No bird is so welcome to a mid-day camp as the white-eyed vireo, and we were fortunate in having one with us while we tarried at the spring. Not even ninety degrees in the shade has any effect upon him, and this unflagging energy reacts upon the listener. We could at least be so far alive as to give him our attention. Mid-day heat, however, does affect many a song-bird, and now that nesting is well-nigh over, the open woods are deserted for hidden cool retreats, where the songster takes its ease, as we, far from town, are taking ours. There is much in common between birds and men. How, as we lingered over our glasses, counting the lemon-seeds embedded in sugar, we would have enjoyed a wood-thrush’s splendid song or a rose-breasted grosbeak’s matchless melody! but the _to-whee_ of the pipilo scratching among dead leaves, the plaint of an inquisitive cat-bird threading the briers, the whir of a humming-bird vainly seeking flowers,—these did not pass for nothing; and yet there was comparative silence that suggested a sleeping rather than a wakeful, active world. Here let me give him who loves an outing a useful hint: be not so anxious for what may be that you overlook that which is spread before you. More than once to-day our discussion of the “silence” of a midsummer noontide drowned the voices of singing-birds near by. How often it has been intimated to us that "two’s company and three’s a crowd"! but to really see and hear what transpires in the haunts of wild life, _one_ is company and _two’s_ a crowd. We cannot heed Nature and fellow-man at the same moment; and as to the comparative value of their communications, each must judge for himself. Certainly the human voice is a sound which animals are slow to appreciate. How often have I stood in silence before birds and small animals and they have shown no fear! A movement of my arms would put them on guard, perhaps; but a word spoken, and away they sped. Not a bird, I have noticed, is startled by the bellow of a bull or the neigh of a horse, and yet my own voice filled them with fear. Even snakes that knew me well and paid no attention to my movements were startled at words loudly spoken. It is a bit humiliating to think that in the estimation of many a wild animal our bark is worse than our bite.