IN THE MOUNT LAFAYETTE FOREST 59 



trees, thrown there in heaps by the road-makers. 

 They form an unsightly hedge, which birds of 

 various kinds resort to for cover. At this minute 

 two winter wrens, pert-looking, bob-tailed things, 

 scold at me out of it. My passing is a trespass, 

 they consider, and they tell me so with emphasis. 

 For the sake of stirring them up to protest even 

 more vigorously (such an eloquent gesticulatory 

 manner as they have), I stand stiU and squeak 

 to them. Few birds can be quiet under such in- 

 sults ; and the winter wren is not one of them. 

 There is nothing phlegmatic about his disposi- 

 tion. He is like some beings of a higher class : 

 it takes very little to set him in a flutter. So I 

 squeak and squeak, and the pair ■^cif erate tut, 

 tut, till I have had enough and go on my way 

 laughing. Touchy people were made for teasing. 



I have hardly started before a hairy wood- 

 pecker's sharp signal is heard, and within a min- 

 ute a sapsucker on the opposite side of the way 

 utters a snarling note, which by a slight effort 

 of the imagination might be taken for the voice 

 of an angry cat. To my ear it is not in the 

 smallest degree woodpeckerish. I see the bird a 

 moment later as he flies across the road. 



In a mountain-side forest like this, near the 

 mountain's foot, the traveler, if he is not climb- 

 ing the slope but crossing it transversely, is cer- 



