It is best to go alone, in a small boat, carrying a few feet of rope attached to a heavy stone, so that the boat may be anchored in any desirable spot. You should sit facing the bow, and guide the boat with a paddle, or a pair of oars in front of you, and let the current carry you along.
The journey commences several miles up in the woods, where the banks are only a few feet apart. The boat is piloted cautiously through the deep forest, among the ancient logs that clog the current. The patriarchs have fallen in bygone years, and are slowly moldering away into the limpid waters that once reflected them in their stately Indian summer robes of red and gold.
Masses of water-soaked brush must be encountered, and sunken snags avoided. Fringes of small turtles, on decayed and broken branches, protruding from the water, and on the recumbent trunks, splash noisily into the depths below--a wood duck glides away downstream--a muskrat, that has been investigating a deep pool near the bank, beats a hasty retreat, and a few scolding chipmunks flip their tails saucily, and whisk out of sight. A gray squirrel barks defiantly from the branch of an over-hanging tree, and an excited kingfisher circles around, loudly protesting against the invasion of his hunting grounds.
All of the wild things resent intrusion into their solitudes, and disappear, when there is any movement. If we would know them and learn their ways, we must sit silently and wait for them to come around us. We may go into the woods and sit upon a log or stump, without seeing the slightest sign of life, and apparently none exists in the vicinity, but many pairs of sharp eyes have observed our coming long before we could see them.
After a period of silence the small life will again become active, and in the course of an afternoon, if we are cautious as well as observant, we will find that we have seen and heard a great deal that is of absorbing interest.
Larger openings begin to appear among the trees, the sunlit spaces become broader, and patches of distant sky come into the picture. There are fewer obstructions in the course, and the little boat floats out into comparatively open country. Tall graceful elms, with the delicate lacery of their green-clad branches etched against the clouds, a few groups of silvery poplars, some straggling sycamores, and bunches of gnarled stubby willows line the margins of the stream, and detached masses of them appear out on the boggy land.