gentle joy of life in the fields and woods, the sapphire cadences
of distant mountain peaks and the chrysoprase tremolo of young
leaves, seems to have come from the song of the white-throated
sparrow that sings all day about Chocorua. “Peabody bird” we call
the white-throat, from long custom, but to me his notes, clear,
sweet and infinitely refreshing, seem to chant in accelerating
diminuendo, “hap-pi-ness, hap-pi-ness, happiness,” till I lose the
quivering cadences in an infinity of distance where sight and sound
blend in the passing of dear dreams. The white-throated sparrow
comes to the hills with the pink buds of the trailing arbutus,
whose blooms are nowhere else so white and fair, and something
of their fragrance seems always to come from his song. In little
nooks where the early spring sunlight wells in pools of golden
warmth the perfumes of the arbutus blooms and of the white-throat’s
song come first, and they linger long into the summer where cool
Northern hillsides hold the spring in their shadows. Sometimes
the autumn, too, gives us a rare reblooming of the arbutus, and
the white-throat sings his song of pure contentment well into the
mellow haze of late September.
Now that May is in the mountains one may see the warblers budding
from the twigs with the leaves, nor shall he at first know which
dappling of living light has burgeoned from the wood or which
flashed in from the sky above, so harmonious are the contrasts of
rich color. Often it seems to be the leaves that sing, so well does
the tiny songster fit upon his perch. All about the lake in beech
and birch the young buds lisp and the half-open leaves trill with
the tiny music of the parulas. As you pass from ridge to lowland
and on to ridge again they lead you along the hillsides and on to
the cool depths of remoter ranges where the ancient hemlocks still
grow, their gray beards of usnea moss hanging sedately in the
shadows among their dark trunks. The parulas feed and sing in the
light of deciduous trees, but they nest in this moss in the shadows
of the black growth. Here comes true the fairy tale of the birds
that built their nests in beards, for as I rest in the cloistered
seclusion of the hemlocks two parulas come and press aside the gray
lace draperies of pendent moss and enter in. There is the beginning
of the nest, this tiny cavern which they wedge with their bodies
from the matted moss. The lower ends of this are to be turned up
and interwoven, making the bottom more secure, and pendent there
in her swinging cradle, safe from the eyes of owl or jay above,
from four-footed prowlers below, the mother bird will brood her
rufous-wreathed white eggs.
Many another warbler will lead the May visitor to Chocorua
through these lakeside woodlands which Bolles loved. Some toll
him cheerfully from one low thicket to another, where he may see
the bird and the wood violet in the same glance or pluck painted
and purple trilliums and not lose sight of his quest. Of these is
the black-masked Maryland yellow-throat, whose song of “witchery,
witchery, witchery,” always speaks for itself alone. No bird seems
necessary for the production of this. It buds from the air as young
leaves do from the twigs, impelled by a magic power within itself,
nor, when you finally find the bird, demurely winding his masked
way through the low growth, does the voice by any chance proceed
from his throat. All warblers are ventriloquists, but I always
think the Maryland yellow-throat of the Chocorua thickets the most
demure magician of them all. Perhaps the black mask has something
to do with it, lending to the eye the same thought which the
puzzled ear conveys. The yellow-throats are building now, weaving
their grass nests in tussocks of swamp grass down by the water’s
edge, hiding them not so uniquely indeed as the parulas, but almost
as well. The spikes of swamp grass grow tall about each nest, and
its deep cup if seen at all from the outside is to the eye but a
tangle of the last year’s grasses, matted down under this year’s
growth. If I find these nests it is only by looking directly down
into the heart of each tussock until I reach the right one. Yet
this is not particularly difficult. It means only a little patience
in inspection, after the probable neighborhood has been defined by
the presence of the birds themselves. The yellow-throats are shy
about their nests. If you inspect them too often they will leave
them and begin all over again in a new locality. But, away from
the nest, they are an easy bird to see much of. A man in their
neighborhood is an object of insatiable curiosity to them, and you
do not need to discover them if they are near. Instead they will
come, creeping and peering through the bushes, to inspect you if
you will but sit quietly in the region in which that “witchery”
song is born out of the circumambient air.
Into the upper end of Chocorua Lake flows a brook of transparent
water, fed by melting snows, out of “the heart of the mountain.”
Along this the song of the water thrush leads the wanderer from
one limpid pool to another, a song that has in it some of the
liquid prattle of the stream but more of a dominant, aggressive
note that carries far. There is a touch of sunlight in the color
of the water thrush’s breast, sunlight flecked with little brown
shadow markings that are like the uniform brown of his back, and
if it were not that he sticks so closely to the water he might
suggest the oven-bird to the careless glance. There is something
of the song sparrow and the oven-bird at once in his song. It
is as if the two birds had mated to produce him and the singing
masters of both families had had the youngsters to singing school.
Up this clear-water brook the oven-birds call you by way of the
height of land, the water thrushes from pool to pool, while the sun
drops behind Paugus in mid afternoon, and the blue shadows of the
Sandwich range add to the cool gloom which wells upward from the
deep gorge which is the heart of the mountains.
On the way, as the water thrushes and Maryland yellow-throats
sing from the thickets near the water, so the oven-bird sends
his aggressive staccato from the middle distances of the higher
trees. I never knew an oven-bird to sing from either a treetop or
a low thicket. Always he sits on a limb well up the trunk yet well
beneath the shade also, and sends forth that aggressive, eager
call for knowledge. “Teach us, teach us, teach us,” he cries to
the wood gods, nor is he ever satisfied with his schooling, but
applies persistently for more. The oven-bird is the very voice of
the spirit of modern learning, crying always, in the wilderness of
knowledge attained, for more knowledge. The wood gods have taught
him much. Invisibility for himself he has almost learned. He sits
like a knot on a speckled brown limb, and his speckled brown breast
is so much like it that he may sing long there within a little
distance of your eye before you see him. Invisibility for his nest
he and his demure brown wife have learned completely. You may sit
on it to rest among the brown leaves in the wood and not know it is
there; unless the frightened escape of the brown mother birds gives
you a hint, and even then it is invisible, so completely is it
hidden in the debris dropped by the previous autumn. Of dead weed
stalks, grasses and brown leaves it is not only built but roofed,
and with an entrance on one side that to the uninitiated might be
an entrance to the nest of a field mouse, indeed, but never that
to a bird’s nest. It is not for greater knowledge of nest hiding
that the oven-bird need pray to the wood gods, nor may we know what
further wisdom he seeks, but all summer long he asks for it in no
uncertain tones.
Out of the very treetops while the oven-bird shouts his prayer
below comes the voice of the red-eyed vireo, uttering moral
platitudes from dawn till dusk. It is no wonder that some birds go
wrong with this monotonous preacher steadily droning out, “Don’t
do this; don’t do that,” to them all day long. The bluejays, who
have robber baron blood stirring always under their gaudy military
coats, jeer at this prating of platitudes and descend upon the
vireo’s hanging nest and eat the eggs from it, I always think, with
more gusto than in their other freebooting, and small blame to
them. The red-eyed vireo leads an exemplary life, no doubt, living
properly on small insects and keeping up perpetual prayer-meeting,
but his self-righteous twaddle must be intensely irritating to all
but impeccably good birds that have to listen to it. In gladsome
relief from this was the demeanor of the Canadian warblers, also
flitting daintily in the treetops. I know the authorities say
that the Canadian warbler frequents low thickets, but there is no
mistaking the bird with his breast and throat of clear yellow and
his necklace of jet beads, and this May the leafy topmost twigs of
the deciduous trees in the Chocorua region held many such. They
sang their liquid warble which has in it more than a suggestion of
the song-sparrow notes of the water-thrush song, and they dashed
out into the free air for insects which they captured, flycatcher
fashion, and then dashed back again. The Canadian warblers are
migrating, feeding and singing as they go on to their nesting sites
farther north, and this year their favorite food must have been
hanging high, for they were up there after it.
With the Canadians was the first wave of the tide of blackpolls
which sweeps over the mountains, also bound north, in late May.
More restless were these, constantly flitting and seeking food
among the leaves, now in deciduous growth, again in the evergreens,
ever moving on and ever singing their high-pitched, hissing whistle
which is not so very different from the song of the black and white
creeper, though a little more deliberate in movement and having a
more staccato quality. So far as coloration goes one might mistake
the male blackpoll for the black and white creeper were not the
movements of the birds so distinctly different and the song as wiry
but as soothingly crepitant as that of the cicada.
Night falls early in the deep heart of Chocorua, and full and
clear the wood thrushes were yodeling of peace, one to another in
the shadows, as I turned to descend. In the worn fields of the
ancient clearing about the farmhouse where Bolles lived and loved
the woods and all that therein lived with him, the song sparrows
were trilling evening songs and the swifts twittering and circling
nearer and nearer the big chimney which is their summer home. The
bird cherry trees were white angels of bloom, and from all the land
far and near the incense of opening blossoms made the air sweet and
rose toward the high, mysterious altar of Chocorua’s peak as if in
adoration of the rose glow of its sunset tints. Chocorua Lake was
a mirror in which the glory of the summit, the blue dusk of the
lower ranges and its own shores were reflected in perfect beauty.
It was a sounding-board as well, across whose level came to the ear
innumerable bird songs, singing carols of praise to the passing of
day. Out of the blue depths of the sky the cool of night dropped
like a blessing from heaven and seemed to soften and liquefy all
melodies into purer, more mellow music. Wood thrushes and hermits
sang in the shadows hymns of praise to the most high peak of the
mountain, a pantheistic worship that was old ages before any spires
other than those of the spruces had pointed the way to heaven.
[Illustration: Nightfall on Chocorua Lake]
From the hillocks of the pasture to the topmost boughs of the
forest all bird life joined in the worship, making the welkin
ring with praise of the pure joy of life, a chorus that quivered
into silence only with the passing of the rose of mystery from the
very tip of the high horn of Chocorua. Nor did the silence last
long. Before the last wood thrush had finished his “Good night;
all’s well; God is good,” other songs of praise and the joy of life
were echoing from swamp and wood and lake margin. Where the birds
had ceased a myriad other voices took up new refrains. The dreamy
trill of the tree frogs sounds from the perfumed dusk, a lullaby of
the world primeval that sang the first man to sleep in some safe
refuge in the deep woods. From the distant marsh the mingled voices
of innumerable hylas ring a chorus of fairy sleighbells that rises
and falls as the wind of evening drifts by. Nowhere in the world, I
believe, can one hear such hyla choruses as he gets in May evenings
from marshy pools among the New Hampshire hills. Coming from a
distance the hypnotic insistence of the sound has a soothing,
sleepy quality that lulls to rest. To seek its source and stand by
the very border of the pool is to find it a frightful uproar that
shrills in the ears and rings through the head till the deafened
hearer is driven to the upland again.
On the lake margin in the failing light it came to me as a sleepy
drone of tiny bells, as if goblin sleighing parties were coursing
gayly in the night on the white May snow of petals beneath the bird
cherry trees. It and the dreamy trilling of the tree frogs were
but a background for the voices of night birds that sounded now
that those of the day birds had passed. High in air floated the
nasal “peent, peent,” of whirling nighthawks. Out of the velvet
dusk across the glimmering water I heard a bittern working his
old-fashioned pump, wheezily. “Cahugunkagunk, cahugunkagunk,” he
burbled, the weirdest bird voice of any that comes from marsh or
mountain, yet in the peacefulness of the place sounding neither
lonely nor uncouth. I fancy him, too, with his long beak pointed
to the heights, worshiping the mountain peak in his own tongue.
Whip-poor-wills mourned gently one to another across the water as a
token that the night had really come and the last glow faded from
the lone summit now so immeasurably withdrawn into the sky among
the stars.
A yellow-billed cuckoo called from the thicket, then, indignant
at receiving no answer, sprung his rattle and waited. Roused
out of his first slumber a white-throat gave a faint “tseep” of
surprise, then trembled into music for a moment and went to sleep
again. “Hap--pi--ness, hap-pi-ness, happiness,” he sang, the notes
slipping away into infinite distance and blending with the perfect
quiet of the night and the sky. It was the very spirit of the place
speaking and reminding me again of the gentle writer who sang so
clearly of the peace and beauty of the Chocorua woods and who now
sleeps, after singing.
INDEX
A
Achilles, 156, 157
Adam, 117
Alcott, 99, 100, 102
-- Louisa, 101
Alder, white, 68
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 30
Allen, Ethan, 171
Amesbury, 129
Anemone nemorosa, 143
Angle-wing, 56
Antietam, 193
Apple, Baldwin, 6
-- russet, 115
-- wild, 127
Appledore, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 56, 59
Arbutus, trailing, 94, 138, 140, 141, 142, 146, 199
Arcady, 37
Argynnis, 67
-- cybele, 39
Asclepias cornuti, 37
-- tuberosa, 38
Assabet, 101
Asters, 37, 49, 86, 107, 113
Astræa, 150
Atlantis, 45
Azalea, 9
B
Babylonian kings, 187
Bayberry, 9, 25, 46, 52, 81, 88
Bee, bumble, 25, 41
-- honey, 57
Beech, 21, 177, 200
“Bemis Place, the,” 35
Bilbao, 119
Billington, 139
-- sea, 139
Birch, 27, 69, 128, 200
-- black, 2
-- white, 21
-- yellow, 27, 171
Birds
Bittern, 210
Blackbird, 32, 36, 140
Blackpoll, 207
Bluebird, 169
“Bob white,” 13
Cedar wax-wing, 127
Chewink, 23
Creeper, black and white, 207
Crow, 126
Cuckoo, yellow-billed, 198, 211
Duck, 63
Finch, purple, 194
Flycatcher, great-crested, 14
-- olive-sided, 55
Grosbeak, 194
Gull, 56
-- herring, 129, 130
Hawk, fish, 131
-- night, 210
Heron, great blue, 57
-- little green, 71
Jay, 126, 200
-- blue, 205
Kingbird, 56
Kingfisher, 70, 71
Maryland yellow-throat, 52, 201, 202, 204
Mourning Dove, 13
Nuthatch, white-breasted, 171
Oven-bird, 203, 204, 205
Owl, 200
“Peabody bird,” 199
Quail, 13
Robin, 2, 3, 55, 127, 139, 193, 194
Sandpipers, 56, 70
Skylark, 2
Snipe, Wilson’s, 131
Sparrow, song, 52, 55, 140, 169, 203, 206
-- white-throated, 199, 211
Swallow, 7
-- barn, 5, 6, 53
-- tree, 53, 54
Tanager, 194
Thrush, 193, 194
-- hermit, 208
-- water, 203
-- wood, 195, 196, 208
Vireo, 21
-- red-eyed, 205, 206
-- warbling, 194
Warblers, 194, 199
-- Canadian, 206, 207
-- parula, 200, 202
-- wood, 86
Whip-poor-will, 197, 210
Black Mount, 2, 3, 4, 13
Blackberries, 47, 81
“Blobs,” 142
Blueberries, 4, 81
-- low-bush blacks, 4
-- pale blue, 4
Blue flag, 22, 47
Blue Hill, 32, 33
Bluets, 152
Bolles, Frank, 197, 200, 207, 208
Boston Light, 76
Bouncing-Bet, 89
Bradford, William, 75, 76, 105, 137, 138, 139, 146, 147
Bulkeley, Rev. Peter, 77
Burial Hill, 105, 137, 138, 139, 147
Buttercup, 146, 186
-- bulbous, 153
Butterflies,
Angle-wing, 56
Argynnis, 67
-- cybele, 39
Baltimore, 41
Cabbage, 56
Colias, 27
Colias philodice, 40
Fritillary, great spangled, 39
Grapta interrogationis, 144
Hesperiidæ, 144
Hunters, 56, 144
Lycæna pseudargiolus, 144
Monarch, 39, 56
Mourning cloak, 143, 146
Papilio turnus, 38
Pyrameis huntera, 144
Sulphur, 40
Vanessa antiopa, 143
C
Cabbage butterfly, 56
Cadiz, 119
Caltha palustris, 142
Camaguay, 111
Cape Cod, 75, 145
Cape of Good Hope, 148
Caraway, 43
Cardamine pratensis, 142
Carrageen, 54
Cedar, 11, 127, 128
Cedar berries, 127
Cedar, red, 9, 25, 37
Cedar wax-wing, 127
Ceylon, 63, 148
Charter Street, 148
Checkerberries, 140, 141
Chelone glabra, 41
Cherry-bird, 208, 210
Cherry, wild, 46, 50, 81, 83
Chestnut, 68
“Cheviot Hills, The,” 33
Chewink, 23
Chicory, 1
China Sea, 148
Chipmunks, 107
Chocorua, 3, 201, 206, 207, 208, 209
Chocorua, Lake, 197, 203, 208
-- mountain, 197, 208
-- woods, 198, 211
Chokeberry, 50
Cicada, 207
Cineraria maritima, 84
Cinquefoil, 51
Civil war, 185, 186, 189
Clark’s Island, 135
Clematis, 47, 48, 107, 113
Clethra, 62, 66
Clover, white, 58
Colias, 27
-- philodice, 40
Concord, 63, 65, 71, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99
-- Bridge, 91
Confederate, 191
Convolvulus, 111
Coreopsis, 44
Corydon, 37
Country brook, 26, 27, 28
Cowslip, 142
Crabs, 55
Cranberry, 51
Cranberry bog, 12, 140
Cranes-bill, 47
Creeper, black and white, 207
Cress, bitter, 142
Crow, 126
Cruciferæ, 56
Cuckoo, yellow-billed, 198, 211
Custom House, 150
D
Daisy, 186
-- ox-eye, 23
Dandelions, 51, 152
Dandelions, fall, 109
Deerfield River, 164, 181
Derby, Elias, 150, 158, 159
Derby Street, 148
Dexter, “Lord” Timothy, 124
Dickens, 123
Dreadnaught, 120
Duck, 63
Dummerston, 177
Dunkirk, 119
Dusty-miller, 84
E
Elder, 46, 50
Emerson, 90, 97, 99, 100, 102
Eos, 61
Epigæa, 140, 141
Eric the Red, 143
Essex Institute, 150, 161
Eve, 52
Everlasting, 192
F
Ferns
Cinnamon, 22, 109
Hay-scented, 22
Interrupted, 22
Lady, 22
Maidenhair, 95
Royal, 22, 109
Finch, purple, 194
Firefly, 31
Florida Keys, 145
Flycatcher, great-crested, 14
-- olive-sided, 55
“Flying Dutchman, The,” 120, 148
Forget-me-not, 22
Fox, 107
Fragaria, 153
Free Press, 123
Fritillary, great-spangled, 39
Frog, tree, 209
G
Gallows Hill, 149, 151, 153
Garrison, William Lloyd, 123
Gaultheria, 141
Genista, 154
Geraniums, red, 44, 58, 59
Gerardia, 68
-- flava, 41
-- golden, 40, 41
-- tenuifolia, 67
Gettysburg, 193
Ghettos, 150
Goldenrod, 27, 49, 86, 107
-- seaside, 128, 130
Gosnold, 76
Grand Army, 186
Grand Turk, The, 150, 158, 159
Granite, 49
Grant, 195
Grape, fox, 111
Grapta, interrogationis, 144
Gratiola aurea, 70
Greenbrier, 8, 81, 111
Greenbush, 106
Green Harbor, 2, 3, 7, 10, 12
Grimes, C. S., 165, 173, 178
Grosbeak, 194
Guadeloupe, 119
Gulf Stream, 64
Gulistan, 188
Gull, 56
-- herring, 129, 130
Gurnet, 136, 145, 147
H
Habenaria fimbriata, 36
-- psycodes, 35, 38
Hard-hack, 153
Harold, 94
Harraden, Jonathan, 156, 157
Hastings, 94
Hathorn, Judge, 150
Hawk, fish, 131
Hawk, night, 210
Hawthorn, 142
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 98, 102, 149, 150, 151, 160, 162
Haystack mountain, 164, 165, 172, 182
Hedge-hyssop, 68, 70
Hemlock, 16, 21, 172, 201
Hepatica, 95
Heron, great blue, 57
-- little green, 71
Herring, 128, 130
Hesperiidæ, 144
Hildreth, Richard, 124
Holly berries, 127
Hollyhock, 19
“Home Sweet Home,” 117
Homer, 138
Hoosac Tunnel, 181
Huckleberry, 4, 50, 88, 128
-- low-bush, black, 46
Hunter’s butterfly, 56, 144
Hyla, 52, 209
I
Immortelles, 192
Indians, 32, 85
Indian pipe, 42
Ireland, 119
Isles of Shoals, 44, 49
Ivy, 107
-- poison, 110
J
Jamshid, 188
Jay, 126, 200
-- blue, 205
Jewel Weed, 22
Job’s Hill, 23, 24
Jones, Paul, 155
Joppa, 125
-- flats, 122
Juniper, 25, 69
K
Kathan farm, 177
Kelp, 55, 57
Kenoza lake, 24
Khan, Genghis, 188
Kingbird, 56
Kingfisher, 69, 70, 71
L
Ladies’ Tresses, 86
Launcelot, 144
“Legend of Ara-Cœli,” 34
Lichen, 9, 108, 184, 185
-- reindeer, 10
Lilac, 17, 29, 186, 187, 188, 189
Liliputian, 85
Lily, pond, 32, 42
-- water, 82
Lincoln, 63
Liverpool packet, 120
London pride, 19
Long Point, 75, 76, 77
Lotos, 101
Love-in-a-mist, 44
Lycæna pseudargiolus, 144
M
Madeira, 119
Magnolia, 162
Maidenhair fern, 95
Manomet, 136, 143, 145, 147
-- head, 135
-- heights, 146
Maple, 21, 68, 128, 140, 164, 165, 171
-- sap, 179
-- sugar, 164, 171, 180, 182
Marigold, 44
-- marsh, 142
Marjoram, 19
Marshfield, 1, 3, 6, 14
Maryland yellow-throat, 52, 201, 202, 204
Massachusetts bay, 105
Mayflower, the, 10, 76, 94, 95, 105, 135, 136, 142, 147
Mayflower, 139, 141, 142, 143, 146, 147
Meadow Sweet, 67
Memorial Day, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 192, 195
Merrimac, 15, 20, 27
Miantowonah, 32, 42
Mica, 49
Milkweed, 37, 39, 40, 41
Mint, wild, 20
Minute Man, 91, 92, 93, 99
Mirror, New York, 105
Mogg Megone, 16
Monarch butterfly, 39, 56
Monotropa uniflora, 42
Morning glory, 49
Mourning cloak butterfly, 143, 146
Mourning dove, 13
Mussels, 54
N
Naples, 145
Naples, bay of, 145
Newbury, 118
Newburyport, 118, 119, 121, 123, 125, 129
Nuthatch, white-breasted, 171
O
Oak, 68, 140
Oak, red, 21, 99
-- white, 21
Octavia, Miss, 132
Odysseus, 160
Odyssey, 160
Old Curiosity Shop, 123
“Old Oaken Bucket, The,” 104, 114, 117
Omar, 188
Orchid, 38
-- larger, fringed, 36
-- small purple-fringed, 36
Oriole, 162
Oven-bird, 203, 204, 205
Owl, 200
P
Papilio turnus, 38
Parsnip, wild, 49
Parula, 200, 202
Paugus, 203
Peabody, 150
Peabody Academy of Science, 161
“Peabody Bird,” 199
Peabody, Joseph, 158
Peaked Hill Bar, 87
Peregrine, 3
Persepolis, 187
Persia, 187, 188
“Pickles for the Knowing Ones,” 123
Pierpont, John, 123, 124, 132
Pilgrim, 37, 75, 77, 82, 87, 89, 105, 137, 142, 144, 146, 147
-- cemetery, 3, 6, 12
-- children, 1, 141
-- descendants, 3
-- mothers, 78
-- scouts, 80
-- shrines, 78
-- warriors, 81
Pine, 16, 21, 68, 129, 191
-- pitch, 85
Pink, 44
-- clove, 34
Pipsissewa, 42
Plantain, 51
Plum, beach, 81, 88, 128
Plum Island, 132, 133
Plymouth, 2, 94, 135, 138, 142, 143
-- bay, 10, 145
-- colony, 105, 137
Plymouth rock, 105
Ponkapoag, 31, 33, 34, 35
-- brook, 35
-- pond, 31, 32, 42
Poplar, silver-leafed, 88
Poppies, 19, 44, 58
-- shirley, 49
Port au Prince, 119
Port Hudson, 193
Potentilla, 152, 153
Provincetown, 76, 77, 80, 87, 136
“Prynne, Hester,” 160
Puritan, 89, 154
Pyrameis huntera, 144
Pyrola, 42, 140
Q
Quail, 13
Quartz, 49
Queenstown, 120
R
Race Point, 75, 76, 78, 80
Rajah (ship), 150
Raspberry, 46
Revolution, the, 186, 189
Robin, 2, 3, 55, 127, 139, 193, 194
Rock weed, 53, 54, 57
Rose, damask, 34
-- wild, 9, 11, 24, 25, 26, 50, 58, 81, 113, 187
Royal Society, philosophical transactions of, 166
Rubaiyat, 188
Rudbeckias, 23
Rush, bog, 51
S
Sadi, 188
Sagittaria, 36
Sahara, 82
Salem, 148, 149, 150, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 166
Sandpipers, 56, 70
Sandwich Range, 204
Sandy Hook, 120
Sassafras, 9, 69
Saxifraga virginiensis, 143
Saxifrage, 43, 191, 192
Scarlet Letter, 122, 149, 161
Senegambia, 148
Shadbush, 46, 50
Sinbad the Sailor, 136
Skylark, 2
Sleepy Hollow, 99
Smelt, 128, 130
Smilacina, 186, 189, 190, 192
Smilax, 111, 190
-- rotundifolia, 81
-- wild, 81
Smith, Capt. John, 33, 76
Snake, green, 52
Snipe, Wilson’s, 141
Sparrow, song, 52, 55, 140, 169, 203, 206
-- white-throated, 199, 211
Spiranthes, gracilis, 86
Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 124, 129
Spruce, 172
Standish, Myles, 78, 85, 89
Steeplebush, 24, 25
Stevenson, 161
St. John’s-wort, 47, 58
St. Martins, 119
Strawberry, 4
-- wild, 152
Sudbury, 101
Sumac, 9, 27, 50, 58
-- staghorn, 8, 26, 46
Surinam, 119, 148
Swallow, 7
-- barn, 5, 6, 53
-- tree, 53, 54
Sweet-fern, 25, 81
Sweet william, 19
T
Tambourine bird, 23
Tamerlane, 188
Tanager, 194
Thaxter, Celia, 49
-- --, garden of, 44, 58
-- --, grave of, 58