The day was warm and calm, and we loafed at leisure.  The woods were Nature’s own.  It was a luxury to ramble through them,—­rank and shaggy and venerable, but with an aspect singularly ripe and mellow.  No fire had consumed and no lumberman plundered.  Every trunk and limb and leaf lay where it had fallen.  At every step the foot sank into the moss, which, like a soft green snow, covered everything, making every stone a cushion and every rock a bed,—­a grand old Norse parlor; adorned beyond art and upholstered beyond skill.

Indulging in a brief nap on a rug of club-moss carelessly dropped at the foot of a pine-tree, I woke up to find myself the subject of a discussion of a troop of chickadees.  Presently three or four shy wood warblers came to look upon this strange creature that had wandered into their haunts; else I passed quite unnoticed.

By the lake, I met that orchard beauty, the cedar waxwing, spending his vacation in the assumed character of a flycatcher, whose part he performed with great accuracy and deliberation.  Only a month before I had seen him regaling himself upon cherries in the garden and orchard; but as the dog-days approached he set out for the streams and lakes, to divert himself with the more exciting pursuits of the chase.  From the tops of the dead trees along the border of the lake, he would sally out in all directions, sweeping through long curves, alternately mounting and descending, now reaching up for a fly high in the air, now sinking low for one near the surface, and returning to his perch in a few moments for a fresh start.

The pine finch was also here, though, as usual never appearing at home, but with a waiting, expectant air.  Here also I met my beautiful singer, the hermit thrush, but with no song in his throat now.  A week or two later and he was on his journey southward.  This was the only species of thrush I saw in the Adirondacks.  Near Lake Sandford, where were large tracks of raspberry and wild cherry, I saw numbers of them.  A boy whom we met, driving home some stray cows, said it was the “partridge-bird,” no doubt from the resemblance of its note, when disturbed, to the cluck of the partridge.

Nate’s Pond contained perch and sunfish but no trout.  Its water was not pure enough for trout.  Was there ever any other fish so fastidious as this, requiring such sweet harmony and perfection of the elements for its production and sustenance?  On higher ground about a mile distant was a trout pond, the shores of which were steep and rocky.

Our next move was a tramp of about twelve miles through the wilderness, most of the way in a drenching rain, to a place called the Lower Iron Works, situated on the road leading in to Long Lake, which is about a day’s drive farther on.  We found a comfortable hotel here, and were glad enough to avail ourselves of the shelter and warmth which it offered.  There was a little settlement and some quite good farms.