54 WAKE-ROBIN 



males chasing each other with fearful speed through 

 the forest. 



Turning to the left from the old road, I wander 

 over soft logs and gray yielding de'bris, across the 

 little trout brook, until I emerge in the overgrown 

 Barkpeeling, pausing now and then on the way 

 to admire a small, solitary white flower which rises 

 above the moss, with radical, heart-shaped leaves, 

 and a blossom precisely like the liverwort except 

 in color, but which is not put down in my botany, 

 or to observe the ferns, of which I count six 

 varieties, some gigantic ones nearly shoulder-high. 



At the foot of a rough, scraggy yellow birch, on a 

 bank of club-moss, so richly inlaid with partridge- 

 berry and curious shining leaves with here and 

 there in the bordering a spire of the false winter- 

 green strung with faint pink flowers and exhaling 

 the breath of a May orchard that it looks too 

 costly a couch for such an idler, I recline to note 

 what transpires. The sun is just past the meridian, 

 and the afternoon chorus is not yet in full tune. 

 Most birds sing with the greatest spirit and vivacity 

 in the forenoon, though there are occasional bursts 

 later in the day in which nearly all voices join; 

 while it is not till the twilight that the full power 

 and solemnity of the thrush's hymn is felt. 



My attention is soon arrested by a pair of hum- 

 mingbirds, the ruby-throated, disporting themselves 

 in a low bush a few yards from me. The female 

 takes shelter amid the branches, and squeaks exult- 

 ingly as the male, circling above, dives down as if 



