The Best Place of All. 7 



the pond grow some pale green orchids which happily the 

 High School students have not yet found. Here in these 

 wild grape vines and hemlocks five disconsolate Robins spend 

 the winter. Down on the point we watched a Redstart 

 build her nest in a young maple, but alas! 'Satan came also,' 

 for one day beside the two tiny white eggs — one broken — 

 lay a larger one. 



A Cardinal — rare at any time — regarded us doubtfully one 

 winter day from that tree yonder, while at this bend in the 

 path we have seen more warblers than in any other one 

 place. The bird-books told us of the sh\'ness of the Black- 

 burning Warbler, how he invariably chose to disport himself 

 in the tops of high trees where one must view him with 

 strained eyes and aching neck if at all. In company with 

 Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Parulas, Myrtle, 

 Chestnut- sided, and Ba}'- breasted Warblers, they flitted 

 about close to the ground not more than ten feet away. 

 Some girls came laughing and chattering up the path and in 

 a few moments the brilliant company had quite vanished. 



Instead of descending this steep bank and crossing the 

 spring that runs into the pond and harbors the earliest 

 water- cress, let us go around on the right. The bank in 

 May is purple with violets which grow among clumps of 

 Christmas fern. At the left we watched a pair of Chickadees 

 excavate a nest in a small stump about eight feet from the 

 pathway, where they reared a family of seven and, although 

 they were in plain sight and made no secret of their domes- 

 tic affairs so far as we could see, I never knew of any but 

 the initiated who were aware of it, and believe no harm ever 

 c ime to them while there. 



In this same place a Fox Sparrow, in company with a 

 Winter Wren, loved to scratch in the dry leaves, and we 

 often watched him before he went on his northward journey. 

 One April morning before he left he sang an exquisite song, 

 — the very spirit of the woods. 



The pond is artificial, but not obtrusively so, since im- 

 mense willows erow on the dam. And now we take the 



