They
did not go into society in the village; they were quite well; they had
sons and daughters; they neither wove nor spun; there was a sound as
of suppressed hilarity.
I take it for granted that the forester was only saying a pretty thing
of the birds, though I have observed that it does sometimes annoy them
when Spaulding's cart rumbles through their house. Generally, however,
they are as unconscious of Spaulding as Spaulding is of them.
Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood, I counted over forty
varieties of these summer visitants, many of the common to other woods
in the vicinity, but quite a number peculiar to these ancient
solitudes, and not a few that are rare in any locality. It is quite
unusual to find so large a number abiding in one forest,--and that not
a large one,--most of them nesting and spending the summer there. Many
of those I observed commonly pass this season much farther north. But
the geographical distribution of birds is rather a climatical one. The
same temperature, though under different parallels, usually attracts
the same birds; difference in altitude being equivalent to the
difference in latitude.
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