IN THE HEMLOCKS. 63 



like true hunters, for the game to come along. 

 There is often a very audible snap of the beak as 

 they seize their prey. 



The wood-pewee, the prevailing species in this lo- 

 cality, arrests your attention by his sweet, pathetic 

 cry. There is room for it also in the deep woods, as 

 well as for the more prolonged and elevated strains. 



Its relative, the phosbe-bird, builds an exquisite 

 uest of moss on the side of some shelving cliff or 

 overhanging rock. The other day, passing by a 

 ledge near the top of a mountain in a singularly des- 

 olate locality, my eye rested upon one of these struct- 

 ures, looking precisely as if it grew there, so in 

 keeping was it with the mossy character of the rock, 

 and I have had a growing affection for the bird ever 

 since. The rock seemed to love the nest and to 

 claim it as its own. I said, what a lesson in archi- 

 tecture is here ! Here is a house that was built, but 

 with such loving care and such beautiful adaptation 

 of the means to the end, that it looks like a product 

 of nature. The same wise economy is noticeable in 

 the nests of all birds. No bird would paint its 

 house white or red, or add aught for show. 



At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of 

 the woods, I come suddenly upon a brood of screech- 

 owls, full grown, sitting together upon a dry, moss- 

 draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I 

 pause within four or five yards of them and am look- 

 ing about me, when my eye alights upon these gray, 

 motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, some 



