48 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



Passing through a beechwood, we heard a sharp 

 call, and saw a black-and-white bird back down a 

 tree. This cautious procedure stamped him as the 

 downy woodpecker. Of all the tree-climbers only the 

 woodpeckers back down. 



Strangely enough, a short distance farther on we 

 heard another cry like that of the downy wood- 

 pecker, only harsher and wilder, and caught a glimpse 

 of the hairy woodpecker, the big brother of the 

 downy, a rarer, larger bird of the deep woods. That 

 ended our bird list — a paltry seven when we should 

 have had a score. 



We passed the swamp meadow close to the road, 

 where the blue, blind gentian grows not twenty-five 

 yards from the unseeing eyes of the travelers, who 

 pass there every October day and never suspect what 

 a miracle of color lies hidden in the tangle of marsh- 

 grass beside their path. The Botanist with many 

 misgivings had shown me the secret. For three years 

 we had tramped together before he held me to be 

 worthy to share it. 



Farther on we crossed a plateau where a series of 

 stumps showed where a grove of chestnut trees had 

 grown in the days before the Blight. Suddenly 

 from under our very feet dashed a brown rabbit, 

 his white powder-puff gleaming at every jump. 

 The lithe, lean, springing body seemed the very em- 

 bodiment of speed. There are few animals that can 

 pass a rabbit in a hundred yards, even our cotton- 

 tail, the slowest of his family. He is, however, only 

 a sprinter. In a long-distance event the fox, the dog, 



