140 ON THE BIRDS' HIGHWAY 



After going the round of " The 

 Alders," we took a stroll to the spring, 

 where a junco or two were greeted, and 

 then up the path that led to " The Big 

 Trees," two fathers of the forest, one still 

 standing and the other prone. That sun- 

 less path was the sanctum of the thrushes. 

 Hermits were all along the way and a big 

 wood or demure olive-back might chance 

 to peer at one from some great moss- 

 covered log. 



As we entered a blazed trail, perhaps 

 leading to Mountain Pond or Ragged 

 Lake, for a forenoon tramp, the stillness 

 of the forest was delicious. Beneath 

 those great trees, the pine, the hemlock, 

 the balsam, the yellow birch, the spruce, 

 moss-hung and stately, one was not alone. 

 There was the little downy and his big 

 cousin the hairy, within sight of the path 

 perhaps, or drumming in the distance. A 

 great crest might be heard calling his 

 dreamy exhaust whistle. Through what 

 a glory those paths led ! The hobble 

 bush, its red leaves and berries afire, stood 

 by the way. The fruit of the trillium, 

 bunchberry and jack-in-the-pulpit glowed 

 amongst the ground hemlock. The 



