dulum_ was especially plentiful), to say nothing of the true mosses
and the lichens.

Of all these things I should have seen more, no doubt, had not my head
been so much of the time in the tree-tops. For yonder were the birds;
and how could I be expected to notice what lay at my feet, while I was
watching intently for a glimpse of the warbler that flitted from twig to
twig amid the foliage of some beech or maple, the very lowest branch of
which, likely enough, was fifty or sixty feet above the ground. It was
in this way (so I choose to believe, at any rate) that I walked four or
five times directly over the acute-leaved hepatica before I finally
discovered it, notwithstanding it was one of the plants for which I had
all the while been on the lookout.

I said that the birds were in the tree-tops; but of course there were
exceptions. Here and there was a thrush, feeding on the ground; or an
oven-bird might be seen picking his devious way through the underwoods,
in paths of his own, and with a gait of studied and "sanctimonious"
originality. In the list of the lowly must be put the winter wrens also;
one need never look skyward for _them_. For a minute or two during my
first ascent of Owl's Head I had lively hopes of finding one of their
nests. Two or three of the birds were scolding earnestly right about my
feet, as it were, and their cries redoubled, or so I imagined, when I
approached a certain large, moss-grown stump. This I looked over
carefully on all sides, putting my fingers into every possible hole and
crevice, till it became evident that nothing was to be gained by further
search. (What a long chapter we could write, any of us who are
ornithologists, about the nests we did not find!) It dawned upon me a
little later that I had been fooled; that it was not the nest which had
been in question at all. That, wherever it was, had been forsaken some
days before; and the birds were parents and young, the former
distracting my attention by their outcries, while at the same moment
they were ordering the youngsters to make off as quickly as possible,
lest yonder hungry fiend should catch and devour them. If wrens ever
laugh, this pair must have done so that evening, as they recalled to
each other my eager fumbling of that innocent old stump. This opinion as
to the meaning of their conduct was confirmed in the course of a few
days, when I came upon another similar group. These were at first quite
unaware of my presence; an