40 NOETH CAROLINA 



a long, unhurried day in those romantic 

 mountain roads, with a bird singing from 

 every bush, and new and lovely flowers in- 

 viting his hand at every turn ? With fair 

 weather and in a fair country, walking is its 

 own reward. 



To put the town behind me was the work 

 of a few minutes. After that my way ran 

 through the woods, although for the first 

 half of the distance, at least, there was never 

 more than a mile or two without a clearing 

 and a house. This part of the road grew 

 familiar to me afterward, I traveled it so 

 often ; and now, as I take it once more in 

 my mind, I can see it in all its windings. 

 Here, as the land begins to decline from the 

 plateau, or mountain shoulder, on which the 

 village nestles, stands a line of towering con- 

 ical hemlocks, a hundred and fifty feet 

 tall, at a moderate guess. Out of them came 

 the nasal, high-pitched, highly characteristic 

 ank, ank, ank of my first Canadian nuthatch, 

 my first one in North Carolina, I mean. 

 That, by the bye, was on this very trip to 

 Turtlepond. I had been on the watch for 

 him, and put him into my bird list with pe- 

 culiar satisfaction. He was like a fellow 



