Away then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long. Away, from curtain, carpet, sofa, book--from "society"--from city house, street, and modern improvements and luxuries--away to the primitive winding, aforementioned wooded creek, with its untrimm'd bushes and turfy banks--away from ligatures, tight boots, buttons, and the whole cast-iron civilized life--from entourage of artificial store, machine, studio, office, parlor--from tailordom and fashion's clothes--from any clothes, perhaps, for the nonce, the summer heats advancing, there in those watery, shaded solitudes. Away, thou soul, (let me pick thee out singly, reader dear, and talk in perfect freedom, negligently, confidentially,) for one day and night at least, returning to the naked source-life of us all--to the breast of the great silent savage all-acceptive Mother. Alas! how many of us are so sodden--how many have wander'd so far away, that return is almost impossible. But to my jottings, taking them as they come, from the heap, without particular selection. There is little consecutiveness in dates. They run any time within nearly five or six years. Each was carelessly pencilled in the open air, at the time and place. The printers will learn this to some vexation perhaps, as much of their copy is from those hastily-written first notes. BIRDS MIGRATING AT MIDNIGHT Did you ever chance to hear the midnight flight of birds passing through the air and darkness overhead, in countless armies, changing their early or late summer habitat? It is something not to be forgotten. A friend called me up just after 12 last night to mark the peculiar noise of unusually immense flocks migrating north (rather late this year.) In the silence, shadow and delicious odor of the hour, (the natural perfume belonging to the night alone,) I thought it rare music. You could _hear_ the characteristic motion--once or twice "the rush of mighty wings," but often a velvety rustle, long drawn out--sometimes quite near--with continual calls and chirps, and some song-notes. It all lasted from 12 till after 3. Once in a while the species was plainly distinguishable; I could make out the bobolink, tanager, Wilson's thrush, white-crown'd sparrow, and occasionally from high in the air came the notes of the plover. BUMBLE-BEES