Here
in hollow log the black she-bear gives birth to her loutish cubs,
training them to climb over the decaying trunks; here the lynx and red
couguar choose their cunning convert; here the racoon rambles over his
beaten track; the sly opossum crawls warily along the log, or goes to
sleep among the tangle of dry rhizomes; while the gaunt brown wolf may
be often heard howling amidst the ruin, or in hoarse bark baying the
midnight moon.

In a few years, however, this sombre scene assumes a more cheerful
aspect. An under-growth springs up, that soon conceals the skeletons of
the dead trees: plants and shrubs appear--often of different genera and
species from those that hitherto usurped the soil--and the ruin is no
longer apparent. The mournful picture gives place to one of luxuriant
sweetness: the more brilliant sheen of the young trees and shrubs, now
covering the ground, and contrasting agreeably with the sombre hues of
the surrounding forest. No longer reigns that melancholy silence that,
for a while, held dominion over the scene. If, at intervals, be heard
the wild scream of the couguar, or the distant howling of wolves, these
scarcely interrupt the music falling endlessly upon the ear--the red
cardinals, the orioles, the warbling _fringillidae_, and the polyglot
thrushes--who meet here, as if by agreement, to make this lovely sylvan
spot the scene of their forest concerts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shortly after leaving the cabin of this young backwoodsman, my path,
hitherto passing under the gloomy shadows of the forest, debouched upon
just such a scene. I had been warned of its proximity. My host, at
parting, had given me directions as to how I should find my way across
the _herrikin_--through which ran the trace that conducted to the
clearing of the squatter, some two miles further down the creek. I was
prepared to behold a tract of timber laid prostrate by the storm--the
trees all lying in one direction, and exhibiting the usual scathed and
dreary aspect. Instead of this, on emerging from the dark forest, I was
agreeably surprised by a glorious landscape that burst upon my view.

It was, as already stated, that season of the year when the American
woods array themselves in their most attractive robes--when the very
leaves appear as if they were flowers, so varied and brilliant are their
hues--when the foliage of the young beeches becomes a pale yellow, and