In Deep, Dark Woods. 253 



is fully grown, fairly glitters with stars that 

 may be seen half a mile away. The pink azalea, 

 when seen against a background of dark mosses, 

 stands out so boldly that not the deepest shadows 

 of densest forest growth obscures their outline, 

 and what jolly sport to trace a grape-vine from 

 its anchorage to the airy terminations in some 

 distant tree-top ! It is not well to give the 

 measurements that I have recorded in note- 

 books. Let him who is curious solve the prob- 

 lem of a grape-vine's whereabouts when lost 

 among the branches of old trees, and determine, 

 too, the length of the vine as it twists and turns 

 and returns, and shoots upward again. This 

 following of a long serpent-like growth leads to 

 curious places and unsuspected conditions, and 

 the truth is brought to us that trees are some- 

 thing more than trunk and branches. If it is 

 in early summer, the chances are that you will 

 be led to some cunningly concealed nest of a 

 vireo, and it was while tracing a grape-vine 

 that I found my first nest of a blue-gray 

 gnatcatcher a rare find here high up in a 

 tulip-tree. Before I saw the nest I had neither 

 seen nor heard the birds, although passing near 



