Such a credulous enjoyer of beauty I knew of, a few years ago, a summer dweller at a mountain hotel closely shut in by the forest on all sides, with no grass near it except a scanty plot of shaven lawn. Well, this good lady, an honest appreciator of things wild, after the Whitman manner, being in the company of a man known to be interested in matters ornithological, broke out upon him,-- “Oh, Mr. ----, I do so enjoy the birds! I sit at my window and listen to the meadow larks by the hour.” The gentleman was not adroit (I am not speaking of myself, let me say). Perhaps he was more ornithologist than man of the world. Such a thing may happen. At any rate he failed to command himself. “Meadow larks!” he answered, knowing there was no bird of that kind within ten miles of the spot in question. “Well,” said his fair interlocutor, “they are either meadow larks or song sparrows.” Such nature lovers, I say, may properly enough come to the mountains in August. As for bird students, who, not being poets, are in no danger of knowing “too much,” if they can come but once a year, let them by all means choose a birdier season. For myself, though my present mood was rather Whitmanian than scientific, I did devote one forenoon to what might be called an ornithological errand: I went up to the worn-out fields at the end of the Coal Hill road, to see whether by any chance a pair of horned larks might be summering there, as I had heard of a pair’s doing eight or ten years ago. Even this jaunt, however, ran into--I will not say degenerated into--something like a berry-picking excursion. Raspberries and blueberries so thick as to color the roadside, mile after mile, are a delightful temptation to a natural man whose home is in a closely settled district where every edible berry that turns red (actual ripeness being out of the question) finds a small boy beside the bush ready to pick it. I succumbed at once. In fact, I succumbed too soon. The road was long, and the berries grew fatter and riper, or so I thought, as I proceeded. It was a real tragedy. Does anything in my reader’s experience tell him what I mean? If so, I am sure of his sympathy. If not,--well, in that case he has my sympathy. Perhaps he has once in his life seen a small boy who, at table, not suspecting what was in store for him, ate so much of an ordinary dinner that out of sheer physical necessity he was compelled to forego his favorite dessert. Alas, and alas! A wasted appetite is like wasted time, a loss irreparable. You may have another, no doubt, on another day, but never the one you sated upon inferior fruit.