points by carriage-roads, and threaded in all directions by paths and
byways, along which soldiers, laborers, and truant school-boys are
passing at all hours of the day. It is so far escaping from the axe
and the bush-hook as to have opened communication with the forest and
mountain beyond by straggling lines of cedar, laurel, and blackberry.
The ground is mainly occupied with cedar and chestnut, with an
undergrowth, in many place, of heath and bramble. The chief feature,
however, is a dense growth in the centre, consisting of dogwood,
water-beech, swamp-ash, alder, spice-bush, hazel, etc., with a network
of smilax and frost-grape. A little zigzag stream, the draining of a
swam beyond, which passes through this tanglewood, accounts for many
of its features and productions, if not for its entire existence.
Birds that are not attracted by the heath, or the cedar and chestnut,
are sure to find some excuse for visiting this miscellaneous growth in
the centre. Most of the common birds literally throng in this
idle-wild; and I have met here many of the rarer species, such as the
great-crested flycatcher, the solitary warbler, the blue-winged swamp
warbler, the worm-eating warbler, the fox sparrow, etc. The absence of
all birds of prey, and the great number of flies and insects, both the
result of the proximity to the village, are considerations which ho
hawk-fearing, peace-loving minstrel passes over lightly; hence the
popularity of the resort.

But the crowning glory of all these robins, flycatchers, and warblers
is the wood thrush. More abundant than all other birds, except the
robin and catbird, he greets you from every rock and shrub. Shy and
reserved when he first makes his appearance in May, before the end of
June he is tame and familiar, and sings on the tree over your head, or
on the rock a few paces in advance. A pair even built their nest and
reared their brood within ten or twelve feet of the piazza of a large