One of the prettiest memory-pictures of my delightful June on the banks of the Black River is the nest of a scarlet tanager, placed as the keystone of one of Nature’s exquisite living arches. The path which led to it was almost as charming as the nest itself. Lifting a low-hanging branch of maple at the entrance to the woods, we took leave of the world and all its affairs, and stepped at once into a secluded path. Though so near the house, the woods were solitary, for they were private and very carefully protected. Passing up the rustic foot-path, under interlacing boughs of maple and beech, we came at length to a sunny open spot, where all winter grain is kept for partridges, squirrels, and other pensioners who may choose to come. From this little opening one road turned to the wild-berry field, where lived the cuckoo and the warblers; another opened an inviting way into the deep woods; a third went through the fernery. We took that, and passed on through a second lovely bit of wood, where the ground was wet, and ferns of many kinds grew luxuriantly, and the walk was mostly over a dainty corduroy of minute moss-covered logs.

At the end of the fernery are two ways. The first runs along the edge of the forest, whose outlying saplings hang over and make a cool covered walk. Down this path I almost had an adventure one day. The morning was warm and I was alone. As I came out of this covered passage, beside an old stump, I noticed in a depression in the ground at my feet a squirming mass of fur. On looking closer I saw four or five little beasts rolling and scrambling over each other. They were as big, perhaps, as a month-old kitten, but they were a good deal more knowing than pussy’s babies, for as I drew near they stopped their play and waited to see what would happen. I looked at them with eager interest. They were really beautiful; black and white in stripes, with long bushy tails. Black and white, and so self-possessed! a thought struck me. “Mephitis,” I gasped, and instantly put several feet more between us. So attractive and playful were they, however, that notwithstanding I feared it might be hard to convince their mamma, should she appear, of my amiable intentions, I could not resist another look. Calm as a summer morning walked off one of the mephitis babies, holding his pretty tail straight up like a kitten’s, while the other four went on with their frolic in the grass. At this moment I heard a rustle in the dead leaves, and having no desire to meet their grown-up relatives, I left in so great haste that I took the wrong path, and finally lost myself for a time in a tangle of wild raspberry bushes, whose long arms reached out on every side to scratch the face and hands or catch the dress of the unwary passer-by.

The other of the two ways spoken of was a road, soft-carpeted with dead leaves. To reach the tanager’s nest we took that, and came, a little further on, to a big log half covered with growing fungi and laid squarely across the passage. This was the fungus log, another landmark for the wanderer unfamiliar with these winding ways. On this, if I were alone, I always rested awhile to get completely into the woods spirit, for this is the heart of the woods, with nothing to be seen on any side but trees. Cheerful, pleasant woods they are, of sunny beech, birch, maple, and butternut, with branches high above our heads, and a far outlook under the trees in every direction. There is no gloom such as evergreens make; no barricade of dark impenetrable foliage, behind which might lurk anything one chose to imagine, from a grizzly bear to an equally unwelcome tramp.

In this lovely spot come together four roads and a path, and to the pilgrim from cities they seem like paths into paradise. That on the right leads by a roundabout way to the “corner,” where one may see the sunset. The next, straight in front, is the passage to the nest of the winter wren. The far left invites one to a wild tangle of fallen trees and undergrowth, where veeries sing, and enchanting but maddening warblers lure the bird-lover on, to scramble over logs, wade into swamps, push through chaotic masses of branches, and, while using both hands to make her way, incidentally offer herself a victim to the thirsty inhabitants whose stronghold it is. All this in a vain search for some atom of a bird that doubtless sits through the whole, calmly perched on the topmost twig of the tallest tree, shielded by a leaf, and pours out the tantalizing trill that draws one like a magnet.

Between this road and the wren’s highway a path runs upward. It is narrow, and guarded at the opening by a mossy log to be stepped over, but it is most alluring. Up that route we go. On the left as we pass we notice two beautiful nests in saplings, so low that we can look in; redstarts both, and nearly always we find madam at home. We pass on, step over a second mossy log, pause a moment to glance at a vireo’s hanging cradle on the right, and arrive at length at a crossing road, on the other side of which our path goes on, with a pile of logs like a stile to go over. Over the logs we step, walk a rod or two further, stop beside the blackened trunk of a fallen tree, turn our faces to the left, and behold the nest.

Before us is one of nature’s arches. A maple sapling, perhaps fifteen feet high, has in some way been bowed till its top touched the ground and became fastened there, a thing often seen in these woods. Thus diverted from its original destiny of growing into a tree, it has kept its “sweetness and light,” sent out leaves and twigs through all its length, and become one of the most beautiful things in the woods a living arch. Just in the middle of this exquisite bow, five feet above the ground, is the tanager’s nest, well shielded by leaves. We never should have found it if the little fellow in scarlet had not made so much objection to our going up this particular passage that we suspected him of having a secret in this quarter. He went ahead of us from tree to tree, keeping an eye on us, and calling, warily, “chip-chur!” When we sat down a few moments to see what all the fuss was about, we saw his spouse in her modest dress of olive green on a low branch. She, too, uttered the cry “chip-chur!” and seemed disturbed by our call. Looking around for the object of their solicitude, our eyes fell at the same instant on the nest. We dared not speak, but an ecstatic glance from my comrade, with a hand laid on her heart to indicate her emotions, announced that our hopes were fulfilled; it was the nest we were seeking.

The birds, seeing that we meant to stay, flew away after a while, and we hastened to secrete ourselves before they should return, by placing our camp-stools in a thick growth of saplings just higher than our heads. We crowned ourselves with fresh leaves, not as conquerors, though such we felt ourselves, but as a disguise to hide our heads. We daubed our faces here and there with an odorous (not to say odious) preparation warranted to discourage too great familiarity on the part of the residents already established in that spot. We subsided into silence.

The birds returned, but were still wary. As before, the male perched high and kept a sharp eye out on the country around, and I have no doubt soon espied us in our retreat. Madam again tried to “screw her courage up” to visit that nest. Nearer and nearer she came, pausing at every step, looking around and calling to her mate to make sure he was near. At last, just as she seemed about to take the last step and go in, and we were waiting breathless for her to do it, a terrific sound broke the silence. The big dog, protector and constant companion of my fellow-student, overcome by the torment of mosquitoes, and having no curiosity about tanagers to make him endure them, had yielded to his emotions and sneezed. Away went the tanager family, and, laughing at the absurd accident, away we went too, happy at having discovered the nest, and planning to come the next day. We came next day, and many days thereafter, but never again did we see the birds near. They abandoned the nest, doubtless feeling that they had been driven away by a convulsion of nature.

One day, somewhat later, in the winter wren’s quarter, where there were pools left by a heavy rain, we met them again. Madam was bathing, and her husband accompanied her as guard and protector. They flew away together. All of June we heard him sing, and we often followed him, but never again did we surprise a secret of his, till the very last day of the month. We had been making a visit to our veery nests, and on our way back noticed that the tanager was more than usually interested in our doings. He seemed very busy too, with the air of a person of family. While we were watching to see what it meant, he caught a flying insect and held it in his mouth. Then we knew he had little folk to feed, so we seated ourselves on the fungus log, and waited for him to point one out. He did. He could not resist giving that delicate morsel to his first-born. With many wary approaches, he dropped at last into the scanty undergrowth, and there, a foot above the ground, we saw the young tanager. He was a little dumpling of a fellow, with no hint in his baby-suit of the glory that shall clothe him by and by. But where was the mother? and where had they nested? But for that untimely sneeze, as I shall always believe, they would have made their home in that beautiful nest on the arch, and we should have been there to see.