Jht anH out of tj)c ffiartoen. 255 



see the downy woodpecker's scarlet coronet, his 

 busy mallet beating its sonorous rat-tat-tat on 

 hollow trees. I catch, too, the fine call-note of 

 the little brown-creeper running up and down 

 and around the limbs and tree-trunks in quest of 

 his food, and hear the flute-like call of the tree- 

 sparrow feeding on the spicy buds of the sweet 

 birch. I mark the caressing " day, day, day " of 

 the black-cap chickadees, happy in the cold and 

 storm, while the solemn "yank, yank, yank" of 

 the nut-hatch is never still. Leaving the woods 

 proper on a windy winter's day, even a sheltered 

 beech-wood where the clinging foliage of the 

 beeches and hornbeams wards off the wind, there 

 is an ever-fresh surprise in the absolute absence 

 of wind and positive warmth of the swamp. 

 Green as in midsummer are its club-mosses and 

 evergreen ferns, and the goldthread, winter- 

 green, and partridge-vine seem merely hibernat- 

 ing beneath the snow. A temperature it pos- 

 sesses of its own cool in summer and warm in 

 winter and a flower I find cradled in its shade 

 always appears to have gained in purity or re- 

 finement of hue. 



Another shade-loving plant now passing out 

 of blossom is the white swamp honeysuckle 

 (Azalea viscosa), succeeding the pink A. nudi- 

 flora, whose fragrant flower-clusters, exhaling 



