometimes also seen busi