. Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist. ether ships come or go. There islittle bustle, even at its busiest points, and youhave but to go a little way from these to find assweet a country as any part of New England hasto offer. Passing up the river bank where themarsh grasses grow over the rotting stocks of theold shipyards, you find the hills coming down tomeet the marshes and mingling with them infriendly converse. The town drops behind you,and gentle hillocks offer kindly asylum on theplacid levels of the river bank, beauty spots full ofhalf-wild life. Here and there on these is an apple tre
. Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist. ether ships come or go. There islittle bustle, even at its busiest points, and youhave but to go a little way from these to find assweet a country as any part of New England hasto offer. Passing up the river bank where themarsh grasses grow over the rotting stocks of theold shipyards, you find the hills coming down tomeet the marshes and mingling with them infriendly converse. The town drops behind you,and gentle hillocks offer kindly asylum on theplacid levels of the river bank, beauty spots full ofhalf-wild life. Here and there on these is an apple tree that hasstrolled down from suburban orchards as if toview the beauty of the river, and liked the place sowell that it stayed, glad to escape the humdrum ofordered life, sending out wild shoots at will andproducing fruit that has a half-wild vigor offlavor that puts the orchard apples to shame fortheir insipidity. They riot in lawless growth,these runaway trees, and welcome their boon com-panions, crows and jays, spreading an autumnal. G bEoU H IN OLD NEWBURYPORT, 127 feast for their delectation and holding the frag-ments far into the winter that none may go awayfrom a visit hungry. The pasture cedars, thatlove the river air, but may not live on the marsh,have built seaside colonies on these hillocks andspread a feast of blue cedar berries for all passingflocks. Here the robins, now gathering for theirwinter flight south, flock and feed, holding theirground at the approach of man, crying Tut,tut! to his intrusion. With them are the cedarwax-wings, also very fond of the cedar berries,the soft gray-browns of the birds plumage blend-ing most pleasantly with the olive greens of thecedars. There is a dainty, sleek beauty about thisbird that harmonizes wonderfully well with thecedar trees which it frequents, and the little redsealing-wax tips on its wing feathers make onethink that the flock is bringing Christmas decora-tions of holly berries to each tree to deck it for theholiday s
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booki, booksubjectnaturalhistory
