Books by Mr. Torrey. BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25. A RAMBLER’S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25. THE FOOT-PATH WAY. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK. 16mo, $1.25. SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE. 16mo, $1.25. A WORLD OF GREEN HILLS. 16mo, $1.25. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. A WORLD OF GREEN HILLS OBSERVATIONS OF NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE IN THE BLUE RIDGE BY BRADFORD TORREY He joyes in groves, and makes himselfe full blythe With sundrie flowers, in wilde fieldes gatherèd. SPENSER. [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1898 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY BRADFORD TORREY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS PAGE NORTH CAROLINA. A DAY’S DRIVE IN THREE STATES 3 IN QUEST OF RAVENS 34 A MOUNTAIN POND 71 BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND PEOPLE 104 VIRGINIA. A NOOK IN THE ALLEGHANIES 145 AT NATURAL BRIDGE 208 INDEX 283 NORTH CAROLINA A WORLD OF GREEN HILLS A DAY’S DRIVE IN THREE STATES In a day and a night I had come from early May to middle June; from a world of bare boughs to a forest clad in all the verdure of summer. Such a shine as the big, lusty leaves of the black-jack oaks had put on! I could have raised a shout. In the day when “all the trees of the field shall clap their hands,” may I be somewhere in the black-jack’s neighborhood. Hour after hour we sped along, out of North Carolina into South Carolina: now through miles and miles of forest; now past a lonely cabin, with roses before the door, white honeysuckle covering the fence, and acres of sunny ploughed land on either side. Here a river ran between close green hills, and there the hills parted and disclosed the revolving horizon set with blue mountains. Then, at a little past noon, the porter appeared with his brush. “Seneca is next,” he said. I alighted in lonely state, was escorted to the hotel, did my best with a luncheon,--gleaned bit by bit out of an outlying wilderness of small dishes,--and at the earliest moment took my seat in a “buggy” beside a colored boy who was to drive me to Walhalla, nine miles away. At that point I was to be met, the next morning, by the carriage that should convey me into the mountains.