On the shore of Hoosic-whissic Pond a wood thrush sits on her nest in a green-brier clump, within ten feet of noisy picnickers. Bravely she sits and shields her eggs, nor does she stir for all the riot about her. I poked my head within the tangle till my face was within two feet of her, and still she did not move. Her throat swelled a little, and a questioning look came into her eyes.
The wood thrush is a shy bird at ordinary times, but not when sitting on her nest. Then she seems to suddenly acquire a modest boldness that is as becoming as the gentle shyness of other times. We looked at one another in mutual friendliness. I noted the bright cinnamon brown of the head fading on the back to a soft olive brown, the whole having the smoothness and perfect fit of a lady’s glove. The white throat and some of the black markings on the white breast were visible above the rim of the nest, and her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful attitude of all birds on the nest. Brooding maternity has the same prayerful sweetness of attitude in the wood thrush that it has in the human mother. It always suggests white hands clasped and raised in prayer and thanksgiving.
While I watched the wood thrush, a quick gleam of gold and black caught my eye as it danced by in the sunshine outside the thicket. Here was a promise of summer, indeed, and I followed it on, leaving the brooding thrush to her happiness. It led across the open, sandy plain to the south, and into the deep wood beyond. On the way the cinquefoil and buttercups, the strawberry blossoms and the running blackberries were gay with fluttering little red butterflies, the coppers and the crescent spots, and whites and blues, a kaleidoscope of shifting colors, but it was not until I got into the deep golden shade of the dense wood that I saw the fulfilment of the promise.
Here in the glow of sunlight so strained and etherealized by passing through fluttering green that it was all one mist of color, a vivid heart of chrysoprase, I found the wood full of great yellow butterflies,
Her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful attitude of all birds on the nest
dozens of them dancing up and down in the soft radiance, and lighting to put gorgeous yellow blossoms on twigs that could never put forth such beauty again. Here was the summer, coming sedately through the gold-green spaces of the wood with scores of golden spirits dancing joyously about her. The “tiger swallowtail,” Papilio turnus, as the lepidopterists have named him, is the most beautiful of all our butterflies, painted in gold with black margins, and a single touch of scarlet cunningly applied to each wing. All the glow of summer seems to be concentrated in him, and his presence is the final test of hers.