188 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
to join legions already on the ground, waiting 
there the soft tyranny of the snow. 
In the midst of the beeches stood a lofty 
hemlock. The owner of this wood had chosen 
it for his castle. About thirty feet from the 
ground at a point where several limbs diverged 
from the main trunk a nest was securely fixed. 
Perhaps an inexperienced eye would have taken 
it for a bird’s nest. It may have been a bird’s 
nest originally. Now the mass of dead beech 
leaves heaped upon it and woven into its fabric, 
making it a conspicuous object from every point 
of view, proclaimed it to be the home of a gray 
squirrel. Winds may blow, and rain, hail, and 
snow fall, but that nest will rest secure against 
the hemlock’s trunk, under the thatched roof of 
hemlock branches. Early in September I found 
a new nest of this kind in a large beech-tree, 
and upon opening it made a discovery. The 
compressed green beech leaves gave out a strong, 
aromatic odor which I at once recognized as 
one of which I had often obtained whiffs in 
walking through the beech woods, but which I 
never had been able to assign to any flower or 
shrub. 
In the lulls between the wind’s gusts I could 
hear the tinkling of a brook at the bottom of 
the glen. Peering into the gloom below, where 
hemlock bushes overshadowed the stream’s bed, 
