A LONELY LAKE . 
39 
“lines” of migration along which bands of 
spring and autumn birds seem by instinct to 
take their way year by year. On this “line,” 
above the lake shore, I met my first and only 
Philadelphia vireo, one of the rarest of our 
migrants. 
The vegetation of the lake shore has a great 
deal to do with its power to attract animal and 
bird life. I know of some woods which are for¬ 
ever silent to bird voices, and in which the snows 
of winter seem untrodden by any foot save mine. 
The lake was once in the heart of a white pine 
forest. Scores of huge stumps show where the 
giant trees lived until a tornado overturned 
them. Now the canoe birch is the prevailing 
tree, and few creations of the New England soil 
can rival it in grace, beauty, and useful quali¬ 
ties. The forest’s carpet of gray and green 
mosses, wintergreen, checkerberry, linnsea, 
dwarf cornel, asters and goldenrod, ferns and 
brakes, is strangely lacking in one flower gen¬ 
erally common to the region. I have searched 
for half a mile in every direction from the pond 
and failed to find more than one root of the may- 
flower. That root, with its three or four clusters 
of flowers, is well hidden in a deeply shaded and 
poorly watered spot, where its future is threat¬ 
ened by a lack of all the elements which make 
plant life prosperous. Near this solitary root 
