WAKE-ROBIN

THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS

WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

This is mainly a book about the Birds, or more properly an invitationto the study of Ornithology, and the purpose of the author will becarried out in proportion as it awakens and stimulates the interest ofthe reader in this branch of Natural History. 

Though written less in the spirit of exact science than with thefreedom of love and old acquaintance, yet I have in no instance takenliberties with facts, or allowed my imagination to influence me to theextent of giving a false impression or a wrong coloring. I have reapedmy harvest more in the woods than in the study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful and conscientious record of actual observations andexperiences, and is true as it stands written, every word of it. Butwhat has interested me most in Ornithology is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery; that part of it which is akin to hunting, fishing, andwild sports, and which I could carry with me in my eye and earwherever I went. 

I cannot answer with much confidence the poet's inquiry, --

 "Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?"

but I have done what I could to bring home the "river and sky" withthe sparrow I heard "singing at dawn on the alder bough. " In otherwords, I have tried to present a live bird, --a bird in the woods orthe fields, --with the atmosphere and associations of the place, andnot merely a stuffed and labeled specimen. 

A more specific title for the volume would have suited me better; butnot being able to satisfy myself in this direction, I cast about for aword thoroughly in the atmosphere and spirit of the book, which I hopeI have found in "Wake-Robin, " the common name of the white Trillium, which blooms in all our woods, and which marks the arrival of all thebirds. 

 CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION TO RIVERSIDE EDITION I. THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS II. IN THE HEMLOCKS III. THE ADIRONDACKS IV. BIRDS'-NESTS V. SPRING AT THE CAPITAL VI. BIRCH BROWSINGS VII. THE BLUEBIRD VIII. THE INVITATION INDEX

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 JOHN BURROUGHS Etched by W. H. W. Bicknell, from a daguerreotype PARTRIDGE'S NEST From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason A CABIN IN THE ADIRONDACKS From a photograph by Clifton Johnson AMERICAN OSPREY, OR FISH HAWK (colored) From a drawing by L. A. Fuertes BIRD'S-FOOT VIOLETS From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason BLUEBIRD From a drawing by L. A. Fuertes

INTRODUCTION TO RIVERSIDE EDITION

In coming before the public with a newly made edition of my writings, what can I say to my reader at this stage of our acquaintance thatwill lead to a better understanding between us? Probably nothing. Weunderstand each other very well already. I have offered myself as hisguide to certain matters out of doors, and to a few matters indoor, and he has accepted me upon my own terms, and has, on the whole beenbetter pleased with me than I had any reason to expect. For this I amduly grateful; why say more? Yet now that I am upon my feet, so as tospeak, and palaver is the order, I will keep on a few minutes longer. 

It is now nearly a quarter of a century since my first book, "Wake-Robin, " was published. I have lived nearly as many years in theworld as I had lived when I wrote its principal chapters. Othervolumes have followed, and still others. When asked how many thereare, I often have to stop and count them up. I suppose the mother of alarge family does not have to count up her children to say how manythere are. She sees their faces all before her. It is said of certainsavage tribes who cannot count above five, and yet who own flocks andherds, that every native knows when he has got all his own cattle, notby counting, but by remembering each one individually. 

The savage is with his herds daily; the mother has the love of herchildren constantly in her heart; but when one's book goes forth fromhim, in a sense it never returns. It is like the fruit detached fromthe bough. And yet to sit down and talk of one's books as a fathermight talk of his sons, who had left his roof and gone forth to maketheir own way in the world, is not an easy matter. The author'srelation to his book is a little more direct and personal, after all, more a matter of will and choice, than a father's relation to hischild. The book does not change, and, whatever it fortunes, it remainsto the end what its author made it. The son is an evolution out of along line of ancestry, and one's responsibility of this or that traitis often very slight; but the book is an actual transcript of hismind, and is wise or foolish according as he made it so. Hence I trustmy reader will pardon me if I shrink from any discussion of the meritsor demerits of these intellectual children of mine, or indulge in anyvery confidential remarks with regard to them. 

I cannot bring myself to think of my books as "works, " because solittle "work" has gone to the making of them. It has all been play. Ihave gone a-fishing, or camping, or canoeing, and new literarymaterial has been the result. My corn has grown while I loitered orslept. The writing of the book was only a second and finer enjoymentof my holiday in the fields or woods. Not till the writing did itreally seem to strike in and become part of me. 

A friend of mine, now an old man, who spent his youth in the woods ofnorthern Ohio, and who has written many books, says, "I never thoughtof writing a book, till my self-exile, and then only to reproduce myold-time life to myself. " The writing probably cured or alleviated asort of homesickness. Such is a great measure has been my own case. Myfirst book, "Wake-Robin, " was written while I was a government clerkin Washington. It enabled me to live over again the days I had passedwith the birds and in the scenes of my youth. I wrote the book sittingat a desk in front of an iron wall. I was the keeper of a vault inwhich many millions of bank-notes were stored. During my long periodsof leisure I took refuge in my pen. How my mind reacted from the ironwall in front of me, and sought solace in memories of the birds and ofsummer fields and woods! Most of the chapters of "Winter Sunshine"were written at the same desk. The sunshine there referred to is of aricher quality than is found in New York or New England. 

Since I left Washington in 1873, instead of an iron wall in front ofmy desk, I have had a large window that overlooks the Hudson and thewooded heights beyond, and I have exchanged the vault for a vineyard. Probably my mind reacted more vigorously from the former than it doesfrom the latter. The vineyard winds its tendrils around me and detainsme, and its loaded trellises are more pleasing to me than the closetsof greenbacks. 

The only time there is a suggestion of an iron wall in front of me isin winter, when ice and snow have blotted out the landscape, and Ifind that it is in this season that my mind dwells most fondly upon myfavorite themes. Winter drives a man back upon himself, and tests hispowers of self-entertainment. 

Do such books as mine give a wrong impression of Nature, and leadreaders to expect more from a walk or a camp in the woods than theyusually get? I have a few times had occasion to think so. I am notalways aware myself how much pleasure I have had in a walk till I tryto share it with my reader. The heat of composition brings out thecolor and the flavor. We must not forget the illusions of all art. Ifmy reader thinks he does not get from Nature what I get from her, letme remind him that he can hardly know what he has got till he definesit to himself as I do, and throws about it the witchery of words. Literature does not grow wild in the woods. Every artist doessomething more than copy Nature; more comes out in his account thangoes into the original experience. 

Most persons think the bee gets honey from the flowers, but she doesnot: honey is a product of the bee; it is the nectar of the flowerswith the bee added. What the bee gets from the flower is sweet water:this she puts through a process of her own and imparts to it her ownquality; she reduces the water and adds to it a minute drop of formicacid. It is this drop of herself that gives the delicious sting to hersweet. The bee is therefore the type of the true poet, the trueartist. Her product always reflects her environment, and it reflectssomething her environment knows not of. We taste the clover, thethyme, the linden, the sumac, and we also taste something that has itssource in none of these flowers. 

The literary naturalist does not take liberties with facts; facts arethe flora upon which he lives. The more and the fresher the facts thebetter. I can do nothing without them, but I must give them my ownflavor. I must impart to them a quality which heightens andintensifies them. 

To interpret Nature is not to improve upon her: it is to draw her out;it is to have an emotional intercourse with her, absorb her, andreproduce her tinged with the colors of the spirit. 

If I name every bird I see in my walk, describe its color and ways, etc. , give a lot of facts or details about the bird, it is doubtful ifmy reader is interested. But if I relate the bird in some way to humanlife, to my own life, --show what it is to me and what it is in thelandscape and the season, --then do I give my reader a live bird andnot a labeled specimen. 

 J. B. 1895. 

WAKE-ROBIN

I

THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS

Spring in our northern climate may fairly be said to extend from themiddle of March to the middle of June. At least, the vernal tidecontinues to rise until the latter date, and it is not till after thesummer solstice that the shoots and twigs begin to harden and turn towood, or the grass to lose any of its freshness and succulency. 

It is this period that marks the return of the birds, --one or two ofthe more hardy or half-domesticated species, like the song sparrowand the bluebird, usually arriving in March, while the rarer and morebrilliant wood-birds bring up the procession in June. But each stageof the advancing season gives prominence to the certain species, as tocertain flowers. The dandelion tells me when to look for the swallow, the dogtooth violet when to expect the wood-thrush, and when I havefound the wake-robin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugurated. With me this flower is associated, not merely with the awakening ofRobin, for he has been awake for some weeks, but with the universalawakening and rehabilitation of nature. 

Yet the coming and going of the birds is more or less a mystery and asurprise. We go out in the morning, and no thrush or vireo is to beheard; we go out again, and every tree and grove is musical; yetagain, and all is silent. Who saw them come? Who saw them depart?

This pert little winter wren, for instance, darting in and out thefence, diving under the rubbish here and coming up yards away, --howdoes he manage with those little circular wings to compass degrees andzones, and arrive always in the nick of time? Last August I saw him inthe remotest wilds of the Adirondacks, impatient and inquisitive asusual; a few weeks later, on the Potomac, I was greeted by the samehardy little busybody. Does he travel by easy stages from bush to bushand from wood to wood? or has that compact little body force andcourage to brave the night and the upper air, and so achieve leaguesat one pull?

And yonder bluebird with the earth tinge on his breast and the skytinge on his back, --did he come down out of the heaven on that brightMarch morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that, if wepleased, spring had come? Indeed, there is nothing in the return ofthe birds more curious and suggestive than in the first appearance, orrumors of the appearance, of this little blue-coat. The bird at firstseems a mere wandering voice in the air: one hears its call or carolon some bright March morning, but is uncertain of its source ordirection; it falls like a drop of rain when no cloud is visible; onelooks and listens, but to no purpose. The weather changes, perhaps acold snap with snow comes on, and it may be a week before I hear thenot again, and this time or the next perchance see this bird sittingon a stake in the fence lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to hismate. Its notes now become daily more frequent; the birds multiply, and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more confidentlyand gleefully. Their boldness increases till one sees them hoveringwith a saucy, inquiring air about barns and out-buildings, peepinginto dove-cotes and stable windows, inspecting knotholes andpump-trees, intent only on a place to nest. They wage war againstrobins and wrens, pick quarrels with swallows, and seem to deliberatefor days over the policy of taking forcible possession of one of themud-houses of the latter. But as the season advances they drift moreinto the background. Schemes of conquest which they at first seemedbent upon are abandoned, and the settle down very quietly in their oldquarters in remote stumpy fields. 

Not long after the bluebird comes the robin, sometimes in March, butin most of the Northern States April is the month of the robin. Inlarge numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their pipingin the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, andthe dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings the air is vocalwith their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping amongthe trees with perilous rapidity. 

In that free, fascinating, half-work and half-playpursuit, --sugar-making, --a pursuit which still lingers in many partsof New York, as in New England, --the robin is one's constantcompanion. When the day is sunny and the ground bare, you meet him atall points and hear him at all hours. At sunset, on the tops of thetall maples, with look heavenward, and in a spirit of utterabandonment, he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid thestark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth, with the chill ofwinter still in the air, there is no fitter or sweeter songster in thewhole round year. It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion. How round and genuine the notes are, and how eagerly our ears drinkthem in! The first utterance, and the spell of winter is thoroughlybroken, and the remembrance of it afar off. 

Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; He isone of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exoticvisitants, as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grosbeak, withtheir distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy, frolicsome, neighborly, and domestic in his habits, strong of wing and bold in spirit, he isthe pioneer of the thrush family, and well worthy of the finer artistswhose coming he heralds and in a measure prepares us for. 

I could wish Robin less native and plebeian in one respect, --thebuilding of his nest. Its coarse material and rough masonry arecreditable neither to his skill as a workman nor to his taste as anartist. I am the more forcibly reminded of his deficiency in thisrespect from observing yonder hummingbird's nest, which is a marvel offitness and adaptation, a proper setting for this winged gem, --thebody of it composed of a white, felt-like substance, probably the downof some plant or the wool of some worm, and toned down in keeping withthe branch on which it sits by minute tree-lichens, woven together bythreads as fine and grail as gossamer. From Robin's good looks andmusical turn, we might reasonably predict a domicile of him as cleanand handsome a nest as the king-bird's, whose harsh jingle, comparedwith Robin's evening melody, is as the clatter of pots and kettlesbeside the tone of a flute. I love his note and ways better even thanthose of the orchard starling or the Baltimore oriole; yet his nest, compared with theirs, is a half-subterranean hut contrasted with aRoman villa. There is something courtly and poetical in a pensilenest. Next to a castle in the air is a dwelling suspended to theslender branch of a tall tree, swayed and rocked forever by the wind. Why need wings be afraid of falling? Why build only where boys canclimb? After all, we must set it down to the account of Robin'sdemocratic turn: he is no aristocrat, but one of the people; andtherefore we should expect stability in his workmanship, rather thanelegance. 

Another April bird, which makes her appearance sometimes earlier andsometimes later than Robin, and whose memory I fondly cherish, is thephoebe-bird, the pioneer of the flycatchers. In the inland farmingdistricts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about EasterDay, proclaiming her arrival, with much variety of motion andattitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may haveheard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the fainttrill of the song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance ofher veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipsein the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, as an artistic flourish, thrown in to make up in some way for thedeficiency of her musical performance. If plainness of dress indicatespowers of song as it usually does, then Phoebe ought to be unrivaledin musical ability, for surely that ashen-gray suit is the superlativeof plainness; and that form, likewise, would hardly pass for a"perfect figure" of a bird. The seasonableness of her coming, however, and her civil, neighborly ways, shall make up for all deficiencies insong and plumage. After a few weeks phoebe is seldom seen, except asshe darts from her moss-covered nest beneath some bridge or shelvingcliff. 

Another April comer, who arrives shortly after Robin-redbreast, withwhom he associates both at this season and in the autumn, is thegold-winged woodpecker, alias "high-hole, " alias "flicker, " alias"yarup. " He is an old favorite of my boyhood, and his note to me meansvery much. He announces his arrival by a long, loud call, repeatedfrom the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence, --athoroughly melodious April sound. I think how Solomon finished thatbeautiful description of spring, "And the voice of the turtle is heardin the land, " and see that a description of spring in this farmingcountry, to be equally characteristic, should culminate in likemanner, --"And the call of the high-hole comes up from the wood. "

It is a loud, strong, sonorous call, and does not seem to imply ananswer, but rather to subserve some purpose of love or music. It is"Yarup's" proclamation of peace and good-will to all. On looking atthe matter closely, I perceive that most birds, not denominatedsongsters, have, in the spring, some note or sound or call that hintsof a song, and answers imperfectly the end of beauty and art. As a"livelier iris changes on the burnished dove, " and the fancy of theyoung man turns lightly to thoughts of his pretty cousin, so the samerenewing spirit touches the "silent singers, " and they are no longerdumb; faintly they lisp the first syllables of the marvelous tale. Witness the clear sweet whistle of the gray-crested titmouse, --thesoft, nasal piping of the nuthatch, --the amorous, vivacious warble ofthe bluebird, --the long, rich note of the meadowlark, --the whistle ofthe quail, --the drumming of the partridge, --the animation andloquacity of the swallows, and the like. Even the hen has a homely, contented carol; and I credit the owls with a desire to fill the nightwith music. Al birds are incipient or would be songsters in thespring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing ofthe cock. The flowering of the maple is not so obvious as that of themagnolia; nevertheless, there is actual inflorescence. 

Few writers award any song to that familiar little sparrow, theSocialis; yet who that has observed him sitting by the wayside, andrepeating, with devout attitude, that fine sliding chant, does notrecognize the neglect? Who has heard the snowbird sing? Yet he has alisping warble very savory to the ear. I have heard him indulge in iteven in February. 

Even the cow bunting feels the musical tendency, and aspires to itsexpression, with the rest. Perched upon the topmost branch beside hismate or mates, --for he is quite a polygamist, and usually has two orthree demure little ladies in faded black beside him, --generally inthe early part of the day, he seems literally to vomit up his notes. Apparently with much labor and effort, they gurgle and blubber up outof him, falling on the ear with a peculiar subtile ring, as of turningwater from a glass bottle, and not without a certain pleasing cadence. 

Neither is the common woodpecker entirely insensible to the wooing ofthe spring, and, like the partridge, testifies his appreciation ofmelody after quite a primitive fashion. Passing through the woods onsome clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring andtension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence issuddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the utter stillness andamid the rigid forms we listen with pleasure; and, as it comes to myear oftener at this season than at any other, I freely exonerate theauthor of it from the imputation of any gastronomic motives, andcredit him with a genuine musical performance. 

It is to be expected, therefore, that "yellow-hammer" will respond tothe general tendency, and contribute his part to the spring chorus. His April call is his finest touch, his most musical expression. 

I recall an ancient maple standing sentry to a large sugar-bush, that, year after year, afforded protection to a brood of yellow-hammers inits decayed heart. A week or two before nesting seemed actually tohave begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost anybright morning, gamboling and courting amid its decayed branches. Sometimes you would hear only a gentle persuasive cooing, or a quietconfidential chattering, --then that long, loud call, taken up byfirst one, then another, as they sat about upon the nakedlimbs, --anon, a sort of wild, rollicking laughter, intermingled withvarious cries, yelps, and squeals, as if some incident had excitedtheir mirth and ridicule. Whether this social hilarity andboisterousness is in celebration of the pairing or mating ceremony, orwhether it is only a sort of annual "house-warming" common amonghigh-holes on resuming their summer quarters, is a question upon whichI reserve my judgment. 

Unlike most of his kinsmen, the golden-wing prefers the fields and theborders of the forest to the deeper seclusion of the woods, and hence, contrary to the habit of his tribe, obtains most of his subsistencefrom the ground, probing it for ants and crickets. He is not quitesatisfied with being a woodpecker. He courts the society of the robinand the finches, abandons the trees for the meadow, and feeds eagerlyupon berries and grain. What may be the final upshot of this course ofliving is a question worth the attention of Darwin. Will his taking tothe ground and his pedestrian feats result in lengthening his legs, his feeding upon berries and grains subdue his tints and soften hisvoice, and his associating with Robin put a song into his heart?

Indeed, what would be more interesting than the history of our birdsfor the last two or three centuries. There can be no doubt that thepresence of man has exerted a very marked and friendly influence uponthem, since they so multiply in his society. The birds of California, it is said, were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubtif the Indians heard the wood thrush as we hear him. Where did thebobolink disport himself before there were meadows in the North andrice fields in the South? Was he the same lithe, merry-hearted beauthen as now? And the sparrow, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds thatseem so indigenous to the open fields and so adverse to the woods, --wecannot conceive of their existence in a vast wilderness and withoutman. 

But to return. The song sparrow, that universal favorite andfirstling of the spring, comes before April, and its simple straingladdens all hearts. 

May is the month of the swallows and the orioles. There are many otherdistinguished arrivals, indeed nine tenths of the birds are here bythe last week in May, yet the swallows and the orioles are the mostconspicuous. The bright plumage of the latter seems really like anarrival from the tropics. I see them dash through the blossomingtrees, and all the forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing. The swallows dive and chatter about the barn, or squeak and buildbeneath the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods;the long, tender note of the meadowlark comes up from the meadow; andat sunset, from every marsh and pond come the ten thousand voices ofthe hylas. May is the transition month, and exists to connect Apriland June, the root with the flower. 

With June the cup is full, our hearts are satisfied, there is no moreto be desired. The perfection of the season, among other things, hasbrought the perfection of the song and the plumage of the birds. Themaster artists are all here; and the expectations excited by the robinand the song sparrow are fully justified. The thrushes have all come;and I sit down upon the first rock, with hands full of the pinkazalea, to listen. With me the cuckoo does not arrive till June; andoften the goldfinch, the kingbird, the scarlet tanager delay theircoming till then. In the meadows the bobolink is in all his glory; inthe high pastures the field sparrow sings his breezy vesper-hymn; andthe woods are unfolding to the music of the thrushes. 

The cuckoo is one of the most solitary birds of our forests, and isstrangely tame and quiet, appearing equally untouched by joy or grief, fear or anger. Something remote seems ever weighing upon his mind. Hisnote or call is as of one lost or wandering, and to the farmer isprophetic of rain. Amid the general joy and the sweet assurance ofthings, I love to listen to the strange clairvoyant call. Heard aquarter of a mile away, from out the depths of the forest, there issomething peculiarly weird and monkish about it. Wordsworth's linesupon the European species apply equally well to ours:--"O blithenew-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice: O cuckoo! shall Icall thee bird? Or but a wandering voice?

 "While I am lying on the grass, Thy loud note smites my ear! From hill to hill it seems to pass, At once far off and near!

 "Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery. "

The black-billed is the only species found in my locality, theyellow-billed abounds farther south. Their note or call is nearly thesame. The former sometimes suggests the voice of a turkey. The call ofthe latter may be suggested thus: k-k-k-k-k-kow, kow, kow-ow, kow-ow. 

The yellow-billed will take up his stand in a tree, and explore itsbranches till he has caught every worm. He sits on a twig, and with apeculiar swaying movement of his head examines the surroundingfoliage. When he discovers his prey, he leaps upon it in a flutteringmanner. 

In June the black-billed makes a tour through the orchard and garden, regaling himself upon the canker-worms. At this time he is one of thetamest of birds, and will allow you to approach within a few yards ofhim. I have even come within a few feet of one without seeming toexcite his fear or suspicion. He is quite unsophisticated, or elseroyally indifferent. 

The plumage of the cuckoo is a rich glossy brown, and is unrivaled inbeauty by any other neutral tint with which I am acquainted. It isalso remarkable for its firmness and fineness. 

Notwithstanding the disparity in size and color, the black-billedspecies has certain peculiarities that remind one of the passengerpigeon. His eye, with its red circle, the shape of his head, and hismotions on alighting and taking flight, quickly suggest theresemblance; though in grace and speed, when on the wing, he is farinferior. His tail seems disproportionately long, like that of the redthrush, and his flight among the trees is very still, contrastingstrongly with the honest clatter of the robin or pigeon. 

Have you heard the song of the field sparrow? If you have lived in apastoral country with broad upland pastures, you could hardly havemissed him. Wilson, I believe, calls him the grass finch, and wasevidently unacquainted with his powers of song. The two white lateralquills in his tail, and his habit of running and skulking a few yardsin advance of you as you walk through the fields, are sufficient toidentify him. Not in meadows or orchards, but in high, breezypasture-grounds, will you look for him. His song is most noticeableafter sundown, when other birds are silent; for which reason he hasbeen aptly called the vesper sparrow. The farmer following his teamfrom the field at dusk catches his sweetest strain. His song is not sobrisk and varied as that of the song sparrow, being softer and wilder, sweeter and more plaintive. Add the best parts of the lay of thelatter to the sweet vibrating chant of the wood sparrow, and you havethe evening hymn of the vesper-bird, --the poet of the plain, unadorned pastures. Go to those broad, smooth, uplying fields wherethe cattle and sheep are grazing, and sit down in the twilight on oneof those warm, clean stones, and listen to this song. On every side, near and remote, from out the short grass which the herds arecropping, the strain rises. Two or three long, silver notes of peaceand rest, ending in some subdued trills and quavers, constitute eachseparate song. Often, you will catch only one or two of the bars, thebreeze having blown the minor part away. Such unambitious, quiet, unconscious melody! It is one of the most characteristic sounds innature. The grass, the stones, the stubble, the furrow, the quietherds, and the warm twilight among the hills, are all subtly expressedin this song; this is what they are at last capable of. 

The female builds a plain nest in the open field, without so much as abush or thistle or tuft of grass to protect it or mark its site; youmay step upon it, or the cattle may tread it into the ground. But thedanger from this source, I presume, the bird considers less than thatfrom another. Skunks and foxes have a very impertinent curiosity, asFinchie well knows; and a bank or hedge, or a rank growth of grass orthistles, that might promise protection and cover to mouse or bird, these cunning rogues would be apt to explore most thoroughly. Thepartridge is undoubtedly acquainted with the same process ofreasoning; for, like the vesper-bird, she, too, nests in open, unprotected places, avoiding all show of concealment, --coming from thetangled and almost impenetrable parts of the forest to the clean, openwoods, where she can command all the approaches and fly with equalease in any direction. 

Another favorite sparrow, but little noticed, is the wood or bushsparrow, usually called by the ornithologists Spizella pusilla. Itssize and form is that of the socialis, but is less distinctly marked, being of a duller redder tinge. He prefers remote bushy heatheryfields, where his song is one of the sweetest to be heard. It issometimes very noticeable, especially early in spring. I remembersitting one bright day in the still leafless April woods, when one ofthese birds struck up a few rods from me, repeating its lay at shortintervals for nearly an hour. It was a perfect piece of wood-music, and was of course all the more noticeable for being projected uponsuch a broad unoccupied page of silence. Its song is like the words, fe-o, fe-o, fe-o, few, few, few, fee fee fee, uttered at first highand leisurely, but running very rapidly toward the close, which is lowand soft. 

Still keeping among the unrecognized, the white-eyed vireo, orflycatcher, deserves particular mention. The song of this bird is notparticularly sweet and soft; on the contrary, it is a little hard andshrill, like that of the indigo-bird or oriole; but for brightness, volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed byany of our northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as stated, not especially musical; Chick-a-re'r-chick, he seemsto say, hiding himself in the low, dense undergrowth, and eluding yourmost vigilant search, as if playing some part in a game. But in Julyof August, if you are on good terms with the sylvan deities, you maylisten to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your firstimpression will be that that cluster of azalea, or that clump ofswamp-huckleberry, conceals three of four different songsters, eachvying with the the others to lead the chorus. Such a medley of notes, snatched from half the songsters of the field and forest, and utteredwith the utmost clearness and rapidity, I am sure you cannot hearshort of the haunts of the genuine mockingbird. If not fully andaccurately repeated, there are at least suggested the notes of therobin, wren, catbird, high-hole, goldfinch, and song sparrow. The pip, pip, of the last is produced so accurately that I verily believe itwould deceive the bird herself; and the whole uttered in such rapidsuccession that it seems as if the movement that gives the concludingnote of one strain must form the first note of the next. The effect isvery rich, and, to my ear, entirely unique. The performer is verycareful not to reveal himself in the mean time; yet there is aconscious air about the strain that impresses me with the idea that mypresence is understood and my attention courted. A tone of pride andglee, and, occasionally, of bantering jocoseness, is discernible. Ibelieve it is only rarely, and when he is sure of his audience, thathe displays his parts in this manner. You are to look for him, not intall trees or deep forests, but in low, dense shrubbery about wetplaces, where there are plenty of gnats and mosquitoes. 

The winter wren is another marvelous songster, in speaking of whom itis difficult to avoid superlatives. He is not so conscious of ispowers and so ambitious of effect as the white-eyed flycatcher, yetyou will not be less astonished and delighted on hearing him. Hepossesses the fluency and copiousness for which the wrens are noted, and besides these qualities, and what is rarely found conjoined withthem, a wild, sweet, rhythmical cadence that holds you entranced. Ishall not soon forget that perfect June day, when, loitering in a low, ancient hemlock wood, in whose cathedral aisles the coolness andfreshness seems perennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strainso rapid and gushing, and touched with such a wild, sylvanplaintiveness, that I listened in amazement. And so shy and coy wasthe little minstrel, that I came twice to the woods before I was sureto whom I was listening. In summer he is one of those birds of thedeep northern forests, that, like the speckled Canada warbler and thehermit thrush, only the privileged ones hear. 

The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked anddefined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and hewill tell you where to look for the lady's-slipper, the columbine, orthe harebell. On the same principles the ornithologist will direct youwhere to look for the greenlets, the wood sparrow, or the chewink. Inadjoining counties, in the same latitude, and equally inland, butpossessing a different geological formation and differentforest-timber, you will observe quite a different class of birds. In aland of the beech and sugar maple I do not find the same songstersthat I know where thrive the oak, chestnut, and laurel. In going froma district of the Old Red Sandstone to where I walk upon the oldPlutonic Rock, not fifty miles distant, I miss in the woods, theveery, the hermit thrush, the chestnut-sided warbler, the blue-backedwarbler, the green-backed warbler, the black and yellow warbler, andmany others, and find in their stead the wood thrush, the chewink, theredstart, the yellow-throat, the yellow-breasted flycatcher, thewhite-eyed flycatcher, the quail, and the turtle dove. 

In my neighborhood here in the Highlands the distribution is verymarked. South of the village I invariably find one species of birds, north of it another. In only one locality, full of azalea andswamp-huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the hooded warbler. Ina dense undergrowth of spice-bush, witch-hazel, and alder, I meet theworm-eating warbler. In a remote clearing, covered with heath andfern, with here and there a chestnut and an oak, I go to hear in Julythe wood sparrow, and returning by a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sureto find the water-thrush. 

Only one locality within my range seems to possess attractions for allcomers. Here one may study almost the entire ornithology of the State. It is a rocky piece of ground, long ago cleared, but now fastrelapsing into the wildness and freedom of nature, and marked by thosehalf-cultivated, half-wild features which birds and boys love. It isbounded on two sides by the village and highway, crossed at variouspoints by carriage-roads, and threaded in all directions by paths andbyways, along which soldiers, laborers, and truant school-boys arepassing at all hours of the day. It is so far escaping from the axeand the bush-hook as to have opened communication with the forest andmountain beyond by straggling lines of cedar, laurel, and blackberry. The ground is mainly occupied with cedar and chestnut, with anundergrowth, in many place, of heath and bramble. The chief feature, however, is a dense growth in the centre, consisting of dogwood, water-beech, swamp-ash, alder, spice-bush, hazel, etc. , with a networkof smilax and frost-grape. A little zigzag stream, the draining of aswam beyond, which passes through this tanglewood, accounts for manyof its features and productions, if not for its entire existence. Birds that are not attracted by the heath, or the cedar and chestnut, are sure to find some excuse for visiting this miscellaneous growth inthe centre. Most of the common birds literally throng in thisidle-wild; and I have met here many of the rarer species, such as thegreat-crested flycatcher, the solitary warbler, the blue-winged swampwarbler, the worm-eating warbler, the fox sparrow, etc. The absence ofall birds of prey, and the great number of flies and insects, both theresult of the proximity to the village, are considerations which hohawk-fearing, peace-loving minstrel passes over lightly; hence thepopularity of the resort. 

But the crowning glory of all these robins, flycatchers, and warblersis the wood thrush. More abundant than all other birds, except therobin and catbird, he greets you from every rock and shrub. Shy andreserved when he first makes his appearance in May, before the end ofJune he is tame and familiar, and sings on the tree over your head, oron the rock a few paces in advance. A pair even built their nest andreared their brood within ten or twelve feet of the piazza of a largesummer-house in the vicinity. But when the guests commenced to arriveand the piazza to be thronged with gay crowds, I noticed somethinglike dread and foreboding in the manner of the mother bird; and fromher still, quiet ways, and habit of sitting long and silently within afew feet of the precious charge, it seemed as if the dear creature hadresolved, if possible, to avoid all observation. 

If we take the quality of melody as the test, the wood thrush, hermitthrush, and the veery thrush stand at the head of our list ofsongsters. 

The mockingbird undoubtedly possesses the greatest range of meretalent, the most varied executive ability, and never fails to surpriseand delight one anew at each hearing; but being mostly an imitator, henever approaches the serene beauty and sublimity of the hermit thrush. The word that best expresses my feelings, on hearing the mockingbird, is admiration, though the first emotion is one of surprise andincredulity. That so many and such various notes should proceed fromone throat is a marvel, and we regard the performance with feelingsakin to those we experience on witnessing the astounding feats of theathlete or gymnast, --and this, notwithstanding many of the notesimitated have all the freshness and sweetness of the originals. Theemotions excited by the songs of these thrushes belong to a higherorder, springing as they do from our deepest sense of the beauty andharmony of the world. 

The wood thrush is worthy of all, and more than all, the praises hehas received; and considering the number of his appreciativelisteners, it is not a little surprising that his relative and equal, the hermit thrush, should have received so little notice. Both thegreat ornithologists, Wilson and Audubon, are lavish in their praisesof the former, but have little or nothing to say of the song of thelatter. Audubon says it is sometimes agreeable, but evidently hasnever heard it. Nuttall, I am glad to find, is more discriminating, and does the bird fuller justice. 

It is quite a rare bird, of very shy and secluded habits, being foundin the Middle and Eastern States, during the period of song, only inthe deepest and most remote forests, usually in damp and swampylocalities. On this account the people in the Adirondack region callit the "Swamp Angel. " Its being so much of a recluse accounts for thecomparative ignorance that prevails in regard to it. 

The cast of its song is very much like that of the wood thrush, and agood observer might easily confound the two. But hear them togetherand the difference is quite marked: the song of the hermit is in ahigher key, and is more wild and ethereal. His instrument is a silverhorn which he winds in the most solitary places. The song of the woodthrush is more golden and leisurely. Its tone comes near to that ofsome rare stringed instrument. One feels that perhaps the wood thrushhas more compass and power, if he would only let himself out, but onthe whole he comes a little short of the pure, serene, hymn-likestrain of the hermit. 

Yet those who have heard only the wood thrush may well place him firston the list. He is truly a royal minstrel, and, considering hisliberal distribution throughout our Atlantic seaboard, perhapscontributes more than any other bird to our sylvan melody. One mayobject that he spends a little too much time in tuning his instrument, yet his careless and uncertain touches reveal its rare compass andpower. 

He is the only songster of my acquaintance excepting the canary, thatdisplays different degrees of proficiency in the exercise of hismusical gifts. Not long since, while walking one Sunday in the edge ofan orchard adjoining a wood, I heard one that so obviously andunmistakably surpassed all his rivals, that my companion, althoughslow to notice such things, remarked it wonderingly; and with oneaccord we paused to listen to so rare a performer. It was notdifferent in quality so much as in quantity. Such a flood of it! Suchcopiousness! Such long, trilling, accelerating preludes! Such sudden, ecstatic overtures would have intoxicated the dullest ear. He wasreally without a compeer, --a master artist. Twice afterward I wasconscious of having heard the same bird. 

The wood thrush is the handsomest species of this family. In graceand elegance of manner he has no equal. Such a gentle, high-bred air, and such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement! Heis a poet in very word and deed. His carriage is music to the eye. Hisperformance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or picking aworm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence. Was he aprince in the olden time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhereto him in his transformation? What a finely proportioned form! Howplain, yet rich, his color, --the bright russet of his back, the clearwhite of his breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It may beobjected to Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries awayor rises to a branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings inill-bred suspicion. The mavis, or red thrush, sneaks and skulks like aculprit, hiding in the densest alders; the catbird is a coquette and aflirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the chewink shows hisinhospitality by espying your movements like a Japanese. The woodthrush has none of theses underbred traits. He regards meunsuspiciously, or avoids me with a noble reserve, --or, if I am quietand incurious, graciously hops toward me, as if to pay his respects, or to make my acquaintance. I have passed under his nest within a fewfeet of his mate and brood, when he sat near by on a branch eying mesharply, but without opening his beak; but the moment I raised my handtoward his defenseless household, his anger and indignation werebeautiful to behold. 

What a noble pride he has! Late one October, after his mates andcompanions had long since gone south, I noticed one for severalsuccessive days in the dense part of this next-door wood, flittingnoiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for someviolation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, Iperceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvanprince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently bidinghis time. 

The soft, mellow flute of the veery fills a place in the chorus of thewoods that the song of the vesper sparrow fills in the chorus of thefields. It has the nightingale's habit of singing in the twilight, asindeed have all our thrushes. Walk out toward the forest in the warmtwilight of a June day, and when fifty rods distant you will heartheir soft, reverberating notes rising from a dozen different throats. 

It is one of the simplest strains to be heard, --as simple as the curvein form, delighting from the pure element of harmony and beauty itcontains, and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of it, --thuscontrasting strongly with such rollicking, hilarious songsters as thebobolink, in whom we are chiefly pleased with tintinnabulation, theverbal and labial excellence, and the evident conceit and delight ofthe performer. 

I hardly know whether I am more pleased or annoyed with the catbird. Perhaps she is a little too common, and her part in the general chorusa little too conspicuous. If you are listening for the note of anotherbird, she is sure to be prompted to the most loud and protractedsinging, drowning all other sounds; If you sit quietly down to observea favorite or study a new-comer, her curiosity knows no bounds, andyou are scanned and ridiculed from every point of observation. Yet Iwould not miss her; I would only subordinate her a little, make herless conspicuous. 

She is the parodist of the woods, and there is ever a mischievous, bantering, half-ironical undertone in her lay, as if she wereconscious of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambitious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private, she yet seemsthe least sincere and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if she hadtaken up music only to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by therobins and thrushes. In other words, she seems to sing from someoutward motive, and not from inward joyousness. She is a goodversifier, but not a great poet. Vigorous, rapid, copious, not withoutfine touches, but destitute of any high, serene melody, herperformance, like that of Thoreau's squirrel, always implies aspectator. 

There is a certain air and polish about her strain, however, like thatin the vivacious conversation of a well-bred lady of the world, thatcommands respect. Her maternal instinct, also, is very strong, andthat simple structure of dead twigs and dry grass is the center ofmuch anxious solicitude. Not long since, while strolling through thewoods, my attention was attracted to a small densely grown swamp, hedged in with eglantine, brambles, and the everlasting smilax, fromwhich proceeded loud cries of distress and alarm, indicating that someterrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored minstrel. Oneffecting an entrance, which, however, was not accomplished till I haddoffed coat and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to thethorns and brambles, and, looking around me from a square yard ofterra firma, I found myself the spectator of a loathsome yetfascinating scene. Three or four yards from me was the nest, beneathwhich, in long festoons, rested a huge black snake; a bird two thirdsgrown was slowly disappearing between his expanded jaws. As he seemedunconscious of my presence, I quietly observed the proceedings. Byslow degrees he compassed the bird about with his elastic mouth; hishead flattened, his neck writhed and swelled, and two or threeundulatory movements of his glistening body finished the work. Then hecautiously raised himself up, his tongue flaming from his mouth thewhile, curved over the nest, and with wavy subtle motions, exploredthe interior. I can conceive of nothing more overpoweringly terribleto an unsuspecting family of birds than the sudden appearance abovetheir domicile of the head and neck of this arch-enemy. It is enoughto petrify the blood in their veins. Not finding the object of hissearch, he came streaming down from the nest to a lower limb, andcommenced extending his researches in other directions, slidingstealthily through the branches, bent on capturing on of the parentbirds. That a legless, wingless creature should move with such easeand rapidity where only birds and squirrels are considered at home, lifting himself up, letting himself down, running out on the yieldingboughs, and traversing with marvelous celerity the whole length andbreadth of the thicket, was truly surprising. One thinks of the greatmyth of the Tempter and the "cause of all our woe, " and wonders if theArch One is not now playing off some of his pranks before him. Whetherwe call it snake or devil matters little. I could but admire histerrible beauty, however; his black, shining folds, his easy, glidingmovement, head erect, eyes glistening, tongue playing like subtleflame, and the invisible means of his almost winged locomotion. 

The parent birds, in the mean while, kept up the most agonizingcry, --at times fluttering furiously about their pursuer, and actuallylaying hold of his tail with their beaks and claws. On being thusattacked, the snake would suddenly double upon himself and follow hiswon body back, thus executing a strategic movement that at firstseemed almost to paralyze his victim and place her within his grasp. Not quite, however. Before his jaws could close upon the coveted prizethe bird would tear herself away, and, apparently faint and sobbing, retire to a higher branch. His reputed powers of fascination availedhim little, though it is possible that a frailer and less combativebird might have been held by the fatal spell. Presently, as he camegliding down the slender body of a leaning alder, his attention wasattracted by a slight movement of my arm; eyeing me an instant, withthat crouching, utter motionless gaze which I believe only snakes anddevils can assume, he turned quickly, --a feat which necessitatedsomething like crawling over his own body, --and glided off through thebranches, evidently recognizing in me a representative of the ancientparties he once so cunningly ruined. A few moments after, as he laycarelessly disposed in the top of a rank alder, trying to look as muchlike a crowded branch as his supple, shining form would admit, the oldvengeance overtook him. I exercised my prerogative, and awell-directed missile, in the shape of a stone, brought him loopingand writhing to the ground. After I had completed his downfall andquiet had been partially restored, a half-fledged member of thebereaved household came out from his hiding-place, and, jumping upon adecayed branch, chirped vigorously, no doubt in celebration of thevictory. 

Till the middle of July there is a general equilibrium; the tidestands poised; the holiday spirit is unabated. But as the harvestripens beneath the long, hot days, the melody gradually ceases. Theyoung are out of the nest and must be cared for, and the moultingseason is at hand. After the cricket has commenced to drone hismonotonous refrain beneath your window, you will not, till anotherseason, hear the wood thrush in all his matchless eloquence. Thebobolink has become careworn and fretful, and blurts out snatches ofhis song between his scolding and upbraiding, as you approach thevicinity of his nest, oscillating between anxiety for his brood andsolicitude for his musical reputation. Some of the sparrows stillsing, and occasionally across the hot fields, from a tall tree in theedge of the forest, comes the rich note of the scarlet tanager. Thistropical-colored bird loves the hottest weather, and I hear him evenin dog-days. 

The remainder of the summer is the carnival of the swallows andflycatchers. Flies and insects, to any amount, are to be had for thecatching; and the opportunity is well improved. See that sombre, ashen-colored pewee on yonder branch. A true sportsman he, who nevertakes his game at rest, but always on the wing. You vagrant fly, youpurblind moth, beware how you come within his range! Observe hisattitude, the curious movement of his head, his "eye in a fine frenzyrolling, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. "

His sight is microscopic and his aim sure. Quick as thought he hasseized his victim and is back to his perch. There is no strife, nopursuit, --one fell swoop and the matter is ended. That little sparrow, as you will observe, is less skilled. It is the Socialis, and he findshis subsistence properly in various seeds and the larvae of insects, though he occasionally has higher aspirations, and seeks to emulatethe peewee, commencing and ending his career as a flycatcher by anawkward chase after a beetle or "miller. " He is hunting around in thedull grass now, I suspect, with the desire to indulge this favoritewhim. There!--the opportunity is afforded him. Away goes a littlecream-colored meadow-moth in the most tortuous course he is capableof, and away goes Socialis in pursuit. The contest is quite comical, though I dare say it is serious enough to the moth. The chasecontinues for a few yards, when there is a sudden rushing to cover inthe grass, --then a taking to wing again, when the search has become toclose, and the moth has recovered his wind. Socialis chirps angrily, and is determined not to be beaten. Keeping, with the slightesteffort, upon the heels of the fugitive, he is ever on the point ofhalting to snap him up, but never quite does it, --and so, betweendisappointment and expectation, is soon disgusted and returns topursue his more legitimate means of subsistence. 

In striking contrast to this serio-comic strife of the sparrow and themoth, is he pigeon hawk's pursuit of the sparrow or the goldfinch. Itis a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing andwind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries ofterror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the rightand left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and suchsilent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the bird soclosely, flashing and turning, and timing his movements with those ofthe pursued as accurately and as inexorably as if the two constitutedone body, excite feelings of the deepest concern. You mount the fenceor rush out of your way to see the issue. The only salvation for thebird is to adopt the tactics of the moth, seeking instantly the coverof some tree, bush or hedge, where its smaller size enables it to moveabout more rapidly. These pirates are aware of this, and thereforeprefer to take their prey by one fell swoop. You may see one of themprowling through an orchard, with the yellowbirds hovering about him, crying, Pi-ty, pi-ty, in the most desponding tone; yet he seems not toregard them, knowing, as do they, that in the close branches they areas safe as if in a wall of adamant. 

August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen-hawk is themost noticeable. He likes the haze and calm of these long, warm days. He is a bird of leisure, and seems always at his ease. How beautifuland majestic are his movements! So self-poised and easy, such anentire absence of haste, such a magnificent amplitude of circles andspirals, such a haughty, imperial grace, and, occasionally, suchdaring aerial evolutions!

With slow, leisurely movement, rarely vibrating his pinions, he mountsand mounts in an ascending spiral till he appears a mere speck againstthe summer sky; then, if the mood seizes him, with wings half closed, like a bent bow, he will cleave the air almost perpendicularly, as ifintent on dashing himself to pieces against the earth; but on nearingthe ground he suddenly mounts again on broad, expanded wing, as ifrebounding upon the air, and sails leisurely away. It is the sublimestfeat of the season. One holds his breath till he sees him rise again. 

If inclined to a more gradual and less precipitous descent, he fixeshis eye on some distant point in the earth beneath him, and thitherbends his course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed andboldness. You see his path down the heavens, straight as a line; ifnear, you hear the rush of his wings; his shadow hurtles across thefields, and in an instant you see him quietly perched upon some lowtree or decayed stub in a swamp or meadow, with reminiscences of frogsand mice stirring in his maw. 

When the south wind blows, it is a study to see three or four of theseair-kings at the head of the valley far up toward the mountain, balancing and oscillating upon the strong current; now quitestationary, except a slight tremulous motion like the poise of arope-dancer, then rising and falling in long undulations, and seemingto resign themselves passively to the wind; or, again sailing high andlevel far above the mountain's peak, no bluster and haste, but asstated, occasionally a terrible earnestness and speed. Fire at one ashe sails overhead and, unless wounded badly, he will not change hiscourse or gait. 

His flight is a perfect picture of repose in motion. It strikes theeye as more surprising than the flight of a pigeon, and swallow even, in that the effort put forth is so uniform and delicate as to escapeobservation, giving to the movement an air of buoyancy and perpetuity, the effluence of power rather than the conscious application of it. 

The calmness and dignity of this hawk, when attacked by crows or thekingbird, are well worth of him. He seldom deigns to notice his noisyand furious antagonists, but deliberately wheels about in that aerialspiral, and mounts and mounts till his pursuers grow dizzy and returnto earth again. It is quite original, this mode of getting rid of anunworthy opponent, rising to the heights where the braggart is dazedand bewildered and loses his reckoning! I am not sure but is is worthyof imitation. 

But summer wanes, and autumn approaches. The songsters of theseed-time are silent at the reaping of the harvest. Other minstrelstake up the strain. It is the heyday of insect life. The day iscanopied with musical sound. All the songs of the spring and summerappear to be floating, softened and refined, in the upper air. Thebirds, in a new but less holiday suit, turn their faces southward. Theswallows flock and go; the bobolinks flock and go; silently andunobserved, the thrushes go. Autumn arrives, bringing finches, warblers, sparrows, and kinglets from the north. Silently theprocession passes. Yonder hawk, sailing peacefully away till he islost in the horizon, is a symbol of the closing season and thedeparting birds. 1863. 

II

IN THE HEMLOCKS

Most people receive with incredulity a statement of the number ofbirds that annually visit our climate. Very few even are aware of halfthe number that spend the summer in their own immediate vicinity. Welittle suspect, when we walk in the woods, whose privacy we areintruding upon, --what rare and elegant visitants from Mexico, fromcentral and South America, and from the islands of the sea, areholding their reunions in the branches over our heads, or pursuingtheir pleasure on the ground before us. 

I recall the altogether admirable and shining family which Thoreaudreamed he saw in the upper chambers of Spaulding's woods, whichSpaulding did not know lived there, and which were not put out whenSpaulding, whistling, drove his team through their lower halls. Theydid not go into society in the village; they were quite well; they hadsons and daughters; they neither wove nor spun; there was a sound asof suppressed hilarity. 

I take it for granted that the forester was only saying a pretty thingof the birds, though I have observed that it does sometimes annoy themwhen Spaulding's cart rumbles through their house. Generally, however, they are as unconscious of Spaulding as Spaulding is of them. 

Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood, I counted over fortyvarieties of these summer visitants, many of the common to other woodsin the vicinity, but quite a number peculiar to these ancientsolitudes, and not a few that are rare in any locality. It is quiteunusual to find so large a number abiding in one forest, --and that nota large one, --most of them nesting and spending the summer there. Manyof those I observed commonly pass this season much farther north. Butthe geographical distribution of birds is rather a climatical one. Thesame temperature, though under different parallels, usually attractsthe same birds; difference in altitude being equivalent to thedifference in latitude. A given height above sea-level under theparallel of thirty degrees may have the same climate as places underthat of thirty-five degrees, and similar flora and fauna. At thehead-waters of the Delaware, where I write, the latitude is that ofBoston, but the region has a much greater elevation, and hence a climatethat compares better with the northern part of the State and of NewEngland. Half a day's drive to the southeast brings me down into quitea different temperature, with an older geological formation, differentforest timber, and different birds, --even with different mammals. Neither the little gray rabbit nor the little gray fox is found in mylocality, but the great northern hare and the red fox are. In the lastcentury, a colony of beavers dwelt here, though the oldest inhabitantcannot now point to even the traditional site of their dams. Theancient hemlocks, whither I propose to take the reader, are rich inmany things besides birds. Indeed, their wealth in this respect isowing mainly, no doubt, to their rank vegetable growth, their fruitfulswamps, and their dark, sheltered retreats. 

Their history is of an heroic cast. Ravished and torn by the tannerin his thirst for bark, preyed upon by the lumberman, assaulted andbeaten back by the settler, still their spirit has never been broken, their energies never paralyzed. Not many years ago a public highwaypassed through them, but it was at no time a tolerable road; treesfell across it, mud and limbs choked it up, till finally travelerstook the hint and went around; and now, walking along its desertedcourse, I see only the footprints of coons, foxes, and squirrels. 

Nature loves such woods, and places her own seal upon them. Here sheshow me what can be done with ferns and mosses and lichens. The soilis marrowy and full of innumerable forests. Standing in these fragrantaisles, I feel the strength of the vegetable kingdom, and am awed bythe deep and inscrutable processes of life going on so silently aboutme. 

No hostile forms with axe or spud now visit these solitudes. The cowshave half-hidden ways through them, and know where the best browsingis to be had. In spring, the farmer repairs to their bordering ofmaples to make sugar; in July and August women and boys from all thecountry about penetrate the old Barkpeelings for raspberries andblackberries; and I know a youth who wonderingly follows their languidstream casting for trout. 

In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright June morning go Ialso to reap my harvest, --pursuing a sweet more delectable than sugar, fruit more savory than berries, and game for another palate than thattickled by trout. 

June, of all the months, the student of ornithology can least affordto lose. Most birds are nesting then, and in full song and plumage. And what is a bird without its song? Do we not wait for the strangerto speak? It seems to me that I do not know a bird till I have heardits voice; then I come nearer it at once, and it possesses a humaninterest to me. I have met the gray-cheeked thrush in the woods, andheld him in my hand; still I do not know him. The silence of thecedar-bird throws a mystery about him which neither his good looks norhis petty larcenies in cheery time can dispel. A bird's song containsa clew to its life, and establishes a sympathy, an understanding, between itself and the listener. 

I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks through a largesugar-bush. When twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line of theforest the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful and happyas the merry whistle of a schoolboy. He is one of our most common andwidely distributed birds. Approach any forest at any hour of the day, in any kind of weather, from May to August, in any of the Middle orEastern districts, and the chances are that the first note you hearwill be his. Rain or shine, before noon or after, in the deep forestor in the village grove, --when it is too hot for the thrushes or toocold and windy for the warblers, --it is never out of time or placefor this little minstrel to indulge his cheerful strain. In the deepwilds of the Adirondacks, where few birds are seen and fewer heard, his note was almost constantly in my ear. Always busy, making it apoint never to suspend for one moment his occupation to indulge hismusical taste, his lay is that of industry and contentment. There isnothing plaintive or especially musical in his performance, but thesentiment expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, thesongs of most birds have some human significance, which, I think, isthe source of the delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink tome expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's, love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's, self-consciousness; that of the hermit thrush spiritual serenity:while there is something military in the call of the robin. 

The red-eye is classed among the flycatchers by some writers, but ismuch more of a worm-eater, and has few of the traits or habits of theMuscicapa or the true Sylvia. He resembles somewhat the warblingvireo, and the two birds are often confounded by careless observers. Both warble in the same cheerful strain, but the latter morecontinuously and rapidly. The red-eye is a larger, slimmer bird, witha faint bluish crown, and a light line over the eye. His movements arepeculiar. You may see him hopping among the limbs, exploring thenunder side of the leaves, peering to the right and left, now flittinga few feet, now hopping as many, and warbling incessantly, occasionally in a subdued tone, which sounds from a very indefinitedistance. When he has found a worm to his liking, he turns lengthwiseof the limb and and bruises its head with his beak before devouringit. 

As I enter the woods the slate-colored snowbird starts up before meand chirps sharply. His protest when thus disturbed is almost metallicin its sharpness. He breeds here, and is not esteemed a snowbird atall, as he disappears at the near approach of winter, and returnsagain in spring, like the song sparrow, and is not in any wayassociated with the cold and snow. So different are the habits ofbirds in different localities. Even the crow does not winter here, andis seldom seen after December or before March. 

The snowbird, or "black chipping-bird, " as it is known among thefarmers, is the finest architect of any of the ground-builders knownto me. The site of its nest is usually some low bank by the roadside, near a wood. In a slight excavation, with a partially concealedentrance, the exquisite structure is placed. Horse and cow hair areplentifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest great symmetryand firmness as well as softness. 

Passing down through the maple arches, barely pausing to observe theantics of a trio of squirrels, --two gray ones and a black one, --Icross an ancient brush fence and am fairly within the old hemlocks, and in one of the most primitive, undisturbed nooks. In the deep mossI tread as with muffled feet, and the pupils of my eyes dilate in thedim, almost religious light. The irreverent red squirrels, however, run and snicker at my approach, or mock the solitude with theirridiculous chattering and frisking. 

This nook is the chosen haunt of the winter wren. This is the onlyplace and these the only woods in which I find him in this vicinity. His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some marveloussounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. Ithink of a tremulous vibrating tongue of silver. You may know it isthe song of a wren, from its gushing lyrical character; but you mustneeds look sharp to see the little minstrel, especially while in theact of singing. He is nearly the color of the ground and the leaves;he never ascends the tall trees, but keeps low, flitting from stump tostump and from root to root, dodging in and out of his hiding-places, and watching all intruders with a suspicious eye. He has a very pert, almost comical look. His tail stands more that perpendicular: itpoints straight toward his head. He is the least ostentatious singer Iknow of. He does not strike an attitude, and lift up his head inpreparation, and, as it were, clear his throat; but sits there on alog and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or even downat the ground. As a songster, he has but few superiors. I do not hearhim after the first week in July. 

While sitting on this soft-cushioned log, tasting the pungentacidulous wood-sorrel, the blossoms of which, large and pink-veined, rise everywhere above the moss, a rufous-colored bird flies quicklypast, and, alighting on a low limb a few rods off, salutes me with"Whew! Whew!" or "Whoit! Whoit!" almost as you would whistle for yourdog. I see by his impulsive, graceful movement, and his dimly speckledbreast, that it is a thrush. Presently he utters a few soft, mellow, flute-like notes, one of the most simple expressions of melody to beheard, and scuds away, and I see it is the veery, or Wilson's thrush. He is the least of the thrushes in size, being about that of thecommon bluebird, and he may be distinguished from his relatives by thedimness of the spots upon his breast. The wood thrush has very clear, distinct oval spots on a white ground; in the hermit, the spots runmore into lines, on a ground of a faint bluish white; in the veery, the marks are almost obsolete, and a few rods off his breast presentsonly a dull yellowish appearance. To get a good view of him you haveonly to sit down in his haunts, as in such cases he seems equallyanxious to get a good view of you. 

From those tall hemlocks proceeds a very fine insect-like warble, andoccasionally I see a spray tremble, or catch the flit of a wing. Iwatch and watch till my head grows dizzy and my neck is in danger ofpermanent displacement, and still do not get a good view. Presentlythe bird darts, or, as it seems, falls down a few feet in pursuit of afly or a moth, and I see the whole of it, but in the dim light amundecided. It is for such emergencies that I have brought my gun. Abird in the hand is worth half a dozen in the bush, even forornithological purposes; and no sure and rapid-progress can be madein the study without taking life, without procuring specimens. Thisbird is a warbler, plainly enough, from his habits and manner; butwhat kind of warbler? Look on him and name him: a deep orange orflame-colored throat and breast; the same color showing also in a lineover the eye and in his crown; back variegated black and white. Thefemale is less marked and brilliant. The orange-throated warbler wouldseem to be his right name, his characteristic cognomen; but no, he isdoomed to wear the name of some discoverer, perhaps the first whorifled his nest or robbed him of his mate, --Blackburn; henceBlackburnian warbler. The burn seems appropriate enough, for in thesedark evergreens his throat and breast show like flame. He has a veryfine warble, suggesting that of the redstart, but not especiallymusical. I find him in not other woods in this vicinity. 

I am attracted by another warble in the same locality, and experiencea like difficulty in getting a good view of the author of it. It isquite a noticeable strain, sharp and sibilant, and sounds well amidthe the old trees. In the upland woods of beech and maple it is a morefamiliar sound than in these solitudes. On taking the bird in hand, one can not help exclaiming, "How beautiful!" So tiny and elegant, thesmallest of the warblers; a delicate blue back, with a slightbronze-colored triangular spot between the shoulders; upper mandibleblack; lower mandible yellow as gold; throat yellow, becoming a darkbronze on the breast. Blue yellow-back he is called, though the yellowis much nearer a bronze. He is remarkably delicate and beautiful, --thehandsomest as he is the smallest of the warblers known to me. It isnever without surprise that I find amid these rugged, savage aspectsof nature creatures so fairy and delicate. But such is the law. Go tothe sea or climb the mountain, and with the ruggedest and the savagestyou will find likewise the fairest and the most delicate. Thegreatness and the minuteness of nature pass all understanding. 

Ever since I entered the woods, even while listening to the lessersongsters, or contemplating the silent forms about me, a strain hasreached my ears from out of the depths of the forest that to me is thefinest sound in nature, --the song of the hermit thrush. I often hearhim thus a long way off, sometimes over a quarter of a mile away, whenonly the stronger and more perfect parts of his music reach me; andthrough the general chorus of wrens and warblers I detect this soundrising pure and serene, as if a spirit from some remote height wereslowly chanting a divine accompaniment. This song appeals to thesentiment of the beautiful in me, and suggests a serene religiousbeatitude as no other sound in nature does. It is perhaps more of anevening than a morning hymn, though I hear it at all hours of the day. It is very simple, and Ican hardly tell the secret of its charm. "O spheral, spheral!" heseems to say; "O holy, holy! O clear away, clear away! O clear up, clear up!" interspersed with the finest trills and the most delicatepreludes. It is not a proud, gorgeous strain, like the tanager's orthe grosbeak's; suggests no passion or emotion, --nothingpersonal, --but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity oneattains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep, solemnjoy that only the finest souls may know. A few nights ago I ascended amountain to see the world by moonlight, and when near the summit thehermit commenced his evening hymn a few rods from me. Listening tothis strain on the lone mountain, with the full moon just rounded fromthe horizon, the pomp of your cities and the pride of yourcivilization seemed trivial and cheap. 

I have seldom known two of these birds to be singing at the same timein the same locality, rivaling each other, like the wood thrush or theveery. Shooting one from a tree, I have observed another take up thestrain from almost the identical perch in less than ten minutesafterward. Later in the day, when I had penetrated the heart of theold Barkpeeling, I came suddenly upon one singing from a low stump, and for a wonder he did not seem alarmed, but lifted up his divinevoice as if his privacy was undisturbed. I open his beak and find theinside yellow as gold. I was prepared to find it inlaid with pearlsand diamonds, or to see an angel issue from it. 

He is not much in the books. Indeed, I am acquainted with scarcelyany writer on ornithology whose head is not muddled on the subject ofour three prevailing song-thrushes, confounding either their figuresor their songs. A writer in the "Atlantic" [Footnote: For December, 1853] gravely tells us the wood thrush is sometimes called the hermit, and then, after describing the song of the hermit with great beautyand correctness, cooly ascribes it to the veery! The new Cyclopaedia, fresh from the study of Audubon, says the hermit's song consists of asingle plaintive note, and that the veery's resembles that of the woodthrush! The hermit thrush may be easily identified by his color; hisback being a clear olive-brown becoming rufous on his rum and tail. Aquill from his wing placed beside one from his tail on a dark groundpresents quite a marked contrast. 

I walk along the old road, and note the tracks in the thin layer ofmud. When do these creatures travel here? I have never yet chanced tomeet one. Here a partridge has set its foot; there, a woodcock; here, a squirrel or mink; thee, a skunk; there, a fox. What a clear, nervoustrack reynard makes! how easy to distinguish it from that of a littledog, --it is so sharply cut and defined! A dog's track is coarse andclumsy beside it. There is as much wildness in the track of an animalas in its voice. Is a deer's track like a sheep's or a goat's? Whatwinged-footed fleetness and agility may be inferred from the sharp, braided track of the gray squirrel upon the new snow! Ah! in nature isthe best discipline. How wood-life sharpens the senses, giving a newpower to the eye, the ear, the nose! And are not the rarest and mostexquisite songsters wood-birds?

Everywhere in these solitudes I am greeted with the pensive, almostpathetic not of the wood pewee. The pewees are the true flycatchers, and are easily identified. They are very characteristic birds, havestrong family traits and pugnacious dispositions. They are the leastattractive or elegant birds of our fields or forests. Sharp-shouldered, big-headed, short-legged, of no particular color, oflittle elegance in flight or movement, with a disagreeable flirt ofthe tail, always quarreling with their neighbors and with one another, no birds are so little calculated to excite pleasurable emotions inthe beholder, or to become objects of human interest and affection. The kingbird is the best dressed member of the family, but he is abraggart; and, though always snubbing his neighbors, is an arrantcoward, and shows the white feather at the slightest display of pluckin his antagonist. I have seen him turn tail to a swallow, and haveknown the little pewee in question to whip him beautifully. From thegreat-crested to the little green flycatcher, their ways and generalhabits are the same. Slow in flying from point to point, they yet havea wonderful quickness, and snap up the fleetest insects with littleapparent effort. There is a constant play of quick, nervous movementsunderneath their outer show of calmness and stolidity. They do notscour the limbs and trees like the warblers, but, perched upon themiddle branches, wait, like true hunters, for the game to come along. There is often a very audible snap of the beak as they seize theirprey. 

The wood pewee, the prevailing species in this locality, arrests yourattention by his sweet, pathetic cry. There is room for it also in thedeep woods, as well as for the more prolonged and elevated strains. 

Its relative, the phoebe-bird, builds an exquisite nest of moss on theside of some shelving cliff or overhanging rock. The other day, passing by a ledge, near the top of a mountain in a singularlydesolate locality, my eye rested upon one of these structures, lookingprecisely as if it grew there, so in keeping was it with the mossycharacter of the rock, and I have had a growing affection for the birdever since. The rock seemed to love the nest and claim it as its own. I said, what a lesson in architecture is here! Here is a house thatwas built, but with such loving care and such beautiful adaptation ofthe means to the end, that it looks like a product of nature. The samewise economy is noticeable in the nests of all birds. No bird couldpaint its house white or red, or add aught for show. 

At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I comesuddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting togetherupon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I pausewithin four or five yards of them and am looking about me, when my eyelights upon these, gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectlyupright, some with their backs and some with their breasts toward me, but every head turned squarely in my direction. Their eyes are closedto a mere black line; though this crack they are watching me, evidently thinking themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird andgrotesque. It is a new effect, the night side of the woods bydaylight. After observing them a moment I take a single step towardthem, when, quick as thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitudeis changed, they bend, some this way, some that, and, instinct withlife and motion, stare wildly about them. Another step, and they alltake flight but one, which stoops low on the branch, and with the lookof a frightened cat regards me for a few seconds over its shoulder. They fly swiftly and softly, and disperse through the trees. I shootone, which is of a tawny red tint, like that figured by Wilson. It isa singular fact that the plumage of these owls presents two totallydistinct phases which "have no relation to sex, age, or season, " onebeing an ashen gray, the other a bright rufous. 

Coming to a drier and less mossy place in the woods, I am amused withthe golden-crowned thrush, --which, however, is no thrush at all, but awarbler. He walks on the ground ahead of me with such an easy, glidingmotion, and with such an unconscious, preoccupied air, jerking hishead like a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, now slackening his pace, that I pause to observe him. I sit down, he pauses to observe me, andextends his pretty ramblings on all sides, apparently very muchengrossed with his own affairs, but never losing sight of me. But fewof the birds are walkers, most being hoppers, like the robin. 

Satisfied that I have no hostile intentions, the pretty pedestrianmounts a limb a few feet from the ground, and gives me the benefit ofone of his musical performances, a sort of accelerating chant. Commencing in a very low key, which makes him seem at a very uncertaindistance, he grows louder and louder till his body quakes and hischant runs into a shriek, ringing in my ear, with a peculiarsharpness. This lay may be represented thus:

[TRANSCRIBISTS NOTE: ORIGINAL BOOK USES FONT SHIFTSTO ILLUSTRATE AN INCREASE IN VOLUME]

"Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher!"--the accent on thefirst syllable and each word uttered with increased force andshrillness. No writer with whom I am acquainted gives him credit formore musical ability than is displayed in this strain. Yet in this thehalf is not told. He has a far rarer song, which he reserves for somenymph whom he meets in the air. Mounting by easy flights to the top ofthe tallest tree, he launches into the air with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and bursts into aperfect ecstasy of song, --clear, ringing, copious, rivaling thegoldfinch's in vivacity, and the linnet's in melody. This strain isone of the rarest bits of bird melody to be heard, and is oftenestindulged in late in the afternoon or after sundown. Over the woods, hid from view, the ecstatic singer warbles his finest strain. In thissong you instantly detect his relationship to thewater-wagtail, --erroneously called water-thrush, --whose song islikewise a sudden burst, full and ringing, and with a tone of youthfuljoyousness in it, as if the bird had just had some unexpected goodfortune. For nearly two years this strain of the pretty walker waslittle more than a disembodied voice to me, and I was puzzled by it asThoreau by his mysterious night-warbler, which, by the way, I suspectwas no new bird at all, but one he was otherwise familiar with. Thelittle bird himself seems disposed to keep the matter a secret, andimproves every opportunity to repeat before you his shrill, accelerating lay, as if this were quite enough and all he laid claimto. Still, I trust I am betraying no confidence in making the matterpublic here. I think this is preëminently his love-song, as I hear itoftenest about the mating season. I have caught half-suppressed burstsof it from two males chasing each other with fearful speed through theforest. 

Turning to the left from the old road, I wander over soft logs andgray yielding débris, across the little trout brook, until I emerge inthe overgrown Barkpeeling, --pausing now and then on the way to admirea small, solitary now and then on the way to admire a small, solitarywhite flower which rises above the moss, with radical, heart-shapedleaves, and a blossom precisely like the liverwort except in color, but which is not put down in my botany, --or to observe the ferns, ofwhich I count six varieties, some gigantic ones nearly shoulder-high. 

At the foot of a rough, scraggly yellow birch, on a bank of club-moss, so richly inlaid with partridge-berry and curious shiningleaves--with here and there in the bordering a spire of falsewintergreen strung with faint pink flowers and exhaling the breath ofa May orchard--that it looks too costly a couch for such an idler, Irecline to note what transpires. The sun is just past the meridian, and the afternoon chorus is not yet in full tune. Most birds sing withthe greatest spirit and vivacity in the forenoon, though there areoccasional bursts later in the day in which nearly all voices join;while it is not till the twilight that the full power and solemnity ofthe thrush's hymn is felt. 

My attention is soon arrested by a pair of hummingbirds, theruby-throated, disporting themselves in a low bush a few yards fromme. The female takes shelter amid the branches, and squeaks exultinglyas the male, circling above, dives down as if to dislodge her. Seeingme, he drops like a feather on a slender twig, and in a moment bothare gone. Then as if by a preconcerted signal, the throats are allatune. I lie on my back with eyes half closed, and analyze the chorusof warblers, thrushes, finches, and flycatchers; while, soaring aboveall, a little withdrawn and alone rises the divine contralto of thehermit. That richly modulated warble proceeding from the top of yonderbirch, and which unpracticed ears would mistake for the voice of thescarlet tanager, comes from that rare visitant, the rose-breastedgrosbeak. It is a strong, vivacious strain, a bright noonday song, full of health and assurance, indicating fine talents in theperformer, but not a genius. As I come up under the tree he casts hiseye down at me, but continues his song. This bird is said to be quitecommon in the Northwest, but he is rare in the Eastern districts. Hisbeak is disproportionately large and heavy, like a huge nose, whichslightly mars his good looks; but Nature has made it up to him in ablush rose upon his breast, and the most delicate of pink linings tothe under side of his wings. His back is variegated black and white, and when flying low the white shows conspicuously. If he passed overyour head, you would not the delicate flush under his wings. 

That bit of bright scarlet on yonder dead hemlock, glowing like a livecoal against the dark background, seeming almost too brilliant for thesevere northern climate, is his relative, the scarlet tanager. Ioccasionally meet him in the deep hemlocks, and know no strongercontrast in nature. I almost fear he will kindle the dry limb on whichhe alights. He is quite a solitary bird, and in this section seems toprefer the high, remote woods, even going quite to the mountain's top. Indeed, the event of my last visit to the mountain was meeting one ofthese brilliant creatures near the summit, in full song. The breezecarried the notes far and wide. He seemed to enjoy the elevation, andI imagined his song had more scope and freedom than usual. When he hadflown far down the mountain-side, the breeze still brought me hisfinest notes. In plumage he is the most brilliant bird we have. Thebluebird is not entirely blue; nor will the indigo-bird bear a closeinspection, nor the goldfinch, nor the summer redbird. But the tanagerloses nothing by a near view; the deep scarlet of his body and theblack of his wings and tail are quite perfect. This is his holidaysuit; in the fall be becomes a dull yellowish green, --the color of thefemale the whole season. 

One of the leading songsters in this choir of the old Barkpeeling isthe purple finch or linnet. He sits somewhat apart, usually on a deadhemlock, and warbles most exquisitely. He is one of our finestsongsters, and stands at the head of the finches, as the hermit at thehead of the thrushes. His song approaches an ecstasy, and, with theexception of the winter wren's, is the most rapid and copious strainto be heard in these woods. It is quite destitute of the trills andthe liquid, silvery, bubbling notes that characterize the wren's; butthere runs through it a round, richly modulated whistle, very sweetand very pleasing. The call of the robin is brought in at a certainpoint with marked effect, and, throughout, the variety is so great andthe strain so rapid that the impression is as of two or three birdssinging at the same time. He is not common here, and I only find himin these or similar woods. His color is peculiar, and looks as if itmight have been imparted by dipping a brown bird in diluted pokeberryjuice. Two or three more dipping would have made the purple complete. The female is the color of the song sparrow, a little larger, withheavier beak, and tail much more forked. 

In a little opening quite free from brush and trees, I step down tobath my hands in the brook, when a small, light slate-colored birdflutters out of the bank, not three feet from my head, as I stoopdown, and, as if severely lamed or injured, flutters through the grassand into the nearest bush. As I do not follow, but remain near thenest, she chips sharply, which brings the male, and I see it is thespeckled Canada warbler. I find no authority in the books for thisbird to build upon the ground, yet here is the nest, made chiefly ofdry grass, set in a slight excavation in the bank not two feet fromthe water, and looking a little perilous to anything but ducklings orsandpipers. There are two young birds and one little speckled egg justpipped. But how is this? what mystery is here? One nestling is muchlarger than the other, monopolizes most of the nest, and lifts itsopen mouth far above that of its companion, though obviously both areof the same age, not more than a day old. Ah! I see; the old trick ofthe cow bunting, with a stinging human significance. Taking theinterloper by the nape of the neck, I deliberately drop it into thewater, but not without a pang, as I see its naked form, convulsed withchills, float downstream. Cruel? So is Nature cruel. I take one lifeto save two. In less than two days this pot-bellied intruder wouldhave caused the death of the two rightful occupants of the nest; so Istep in and turn things into their proper channel again. 

It is a similar freak of nature, this instinct which prompts one birdto lay its eggs in the nests of others, and thus shirk theresponsibility of rearing its own young. The cow buntings alwaysresort to this cunning trick; and when one reflects upon theirnumbers, it is evident that these little tragedies are quite frequent. In Europe the parallel case is that of the cuckoo, and occasionallyour own cuckoo imposes upon a robin or a thrush in the same manner. The cow bunting seems to have no conscience about the matter, and, sofar as I have observed, invariable selects the nest of a bird smallerthan itself. Its egg is usually the first to hatch; its youngoverreaches all the rest when food is brought; it grow with greatrapidity, spreads and fills the nest, and the starved and crowdedoccupants soon perish, when the parent bird removes their dead bodies, giving its whole energy and care to the foster-child. 

The warblers and smaller flycatchers are generally the sufferers, though I sometimes see the slate-colored snowbird unconsciously dupedin like manner; and the other day, in a tall tree in the woods, Idiscovered the black-throated green-backed warbler devoting itself tothis dusky, over-grown foundling. An old farmer to whom I pointed outthe fact was much surprised that such things should happen in hiswoods without his knowledge. 

These birds may be seen prowling through all parts of the woods atthis season, watching for an opportunity to steal their egg into somenest. One day while sitting on a log, I saw one moving by shortflights through the trees and gradually nearing the ground. Itsmovements were hurried and stealthy. About fifty yards from me itdisappeared behind some low brush, and had evidently alighted upon theground. 

After waiting a few moments I cautiously walked in the direction. When about halfway I accidentally made a slight noise, when the birdflew up, and seeing me, hurried out of the woods. Arrived at theplace, I found a simple nest of dry grass and leaves partiallyconcealed under a prostrate branch. I took it to be the nest of asparrow. There were three eggs in a nest, and one lying about a footbelow it as if it had been rolled out, as of course it had. Itsuggested the thought that perhaps, when the cowbird finds the fullcomplement of eggs in a nest, it throws out one and deposits its owninstead. I revisited the nest a few days afterward and found an eggagain cast out, but none had been put in its place. The nest had beenabandoned by its owner and the eggs were stale. 

In all cases where I have found this egg, I have observed both maleand female cowbird lingering near, the former uttering his peculiarliquid, glassy note from the tops of the trees. 

In July, the young which have been reared in the same neighborhood, and which are now of a dull fawn color, begin to collect in smallflocks, which grow to be quite large in autumn. 

The specked Canada is a very superior warbler, having a lively, animated strain, reminding you of certain parts of the canary's, though quite broken and incomplete; the bird, the while, hopping amidthe branches with increased liveliness, and indulging in fine sibilantchirps, too happy to keep silent. 

His manners are quite marked. He has a habit of courtesying when hediscovers you which is very pretty. In form he is an elegant bird, somewhat slender, his back of a bluish lead-color becoming nearlyblack on his crown: the under part of his body, from his throat down, is of a light, delicate yellow, with a belt of black dots across hisbreast. He has a fine eye, surrounded by a light yellow ring. 

The parent birds are much disturbed by my presence, and keep up a loudemphatic chirping, which attracts the attention of their sympatheticneighbors, and one after another they come to see what has happened. The chestnut-sided and the Blackburnian come in company. The black andyellow warbler pauses a moment and hastens away; the Marylandyellow-throat peeps shyly from the lower bushes and utters his "Fip!fip!" in sympathy; the wood pewee comes straight to the tree overhead, and the red-eyed vireo lingers and lingers, eyeing me with a curiousinnocent look, evidently much puzzled. But all disappear again, one byone, apparently without a word of condolence or encouragement to thedistressed pair. I have often noticed among birds this show ofsympathy, --if indeed it be sympathy, and not merely curiosity, ordesire to be forewarned of the approach of a common danger. 

An hour afterward I approach the place, find all still, and the motherbird upon her nest. As I draw near she seems to sit closer, her eyesgrowing large with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look. She keepsher place till I am within two paces of her, when she flutters away asat first. In the brief interval the remaining egg has hatched, and thetwo little nestling lift their heads without being jostled oroverreached by any strange bedfellow. A week afterward and they wereflown away, --so brief is the infancy of birds. And the wonder is thatthey escape, even for this short time, the skunks and minks andmuskrats that abound here, and that have a decided partiality for suchtidbits. 

I pass on through the old Barkpeeling, now threading an obscurecow-path or an overgrown wood-road; now clambering over soft anddecayed logs, or forcing my way through a network of briers andhazels; now entering a perfect bower of wild cherry, beech, and softmaple; now emerging into a grassy lane, golden with buttercups orwhite with daisies, or wading waist-deep in the red raspberry-bushes. 

Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown partridges start up likean explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in thebushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind the screen of fernsand briers, and hear this wild hen of the woods call together herbrood. At what an early age the partridge flies! Nature seems toconcentrate her energies on the wing, making the safety of a bird apoint to be looked after first; and while the body is covered withdown, and no signs of feathers are visible, the wing-quills sprout andunfold, and in an incredibly short time the young make fair headway inflying. 

The same rapid development of wing may be observed in chickens andturkeys, but not in water-fowls, nor in birds that are safely housedin the nest till full-fledged. The other day, by a brook, I camesuddenly upon a young sandpiper, a most beautiful creature, envelopedin a soft gray down, swift and nimble and apparently a week or twoold, but with no signs of plumage either of body or wing. And itneeded none, for it escaped me by taking to the water as readily as ifit had flown with wings. 

Hark! there arises over there in the brush a soft persuasive cooing, a sound so subtle and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the mostalert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and fullof yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently a fainttimid "Yeap!" which almost eludes the ear, is heard in variousdirection, --the young responding. As no danger seems near, the cooingof the parent bird is soon a very audible clucking call, and the youngmove cautiously in the direction. Let me step never to carefully frommy hiding-place, and all sounds instantly cease, and I search in vainfor either parent or young. 

The partridge is one of our most native and characteristic birds. Thewoods seem good to be in where I find him. He gives a habitable air tothe forest, and one feels as if the rightful occupant was really athome. The woods where I do not find him seem to want something, as ifsuffering from some neglect of Nature. And then he is such a splendidsuccess, so hardy and vigorous. I think he enjoys the cold and thesnow. His wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwinter. If thesnow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm he will complacentlysit down allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at suchtimes, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering theflakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods likea bombshell, --a picture of native spirit and success. 

His drum is one of the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring. Scarcely have the trees expanded their buds, when, in the still Aprilmornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings. He selects not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but adecayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to oldoak-logs that are partly blended with the soil. If a log to his tastecannot be found, he sets up his alter on a rock, which becomesresonant beneath his fervent blows. Who has seen the partridge drum?It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by muchcaution and tact it may be done. He does not hug the log, but standsvery erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauseshalf a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till thesound becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less thanhalf a minute. The tips of his wings barely brush the log, so that thesound is produced rather by the force of the blows upon the air andupon his own body as in flying. One log will be used for many years, though not by the same drummer. It seems to be a sort of temple andheld in great respect. The bird always approaches on foot, and leavesit in the same quiet manner, unless rudely disturbed. He is verycunning, though his wit is not profound. It is difficult to approachhim by stealth, you will try many times before succeeding; but seem topass by him in a great hurry, making all the noise possible, and withplumage furled, he stands as immovable as a know, allowing you a goodview, and a good shot if you are a sportsman. 

Passing along one of the old Barkpeelers' roads which wander aimlesslyabout, I am attracted by a singularly brilliant and emphatic warble, proceeding from the low bushes, and quickly suggesting the voice ofthe Maryland yellow-throat. Presently the singer hops up on a drytwig, and gives me a good view: lead-colored head and neck, becomingnearly black on the breast; clear olive-green back, and yellow belly. From his habit of keeping near the ground, even hopping upon itoccasionally, I know him to be a ground warbler; from his dark breastthe ornithologist has added the expletive mourning, hence the mourningground warbler. 

Of this bird both Wilson and Audubon confessed their comparativeignorance, neither ever having seen its nest or become acquainted withits haunts and general habits. Its song is quite striking and novel, though its voice at once suggests the class of warblers to which itbelongs. It is very shy and wary, flying but a few feet at a time, andstudiously concealing itself from your view. I discover but one pairhere. The female has food in her beak, but carefully avoids betrayingthe locality of her nest. The ground warblers all have one notablefeature, --very beautiful legs, as white and delicate as if they hadalways worn silk stockings and satin slippers. High tree warblers havedark brown or black legs and more brilliant plumage, but less musicalability. 

The chestnut-sided belongs to the latter class. He is quite common inthese woods, as in all the woods about. He is one of the rarest andhandsomest of the warblers; his white breast and throat, chestnutsides, and yellow crown show conspicuously. Last year I found the nestof one in an uplying beech wood, in a low bush near the roadside, where cows passed and browsed daily. Things went on smoothly till thecow bunting stole her egg into it, when other mishaps followed, andthe nest was soon empty. A characteristic attitude of the male duringthis season is a slight drooping of the wings, and a tail a littleelevated, which gives him a very smart, bantam-like appearance. Hissong is fine and hurried, and not much of itself, but has its place inthe general chorus. 

A far sweeter strain, falling on the ear with the true sylvan cadence, is that of the black-throated green-backed warbler, whom I meet atvarious points. He has no superiors among the true Sylvia. His song isvery plain and simple, but remarkably pure and tender, and might beindicated by straight lines, thus [2 dashes, square root symbol, highdash]; the first two marks representing two sweet, silvery notes, inthe same pitch of voice, and quite unaccented; the latter marks, theconcluding notes, wherein the tone and inflection are changed. Thethroat and breast of the male are a rich black like velvet, his faceyellow, and his back a yellowish green. 

Beyond the Barkpeeling, where the woods are mingled hemlock, beech, and birch, the languid midsummer note of the black-throated blue-backfalls on my ear. "Twea, twea, twea-e-e!" in the upward slide, and withthe peculiar z-ing of summer insects, but not destitute of a certainplaintive cadence. It is one of the most languid, unhurried sounds inall the woods. I feel like reclining upon the dry leaves at once. Audubon says he has never heard his love-song; but this is all thelove-song he has, and he is evidently a very plain hero with hislittle brown mistress. He assumes few attitudes, and is not a bold andstriking gymnast, like many of his kindred. He has a preference fordense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branchesand smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground, and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back andcrown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, purewhite; and he has a white spot on each wing. 

Here and there I meet the black and white creeping warbler, whose finestrain reminds me of hairwire. It is unquestionably the finestbird-song to be heard. Few insect strains will compare with it in thisrespect; while it has none of the harsh, brassy character of thelatter, being very delicate and tender. 

That sharp, uninterrupted, but still continued warble, which beforeone has learned to discriminate closely, he is apt to confound withthe red-eyed vireo's, is that of the solitary warbling vireo, --a birdslightly larger, much rarer, and with a louder less cheerful and happystrain. I see him hopping along lengthwise of the limbs, and note theorange tinge of his breast and sides and the white circle around hiseye. 

But the declining sun and the deepening shadows admonish me that thisramble must be brought to a close, even though only the leadingcharacters in this chorus of forty songsters have been described, andonly a small portion of the venerable old woods explored. In asecluded swampy corner of the old Barkpeeling, where I find the greatpurple orchis in bloom, and where the foot of man or beast seems neverto have trod, I linger long, contemplating the wonderful display oflichens and mosses that overrun both the smaller and the largergrowths. Every bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the mostrich and fantastic of liveries; and, crowning all, the long beardedmoss festoons the branches or sways gracefully from the limbs. Everytwig looks a century old, though green leaves tip the end of it. Ayoung yellow birch has a venerable, patriarchal look, and seems ill atease under such premature honors. A decayed hemlock is draped as if byhands for some solemn festival. 

Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently as the hush andstillness of twilight com upon the woods. It is the sweetest, ripesthour of the day. And as the hermit's evening hymn goes up from thedeep solitude below me, I experience that serene exaltation ofsentiment of which music, literature, and religion are but the fainttypes and symbols. 1865. 

III

THE ADIRONDACKS

When I went to the Adirondacks, which was in the summer of 1863, I wasin the first flush of my ornithological studies, and was curious, above else, to know what birds I should find in these solitudes, --whatnew ones, and what ones already known to me. 

In visiting vast primitive, far-off woods one naturally expects tofind something rare and precious, or something entirely new, but itcommonly happens that one is disappointed. Thoreau made threeexcursions into the Maine woods, and, though he started the moose andthe caribou, had nothing more novel to report by way of bird notesthan the songs of the wood thrush and the pewee. This was about my ownexperience in the Adirondacks. The birds for the most part prefer thevicinity of settlements and clearings, and it was at such places thatI saw the greatest number and variety. 

At the clearing of an old hunter and pioneer by the name of Hewett, where we paused a couple of days on first entering the woods, I sawmany old friends and made some new acquaintances. The snowbird wasvery abundant here, as it had been at various points along the routeafter leaving Lake George. As I went out to the spring in the morningto wash myself, a purple finch flew up before me, having alreadyperformed its ablutions. I had first observed this bird the winterbefore in the Highlands of the Hudson, where, during several clear butcold February mornings, a troop of them sang most charmingly in a treein front of my house. The meeting with the bird here in its breedinghaunts was a pleasant surprise. During the day I observed several pinefinches, --a dark brown or brindlish bird, allied to the commonyellowbird, which it much resembles in its manner and habits. Theylingered familiarly about the house, sometimes alighting in a smalltree within a few feet of it. In one of the stumpy fields I saw an oldfavorite in the grass finch or vesper swallow. It was sitting on atall charred stub with food in its beak. But all along the borders ofthe woods and in the bushy parts of the fields there was a new songthat I was puzzled in tracing to the author. It was most noticeable inthe morning and at twilight, but was at all times singularly secretand elusive. I at last discovered that it was the white-throatedsparrow, a common bird all through this region. Its song is verydelicate and plaintive, --a thin, wavering, tremulous whistle, whichdisappoints one, however, as it ends when it seems only to have begun. If the bird could give us the finishing strain of which this seemsonly the prelude, it would stand first among feathered songsters. 

By a little trout brook in a low part of the woods adjoining theclearing, I had a good time pursuing and identifying a number ofwarblers, --the speckled Canada, the black-throated blue, theyellow-rumped, and Audubon's warbler. The latter, which was leadingits troop of young through a thick undergrowth on the banks of thecreek where insects were plentiful, was new to me. 

It being August, the birds were all moulting, and sang only fitfullyand by brief snatches. I remember hearing but one robin during thewhole trip. This was by the Boreas River in the deep forest. It waslike the voice of an old friend speaking my name. 

From Hewett's, after engaging his youngest son, --the "Bub" of thefamily, --a young man about twenty and a thorough woodsman, as ourguide, we took to the woods in good earnest, our destination being theStillwater of the Boreas, --a long, deep, dark reach in one of theremotest branches of the Hudson, about six miles distant. Here wepaused a couple of days, putting up in a dilapidated lumbermen'sshanty, and cooking our fish over an old stove which had been leftthere. The most noteworthy incident of our stay at this point was thetaking by myself of half a dozen splendid trout out of the Stillwater, after the guide had exhausted his art and his patience with veryinsignificant results. The place had a very trouty look; but as theseason was late and the river warm, I knew the fish lay in deep waterfrom which they could not be attracted. In deep water accordingly, andnear the head of the hole, I determined to look for them. Securing achub, I cut it into pieces about an inch long, and with these for baitsank my hook into the head of the Stillwater, and just to one side ofthe main current. In less than twenty minutes I had landed six noblefellows, three of them over one foot long each. The guide and myincredulous companions, who were watching me from the opposite shore, seeing my luck, whipped out their tackle in great haste and begancasting first at a respectable distance from me, then all about me, but without a single catch. My own efforts suddenly became fruitlessalso, but I had conquered the guide, and thenceforth he treated mewith the tone and freedom of a comrade and equal. 

One afternoon, we visited a cave some two miles down the stream, whichhad recently been discovered. We squeezed and wriggled through a bigcrack or cleft in the side of the mountain for about one hundred feet, when we emerged into a large dome-shaped passage, the abode duringcertain seasons of the year of innumerable bats, and at all times ofprimeval darkness. There were various other crannies and pit-holesopening into it, some of which we explored. The voice of running waterwas everywhere heard, betraying the proximity of the little stream bywhose ceaseless corroding the cave and its entrance had been worn. This streamlet flowed out of the mouth of the cave, and came from alake on the top of the mountain; this accounted for its warmth to thehand, which surprised us all. 

Birds of any kind were rare in these woods. A pigeon hawk cameprowling by our camp, and the faint piping call of the nuthatches, leading their young through the high trees, was often heard. 

On the third day our guide proposed to conduct us to a lake in themountains where we could float for deer. 

Our journey commenced in a steep and rugged ascent, which brought us, after an hour's heavy climbing, to an elevated region of pine forest, years before ravished by lumbermen, and presenting all manner ofobstacles to our awkward and incumbered pedestrianism. The woods werelargely pine, though yellow birch, beech, and maple were common. Thesatisfaction of having a gun, should any game show itself, was thechief compensation to those of us who were thus burdened. A partridgewould occasionally whir up before us, or a red squirrel snicker andhasten to his den; else the woods appeared quite tenantless. The mostnoted object was a mammoth pine, apparently the last of a great race, which presided over a cluster of yellow birches, on the side of themountain. 

About noon, we came out upon a long, shallow sheet of water which theguide called Bloody-Moose Pond, from the tradition that a moose hadbeen slaughtered there many years before. Looking out over the silentand lonely scene, his eye was the first to detect an object, apparently feeding upon lily-pads, which our willing fancies readilyshaped into a deer. As we were eagerly waiting some movement toconfirm this impression, it lifted up its head, and lo! a great blueheron. Seeing us approach, it spread its long wings and flew solemnlyacross to a dead tree on the other side of the lake, enhancing ratherthan relieving the loneliness and desolation that brooded over thescene. As we proceeded, it flew from tree to tree in advance of us, apparently loth to be disturbed in its ancient and solitary domain. Inthe margin of the pond we found the pitcher-plant growing, and hereand there in the sand the closed gentian lifted up its blue head. 

In traversing the shores of this wild, desolate lake, I was consciousof a slight thrill of expectation, as if some secret of Nature mighthere be revealed, or some rare and unheard-of game disturbed. There isever a lurking suspicion that the beginning of things is in some wayassociated with water, and one may notice that in his private walks heis led by a curious attraction to fetch all the springs and ponds inhis route, as if by them was the place for wonders and miracles tohappen. Once, while in advance of my companions, I saw, from a highrock, a commotion in the water near the shore, but on reaching thepoint found only the marks of a musquash. 

Pressing on through the forest, after many adventures with pine-knots, we reached, about the middle of the afternoon, our destination, Nate'sPond, --a pretty sheet of water, lying like a silver mirror in the lapof the mountain, about a mile long and half a mile wide, surrounded bydark forests of balsam, hemlock, and pine, and, like the one we hadjust passed, a very picture of unbroken solitude. 

It is not in the woods alone to give one this impression of utterloneliness. In the woods are sounds and voices, and a dumb kind ofcompanionship; one is little more than a walking tree himself; butcome upon one of these mountain lakes, and the wildness standsrevealed and meets you face to face. Water is thus facile andadaptive, that makes the wild more wild, while it enhances culture andart. 

The end of the pond which we approached was quite shoal, the stonesrising above the surface as in a summer brook, and everywhere showingmarks of the noble game we were in quest of, --footprints, dung, andcropped and uprooted lily pads. After resting for a half hour, andreplenishing our game-pouches at the expense of the most respectablefrogs of the locality, we filed on through the soft, resinouspine-woods, intending to camp near the other end of the lake, where, the guide assured us, we should find a hunter's cabin ready built. Ahalf-hour's march brought us to the locality, and a most delightfulone it was, --so hospitable and inviting that all the kindly andbeneficent influences of the woods must have abided there. In a slightdepression in the woods, about one hundred yards from the lake, thoughhidden from it for a hunter's reasons, surrounded by a heavy growth ofbirch, hemlock, and pine, with a lining of balsam and fir, the rudecabin welcomed us. It was of the approved style, three sides inclosed, with a roof of bark and a bed of boughs, and a rock in front thatafforded a permanent backlog to all fires. A faint voice of runningwater was head near by, and, following the sound, a delicious springrivulet was disclosed, hidden by the moss and débris as by a new fallof snow, but here and there rising in little well-like openings, as iffor our special convenience. On smooth places on the log I noticedfemale names inscribed in a female hand; and the guide told us of anEnglish lady, an artist, who had traversed this region with a singleguide, making sketches. 

Our packs unslung and the kettle over, our first move was to ascertainin what state of preservation a certain dug-out might be, which theguide averred, he had left moored in the vicinity the summerbefore, --for upon this hypothetical dug-out our hopes of venisonrested. After a little searching, it was found under the top of afallen hemlock, but in a sorry condition. A large piece had been splitout of one end, and a fearful chink was visible nearly to the waterline. Freed from the treetop, however, and calked with a little moss, it floated with two aboard, which was quite enough for our purpose. Ajack and an oar were necessary to complete the arrangement, and beforethe sun had set our professor of wood-craft had both in readiness. From a young yellow birch an oar took shape with marvelousrapidity, --trimmed and smoothed with a neatness almost fastidious, --nomakeshift, but an instrument fitted for the delicate work it was toperform. 

A jack was make with equal skill and speed. A stout staff about threefeet long was placed upright in the bow of the boat, and held to itsplace by a horizontal bar, through a hole in which it turned easily: ahalf wheel eight or ten inches in diameter, cut from a large chip, wasplaced at the top, around which was bent a new section of birch bark, thus forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three candles placedwithin the circle completed the jack. With moss and boughs seats werearranged, --one in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern forthe oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness came, all were keenly alive to the opportunity itbrought. Though by no means an expert in the use of the gun, --addingthe superlative degree of enthusiasm to only the positive degree ofskill, --yet it seemed tacitly agreed that I should act as marksman andkill the deer, if such was to be our luck. 

After it was thoroughly dark, we went down to make a short trial trip. Everything working to satisfaction, about ten o'clock we pushed out inearnest. For the twentieth time I felt in the pocket that containedthe matches, ran over the part I was to perform, and pressed my gunfirmly, to be sure there was no mistake. My position was that ofkneeling directly under the jack, which I was to light at the word. The night was clear, moonless, and still. Nearing the middle of thelake, a breeze from the west was barely perceptible, and noiselesslywe glided before it. The guide handled his oar with great dexterity;without lifting it from the water or breaking the surface, he impartedthe steady, uniform motion desired. How silent it was! The ear seemedthe only sense, and to hold dominion over lake and forest. Occasionally a lily-pad would brush along the bottom, and stooping lowI could hear a faint murmuring of the water under the bow: else allwas still. Then almost as by magic, we were encompassed by a hugeblack ring. The surface of the lake, when we had reached the center, was slightly luminous from the starlight, and the dark, evenforest-line that surrounded us, doubled by reflection in the water, presented a broad, unbroken belt of utter blackness. The effect wasquite startling, like some huge conjurer's trick. It seemed as if wehad crossed the boundary-line between the real and the imaginary, andthis was indeed the land of shadows and of spectres. What magic oarwas that the guide wielded that it could transport me to such a realm!Indeed, had I not committed some fatal mistake, and left that trustyservant behind, and had not some wizard of the night stepped into hisplace? A slight splashing in-shore broke the spell and caused me toturn nervously to the oarsman: "Musquash, " said he, and kept straiton. 

Nearing the extreme end of the pond, the boat gently headed around, and silently we glided back into the clasp of that strange orbit. Slight sounds were heard as before, but nothing that indicated thepresence of the game we were waiting for; and we reached the point ofdeparture as innocent of venison as we had set out. 

After an hour's delay, and near midnight, we pushed out again. Myvigilance and susceptibility were rather sharpened than dulled by thewaiting; and the features of the night had also deepened andintensified. Night was at its meridian. The sky had that softluminousness which may often be observed near midnight at this season, and the "large few stars" beamed mildly down. We floated out into thatspectral shadow-land and moved slowly on as before. The silence wasmost impressive. Now and then the faint yeap of some traveling birdwould come from the air overhead, or the wings of a bat whisp quicklyby, or an owl hoot off in the mountains, giving to the silence andloneliness a tongue. At short intervals some noise in-shore wouldstartle me, and cause me to turn inquiringly to the silent figure inthe stern. 

The end of the lake was reached, and we turned back. The novelty andthe excitement began to flag; tired nature began to assert her claims;the movement was soothing, and the gunner slumbered fitfully at hispost. Presently something aroused me. "There's a deer, " whispered theguide. The gun heard, and fairly jumped in my hand. Listening, therecame the crackling of a limb, followed by a sound as of somethingwalking in shallow water. It proceeded from the other end of the lake, over against our camp. On we sped, noiselessly as ever, but withincreased velocity. Presently, with a thrill of new intensity, I sawthe boat was gradually heading in that direction. Now, to a sportsmanwho gets excited over a gray squirrel, and forgets that he has a gunon the sudden appearance of a fox, this was a severe trial. I suddenlyfelt cramped for room, and trimming the boat was out of the question. It seemed that I must make some noise in spite of myself. "Light thejack, " said a soft whisper behind me. I fumbled nervously for a match, and dropped the first one. Another was drawn briskly across my kneeand broke. A third lighted, but went out prematurely, in my haste toget it to the jack. What would I not have given to see those wicksblaze! We were fast nearing the shore, --already the lily-pads began tobrush along the bottom. Another attempt, and the light took. Thegentle motion fanned the blaze, and in a moment a broad glare of lightfell upon the water in front of us, while the boat remained in utterdarkness. 

By this time I had got beyond the nervous point, and had come round toperfect coolness and composure again, but preternaturally vigilant andkeen. I was ready for any disclosures; not a sound was heard. In a fewmoments the trees alongshore were faintly visible. Every object put onthe shape of a gigantic deer. A large rock looked just ready to boundaway. The dry limbs of a prostrate tree were surely his antlers. 

But what are those two luminous spots? Need the reader be told whatthey were? In a moment the head of a real deer became outlined; thenhis neck and foreshoulders; then his whole body. There he stood, up tohis knees in the water, gazing fixedly at us, apparently arrested inthe movement of putting his head down for a lily-pad, and evidentlythinking it was some new-fangled moon sporting about there. "Let himhave it, " said my prompter, --and the crash came. There was a scufflein the water, and a plunge in the woods. "He's gone, " said I. "Wait amoment, " said the guide, "and I will show you. " Rapidly running thecanoe ashore, we sprang out, and, holding the jack aloft, explored thevicinity by its light. There, over the logs and brush, I caught theglimmer of those luminous spots again. But, poor thing! there waslittle need of the second shot, which was the unkindest of all, forthe deer had already fallen to the ground, and was fast expiring. Thesuccess was but a very indifferent one, after all, as the victimturned out to be only an old doe, upon whom maternal cares hadevidently worn heavily during the summer. 

This mode of taking deer is very novel and strange. The animal isevidently fascinated or bewildered. It does not appear to befrightened, but as if overwhelmed with amazement, or under theinfluence of some spell. It is not sufficiently master of thesituation to be sensible of fear, or to think of escape by flight; andthe experiment, to be successful, must be tried quickly, before thefirst feeling of bewilderment passes. 

Witnessing the spectacle from the shore, I can conceive of nothingmore sudden or astounding. You see no movement and hear no noise, butthe light grows upon you, and stares and stares like a huge eye frominfernal regions. 

According to the guide, when a deer has been played upon in thismanner and escaped, he is not to be fooled again a second time. Mounting the shore, he gives a long signal snort, which alarms everyanimal within hearing, and dashes away. 

The sequel to the deer-shooting was a little sharp practice with arevolver upon a rabbit, or properly a hare, which was so taken withthe spectacle of the camp-fire, and the sleeping figures lying about, that it ventured quite up in our midst; but while testing the qualityof some condensed milk that sat uncovered at the foot of a large tree, poor Lepus had his spine injured by a bullet. 

Those who lodge with Nature find early rising quite in order. It isour voluptuous beds, and isolation from the earth and the air, thatprevents us from emulating the birds and the beasts in this respect. With the citizen in his chamber, it is not morning, butbreakfast-time. The camper-out, however, feels morning in the air, hesmells it, hears it, and springs up with the general awakening. Nonewere tardy at the row of white chips arranged on the trunk of aprostrate tree, when breakfast was halloed; for we were all anxious totry the venison. Few of us, however, took a second piece. It was blackand strong. 

The day was warm and calm, and we loafed at leisure. The woods wereNature's own. It was a luxury to ramble through them, --rank and shaggyand venerable, but with an aspect singularly ripe and mellow. No firehad consumed and no lumberman plundered. Every trunk and limb and leaflay where it had fallen. At every step the foot sank into the moss, which, like a soft green snow, covered everything, making every stonea cushion and every rock a bed, --a grand old Norse parlor; adornedbeyond art and upholstered beyond skill. 

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

By the lake, I met that orchard beauty, the cedar waxwing, spendinghis vacation in the assumed character of a flycatcher, whose part heperformed with great accuracy and deliberation. Only a month before Ihad 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. Fromthe tops of the dead trees along the border of the lake, he wouldsally out in all directions, sweeping through long curves, alternatelymounting and descending, now reaching up for a fly high in the air, now sinking low for one near the surface, and returning to his perchin a few moments for a fresh start. 

The pine finch was also here, though, as usual never appearing athome, but with a waiting, expectant air. Here also I met my beautifulsinger, the hermit thrush, but with no song in his throat now. A weekor two later and he was on his journey southward. This was the onlyspecies of thrush I saw in the Adirondacks. Near Lake Sandford, wherewere 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, whendisturbed, to the cluck of the partridge. 

Nate's Pond contained perch and sunfish but no trout. Its water wasnot pure enough for trout. Was there ever any other fish so fastidiousas this, requiring such sweet harmony and perfection of the elementsfor its production and sustenance? On higher ground about a miledistant was a trout pond, the shores of which were steep and rocky. 

Our next move was a tramp of about twelve miles through thewilderness, most of the way in a drenching rain, to a place called theLower Iron Works, situated on the road leading in to Long Lake, whichis about a day's drive farther on. We found a comfortable hotel here, and were glad enough to avail ourselves of the shelter and warmthwhich it offered. There was a little settlement and some quite goodfarms. The place commands a fine view to the north of Indian Pass, Mount Marcy, and the adjacent mountains. On the afternoon of ourarrival, and also the next morning, the view was completely shut offby the fog. But about the middle of the forenoon the wind changed, thefog lifted, and revealed to us the grandest mountain scenery we hadbeheld on our journey. There they sat about fifteen miles distant, agroup of them, --Mount Marcy, Mount McIntyre, and Mount Golden, thereal Adirondack monarchs. It was an impressive sight, rendered doubleso be the sudden manner in which it was revealed to us by thatscene-shifter the Wind. 

I saw blackbirds at this place, and sparrows, and the solitarysandpiper and the Canada woodpecker, and a large number ofhummingbirds. Indeed, I saw more of the latter here than I ever beforesaw in any one locality. Their squeaking and whirring were almostincessant. 

The Adirondack Iron Works belong to the past. Over thirty years ago acompany in Jersey City purchased some sixty thousand acres of landlying along the Adirondack River, and abounding in magnetic iron ore. The land was cleared, roads, dams, and forges constructed, and thework of manufacturing iron begun. 

At this point a dam was built across the Hudson, the waters of whichflowed back into Lake Sandford, about five miles above. The lakeitself being some six miles song, tolerable navigation was thusestablished for a distance of eleven miles, to the Upper Works, whichseem to have been the only works in operation. At the Lower Works, besides the remains of the dam, the only vestige I saw was a long lowmound, overgrown with grass and weeds, that suggested a rudeearthwork. We were told that it was once a pile of wood containinghundreds of cords, cut in regular lengths and corded up here for usein the furnaces. 

At the Upper Works, some twelve miles distant, quite a village hadbeen built, which was now entirely abandoned, with the exception of asingle family. 

A march to this place was our next undertaking. The road for two orthree miles kept up from the river and led us by three or four roughstumpy farms. It then approached the lake and kept along its shores. It was here a dilapidated corduroy structure that compelled thetraveler to keep an eye on his feet. Blue jays, two or three smallhawks, a solitary wild pigeon, and ruffled grouse were seen along theroute. Now and then the lake gleamed through the trees, or we crossedo a shaky bridge some of its arms or inlets. After a while we began topass dilapidated houses by the roadside. One little frame house Iremembered particularly; the door was off the hinges and leanedagainst the jams, the windows had but a few panes left, which glaredvacantly. The yard and little garden spot were overrun with a heavygrowth of timothy, and the fences had all long since gone to decay. Atthe head of the lake a large stone building projected from the steepbank and extended over the road. A little beyond, the valley opened tothe east, and looking ahead about one mile we saw smoke going up froma single chimney. Pressing on, just as the sun was setting we enteredthe deserted village. The barking dog brought the whole family intothe street, and they stood till we came up. Strangers in that countrywere a novelty, and we were greeted like familiar acquaintances. 

Hunter, the head, proved to be a first-rate type of an AmericanizedIrishman. His wife was a Scotch woman. They had a family of five orsix children, two of them grown-up daughters, --modest, comely youngwomen as you would find anywhere. The elder of the two had spent awinter in New York with her aunt, which made her a little moreself-conscious when in the presence of the strange young men. Hunterwas hired by the company at a dollar a day to live here and see thatthings were not wantonly destroyed, but allowed to go to decayproperly and decently. He had a substantial roomy frame house and anyamount of grass and woodland. He had good barns and kept considerablestock, and raised various farm products, but only for his own use, asthe difficulties of transportation to market some seventy milesdistant make it no object. He usually went to Ticonderoga on LakeChamplain once a year for his groceries, etc. His post-office wastwelve miles below at the Lower Works, where the mail passed twice aweek. There was not a doctor, or lawyer, or preacher withintwenty-five miles. In winter, months elapse without their seeinganybody from the outside world. In summer, parties occasionally passthrough here on their way to Indian Pass and Mount Marcy. Hundreds oftons of good timothy hay annually rot upon the cleared land. 

After nightfall we went out and walked up and down the grass-grownstreets. It was a curious and melancholy spectacle. The remoteness andsurrounding wildness rendered the scene doubly impressive. And thenext day and the next the place was an object of wonder. There wereabout thirty buildings in all, most of them small frame houses with adoor and two windows opening into a small yard in front and a gardenin the rear, such as are usually occupied by the laborers in a countrymanufacturing district. There was one large two-story boarding-house, a schoolhouse with cupola and a bell in it, and numerous sheds andforges, and a saw-mill. In front of the saw-mill, and ready to berolled to their place on the carriage, lay a large pile of pine logs, so decayed that one could run his walking-stick through them. Near by, a building filled with charcoal was bursting open and the coal goingto waste on the ground. The smelting works were also much crumbled bytime. The schoolhouse was still used. Every day one of the daughtersassembles her smaller brothers and sisters there and school keeps. Thedistrict library contained nearly one hundred readable books whichwere well thumbed. 

The absence of society had made the family all good readers. Webrought them an illustrated newspaper, which was awaiting them in thepost-office at the Lower Works. It was read and reread with greateagerness by every member of the household. 

The iron ore cropped out on every hand. There was apparentlymountains of it; one could see it in the stones along the road. Butthe difficulties met with in separating the iron from its alloys, together with the expense of transportation and the failure of certainrailroad schemes, caused the works to be abandoned. No doubt the timeis not distant when these obstacles will be overcome and this regionreopened. 

At present it is an admirable place to go to. There is fishing andhunting and boating and mountain-climbing within easy reach, and agood roof over your head at night, which is no small matter. One isoften disqualified for enjoying the woods after he gets there by theloss of sleep and of proper food taken at seasonable times. This pointattended to, one is in the humor for any enterprise. 

About half a mile northeast of the village is Lake Henderson, a veryirregular and picturesque sheet of water surrounded by dark evergreenforests, and abutted by two or three bold promontories with mottledwhite and gray rocks. Its greatest extent in any one direction isperhaps less than a mile. Its waters are perfectly clear and abound inlake trout. A considerable stream flows into it, which comes down fromIndian Pass. 

A mile south of the village is Lake Sandford. This is a more open andexposed sheet of water and much larger. From some parts of it MountMarcy and the gorge of the Indian Pass are seen to excellentadvantage. The Indian Pass shows as a huge cleft in the mountain, thegray walls rising on one side perpendicularly for many hundred feet. This lake abounds in white and yellow perch and in pickerel; of thelatter single specimens are often caught which weigh fifteen pounds. There were a few wild ducks on both lakes. A brood of the goosander orred merganser, the young not yet able to fly, were the occasion ofsome spirited rowing. But with two pairs of oars in a trim lightskiff, it was impossible to come up with them. Yet we could not resistthe temptation to give them a chase every day when we first came onthe lake. It needed a good long pull to sober us down so we couldfish. 

The land on the east side of the lake had been burnt over, and was nowmostly grown up with wild cherry and red raspberry bushes. Ruffedgrouse were found here in great numbers. The Canada grouse was alsocommon. I shot eight of the latter in less than an hour on oneoccasion; the eighth one, which was an old male, was killed withsmooth pebble-stones, my shot having run short. The wounded bird ranunder a pile of brush, like a frightened hen. Thrusting a forked stickdown through the interstices, I soon stopped his breathing. Wildpigeons were quite numerous also. These latter recall a singular freakof the sharp-shinned hawk. A flock of pigeons alighted on top of adead hemlock standing in the edge of a swamp. I got over the fence andmoved toward them across an open space. I had not taken many stepswhen, on looking up, I saw the whole flock again in motion flying veryrapidly about the butt of a hill. Just then this hawk alighted on thesame tree. I stepped back into the road and paused a moment, in doubtwhich course to go. At that instant the little hawk launched into theair and came as straight as an arrow toward me. I looked in amazement, but in less than half a minute, he was within fifty feet of my face, coming full tilt as if he had sighted my nose. Almost in self-defenseI let fly one barrel of my gun, and the mangled form of the audaciousmarauder fell literally between my feet. 

Of wild animals, such as bears, panthers, wolves, wildcats, etc. , weneither saw nor heard any in the Adirondacks. "A howling wilderness, "Thoreau says, "seldom ever howls. The howling is chiefly done by theimagination of the traveler. " Hunter said he often saw bear-tracks inthe snow, but had never yet met Bruin. Deer are more or less abundanteverywhere, and one old sportsman declares there is yet a single moosein these mountains. On our return, a pioneer settler, at whose housewe stayed overnight, told us a long adventure he had had with apanther. He related how it screamed, how it followed him in the brush, how he took to his boat, how its eyes gleamed from the shore, and howhe fired his rifle at them with fatal effect. His wife in the meantime took something from a drawer, and, as her husband finished hisrecital, she produced a toe-nail of the identical animal with markeddramatic effect. 

But better than fish or game or grand scenery, or any adventure bynight or day, is the wordless intercourse with rude Nature one has onthese expeditions. It is something to press the pulse of our oldmother by mountain lakes and streams, and know what health and vigorare in her veins, and how regardless of observation she deportsherself. 

 1866. 

IV

BIRDS'-NESTS

How alert and vigilant the birds are, even when absorbed in buildingtheir nests! In an open space in the woods I see a pair of cedar-birdscollecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following the directionin which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the fork of asmall soft maple, which stands amid a thick growth of wildcherry-trees and young beeches. Carefully concealing myself beneathit, without any fear that the workmen will hit me with a chip or letfall a tool, I await the return of the busy pair. Presently I hear thewell-known note, and the female sweeps down and settles unsuspectinglyinto the half-finished structure. Hardly have her wings rested beforeher eye has penetrated my screen, and with a hurried movement of alarmshe darts away. In a moment the male, with a tuft of wool in his beak(for there is a sheep pasture near), joins her, and the tworeconnoitre the premises from the surrounding bushes. With their beaksstill loaded, they move around with a frightened look, and refuse toapproach the nest till I have moved off and lain down behind a log. Then one of them ventures to alight upon the nest, but, stillsuspecting all is not right, quickly darts away again. Then they bothtogether come, and after much peeping and spying about, and apparentlymuch anxious consultation, cautiously proceed to work. In less thanhalf an hour it would seem that wool enough has been brought to supplythe whole family, real and prospective, with socks, if needles andfingers could be found fine enough to knit it up. In less than a weekthe female has begun to deposit her eggs, --four of them in as manydays, --white tinged with purple, with black spots on the larger end. After two weeks of incubation the young are out. 

Excepting the American goldfinch, this bird builds later in the seasonthan any other, --its nest, in our northern climate, seldom beingundertaken until July. As with the goldfinch, the reason is, probably, that suitable food for the young cannot be had at an earlier period. 

Like most of our common species, as the robin, sparrow, bluebird, pewee, wren, etc. , this bird sometimes seeks wild, remote localitiesin which to rear its young; at others, takes up its abode near that ofman. I knew a pair of cedar-birds, one season, to build in anapple-tree, the branches of which rubbed against the house. For a dayor two before the first straw was laid, I noticed the pair carefullyexploring every branch of the tree, the female taking the lead, themale following her with an anxious note and look. It was evident thatthe wife was to have her choice this time; and like one who thoroughlyknew her mind, she was proceeding to take it. Finally the site waschosen, upon a high branch, extending over one low wing of the house. Mutual congratulations and caresses followed, when both birds flewaway in quest of building material. That most freely used is a sort ofcotton-bearing plant which grows in old wornout fields. The nest islarge for the size of the bird, and very soft. It is in every respecta first-class domicile. 

On another occasion, while walking or rather sauntering in the woods(for I have discovered that one cannot run and read the book ofnature), my attention was arrested by a dull hammering, evidently buta few rods off. I said to myself, "Some one is building a house. " Fromwhat I had previously seen, I suspected the builder to be a red-headedwoodpecker in the top of a dead oak stub near by. Moving cautiously inthat direction, I perceived a round hole, about the size of that madeby an inch-and-a-half auger, near the top of the decayed trunk, andthe white chips of the workman strewing the ground beneath. When but afew paces from the tree, my foot pressed upon a dry twig, which gaveforth a very slight snap. Instantly the hammering ceased, and ascarlet head appeared at the door. Though I remained perfectlymotionless, forbearing even to wink till my eyes smarted, the birdrefused to go on with his work, but flew quietly off to a neighboringtree. What surprised me was, that, amid his busy occupation down inthe heart of the old tree, he should have been so alert and watchfulas to catch the slightest sound from without. 

The woodpeckers all build in about the same manner, excavating thetrunk or branch of a decayed tree and depositing the eggs on the finefragments of wood at the bottom of the cavity. Though the nest is notespecially an artistic work, --requiring strength rather thanskill, --yet the eggs and the young of few other birds are socompletely housed from the elements, or protected from their naturalenemies, the jays, hawks, and owls. A tree with a natural cavity isnever selected, but one which has been dead just long enough to havebecome soft and brittle throughout. The bird goes in horizontally fora few inches, making a hole perfectly round and smooth and adapted tohis size, then turns downward, gradually enlarging the hole, as heproceeds to the softness of the tree and the urgency of the motherbird to deposit her eggs. While excavating, male and female workalternately. After one has been engaged fifteen or twenty minutes, drilling and carrying out chips, it ascends to an upper limb, utters aloud call or two, when its mate soon appears, and, alighting near iton the branch, the pair chatter and caress a moment, then the freshone enters the cavity and the other flies away. 

A few days since I climbed up to the nest of the downy woodpecker, inthe decayed top of a sugar maple. For better protection againstdriving rains, the hole, which was rather more than an inch indiameter, was made immediately beneath a branch which stretched outalmost horizontally from the main stem. It appeared merely a deepershadow upon the dark and mottled surface of the bark with which thebranches were covered, and could not be detected by the eye until onewas within a few feet of it. The young chirped vociferously as Iapproached the nest, thinking it was the old one with food; but theclamor suddenly ceased as I put my hand on that part of the trunk inwhich they were concealed, the unusual jarring and rustling alarmingthem into silence. The cavity, which was about fifteen inches deep, was gourd-shaped, and was wrought out with great skill and regularity. The walls were quite smooth and clean and new. 

I shall never forget the circumstances of observing a pair ofyellow-bellied woodpeckers--the most rare and secluded, and, nest tothe red-headed, the most beautiful species found in ourwoods--breeding in an old, truncated beech in the BeaverkillMountains, on offshoot of the Catskills. We had been traveling, threeof us, all day in search of a trout lake, which lay far in among themountains, had twice lost our course in the trackless forest, and, weary and hungry, had sat down to rest upon a decayed log. Thechattering of the young, and the passing to and fro of the parentbirds, soon arrested my attention. The entrance to the nest was on theeast side of the tree, about twenty-five feet from the ground. Atintervals of scarcely a minute, the old birds, one after the other, would alight upon the edge of the hole with a grub or worm in theirbeaks; then each in turn would make a bow or two, cast an eye quicklyaround, and by a single movement place itself in the neck of thepassage. Here it would pause a moment, as if to determine in whichexpectant mouth to place the morsel, and then disappear within. Inabout half a minute, during which time that chattering of the younggradually subsided, the bird would again emerge, but this time bearingin its beak the ordure of one of the helpless family. Flying away veryslowly with head lowered and extended, as if anxious to hold theoffensive object as far from its plumage as possible, the bird droppedthe unsavory morsel in the course of a few yards, and, alighting on atree, wiped its bill on the bark and moss. This seems to be the orderall day, --carrying in and carrying out. I watched the birds for anhour, while my companions were taking their turns in exploring the layof the land around us, and noted no variation in the programme. Itwould be curious to know if the young are fed and waited upon inregular order, and how, amid the darkness and the crowded state of theapartment, the matter is so neatly managed. But ornithologists are allsilent upon the subject. 

This practice of the birds is not so uncommon as it might at firstseem. It is indeed almost an invariable rule among all land birds. With woodpeckers and kindred species, and with birds that burrow inthe ground, as bank swallows, kingfishers, etc. , it is a necessity. The accumulation of the excrement in the nest would prove most fatalto the young. 

But even among birds that neither bore nor mine, but which build ashallow nest on the branch of a tree or upon the ground, as the robin, the finches, the buntings, etc. , the ordure of the young is removed toa distance by the parent bird. When the robin is seen going away fromits brood with a slow, heavy flight, entirely different from itsmanner a moment before on approaching the nest with a cherry or worm, it is certain to be engaged in this office. One may observe the socialsparrow, when feeding its young, pause a moment after the worm hasbeen given and hop around on the brink of the nest observing themovements within. 

The instinct of cleanliness no doubt prompts the action in all cases, though the disposition to secrecy or concealment may not me unmixed init

The swallows form an exception to the rule, the excrement being voidedby the young over the brink of the nest. They form an exception, also, to the rule of secrecy, aiming not so much to conceal the nest as torender it inaccessible. 

Other exceptions are the pigeons, hawks, and water-fowls. 

But to return. Having a good chance to note the color and markings ofthe woodpeckers as they passed in and out at the opening of the nest, I saw that Audubon had made a mistake in figuring or describing thefemale of this species with the red spot upon the head. I have seen anumber of pairs of them, and in no instance have I seen the motherbird marked with red. 

The male was in full plumage, and I reluctantly shot him for aspecimen. Passing by the place again next day, I paused a moment tonote how matters stood. I confess it was not without some compunctionsthat I heard the cries of the young birds, and saw the widowed mother, her cares now doubled, hastening to and fro in the solitary woods. Shewould occasionally pause expectantly on the trunk of a tree and uttera loud call. 

It usually happens, when the male of any species is killed during thebreeding season, that the female soon procures another mate. Thereare, most likely, always a few unmated birds of both sexes within agiven range, and through these the broken links may be restored. Audubon or Wilson, I forget which, tells of a pair of fish hawks, orospreys, that built their nest in an ancient oak. The male was sozealous in the defense of the young that he actually attacked withbeak and claw a person who attempted to climb into his nest, puttinghis face and eyes in great jeopardy. Arming himself with a heavy club, the climber felled the gallant bird to the ground and killed him. Inthe course of a few days the female had procured another mate. Butnaturally enough the stepfather showed none of the spirit and pluck indefense of the brood that had been displayed by the original parent. When danger was nigh he was seen afar off, sailing around in placidunconcern. 

It is generally known that when either the wild turkey or domesticturkey begins to lay, and afterwards to sit and rear the brood, shesecludes herself from the male, who then, very sensibly, herds withothers of his sex, and betakes himself to haunts of his own till maleand female, old and young, meet again on common ground, late in thefall. But rob the sitting bird of her eggs, or destroy her tenderyoung, and she immediately sets out in quest of a male, who is nolaggard when he hears her call. The same is true of ducks, and otheraquatic fowls. The propagating instinct is strong, and surmounts allordinary difficulties. No doubt the widowhood I had caused in the caseof the woodpeckers was of short duration, and chance brought, or thewidow drummed up, some forlorn male, who was not dismayed by theprospect of having a large family of half-grown birds on his hands atthe outset. 

I have seen a fine cock robin paying assiduous addresses to a femalebird as late as the middle of July; and I have no doubt that hisintentions were honorable. I watched the pair for half an hour. Thehen, I took it, was in the market for the second time that season; butthe cock, from his bright unfaded plumage, looked like a new arrival. The hen resented every advance of the male. In vain he strutted aroundher and displayed his fine feathers; every now and then she would makeat him in a most spiteful manner. He followed her to the ground, poured into her ear a fine, half-suppressed warble, offered her aworm, flew back to the tree again with a great spread of plumage, hopped around her on the branches, chirruped, chattered, flewgallantly at an intruder, and was back in an instant at her side. Nouse, --she cut him short at every turn. 

The dénouement I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by herardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be rash toconclude, however, that she held out no longer than was prudent. 

On the whole, there seems to be a system of Women's Rights prevailingamong the birds, which contemplated from the standpoint of the male, is quite admirable. In almost all cases of joint interest, the femalebird is the most active. She determines the site of the nest, and isusually the most absorbed in its construction. Generally, she is morevigilant in caring for the young, and manifests the most concern whendanger threatens. Hour after hour I have seen the mother of a brood ofblue grosbeaks pass from the nearest meadow to the tree that held hernest, with a cricket or grasshopper in her bill, while herbetter-dressed half was singing serenely on a distant tree or pursuinghis pleasure amid the branches. 

Yet among the majority of our song-birds the male is most conspicuousboth by his color and manners and by his song, and is to that extent ashield to the female. It is thought that the female is humbler cladfor her better concealment during incubation. But this is notsatisfactory, as in some cases she is relieved from time to time bythe male. In the case of the domestic dove, for instance, promptly atmidday the cock is found upon the nest. I should say that the dull orneutral tints of the female were a provision of nature for her greatersafety at all times, as her life is far more precious to the speciesthan that of the male. The indispensable office of the male reducesitself to little more than a moment of time, while that of his mateextends over days and weeks, if not months. [Footnote]

 [Footnote] A recent English writer upon this subject presents an array of facts and considerations that do not support this view. He says that, with very few exceptions, it is the rule that, when both sexes are of strikingly gay and conspicuous colors, the nest is such as to conceal the sitting bird; while, whenever there is a striking contrast of colors, the male being gay and conspicuous, the female dull and obscure, the nest is open and sitting bird exposed to view. The exceptions to this rule among European birds appear to be very few. Among our own birds, the cuckoos and the blue jays build open nests, without presenting any noticeable difference in the coloring of the two sexes. The same is true of the pewees, the kingbird, and the sparrows, while the common bluebird, the oriole, and the orchard starling afford examples the other way. 

In migrating northward, the males have abandoned their nests, orrather chambers, which they do after the first season, their cousins, the nuthatches, chickadees, and brown creepers, fall heir to them. These birds, especially the creepers and nuthatches, have many of thehabits of the Picidae, but lack their powers of bill, and so areunable to excavate a nest for themselves. Their habitation, therefore, is always second-hand. But each species carries in some soft materialof various kinds, or in other words, furnishes the tenement to itsliking. The chickadee arranges in the bottom of the cavity a littlemat of a light felt-like substance, which looks as if is came from thehatter's, but which is probably the work of numerous worms orcaterpillars. On this soft lining the female deposits six speckledeggs. 

I recently discovered one of these nests in a most interestingsituation. The tree containing it, a variety of wild cherry, stoodupon the brink of the bald summit of a high mountain. Gray, timewornrocks lay piled loosely about, or overtoppled the just visible bywaysof the red fox. The trees had a half-scared look, and thatindescribable wildness which lurks about the tops of all remotemountains possessed the place. Standing there, I looked down upon theback of the red-tailed hawk as he flew out over the earth beneath me. Following him, my eye also took in farms and settlements and villagesand other mountain ranges that grew blue in the distance. 

The parent birds attracted my attention by appearing with food intheir beaks, and by seeming much put out. Yet so wary were they ofrevealing the locality of their brood, or even of the precise treethat held them, that I lurked around over an hour without gaining apoint on them. Finally a bright and curious boy who accompanied mesecreted himself under a low, projected rock close to the tree inwhich we supposed the nest to be, while I moved off around themountain-side. It was not long before the youth had their secret. Thetree which was low and wide-branching, and overrun with lichens, appeared at a cursory glance to contain not one dry or decayed limb. Yet there was one a few feet long, in which, when my eyes were pilotedthither, I detected a small round orifice. 

As my weight began to shake the branches, the consternation of bothold and young was great. The stump of a limb that held the nest wasabout three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel wasexcavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke the thin wall, andthe young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for thefirst time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as muchto say, "It is time we were out of this, " began to climb up toward theproper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked around withoutmanifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay spread out beforehim. He was taking his bearings, and determining how far he couldtrust the power of his untried wings to take him out of harm's way. After a moment's pause, with a loud chirrup, he launched out and madetolerable headway. The others rapidly followed. Each one, as itstarted upward, from a sudden impulse, contemptuously saluted theabandoned nest with its excrement. 

Though generally regular in their habits and instincts, yet the birdssometimes seem as whimsical and capricious as superior beings. One isnot safe, for instance, in making any absolute assertion as to theirplace or mode of building. Ground-builders often get up into a bush, and tree-builders sometimes get upon the ground or into a tussock ofgrass. The song sparrow, which is a ground builder, has been known tobuild in the knothole of a fence rail; and a chimney swallow once gottired of soot and smoke, and fastened its nest on a rafter in a haybarn. A friend tells me of a pair of barn swallow which, taking afanciful turn, saddled their nest in the loop of a rope that waspendent from a peg in the peak, and liked it so well that theyrepeated the experiment next year. I have know the social sparrow, or"hairbird" to build under a shed, in a tuft of hay that hung down, through the loose flooring, from the mow above. It usually contentsitself with half a dozen stalks of dry grass and a few long hair froma cow's tail loosely arranged on the branch of an apple-tree. Therough-winged swallow builds in the wall and in old stone-heaps, and Ihave seen the robin build in similar localities. Others have found itsnest in old, abandoned wells. The house wren will build in anythingthat has an accessible cavity, from an old boot to a bombshell. A pairof them once persisted in building their nest in the top of a certainpump-tree, getting in through the opening above the handle. The pumpbeing in daily use, the nest was destroyed more than a score of times. This jealous little wretch has the wise forethought, when the box inwhich he builds contains two compartments, to fill up one of them, soas to avoid the risk of troublesome neighbors. 

The less skillful builders sometimes depart from their usual habit, and take up with the abandoned nest of some other species. The bluejay now and then lays in an old crow's nest or cuckoo's nest. The crowblackbird, seized with a fit of indolence, drops its eggs in thecavity of a decayed branch. I heard of a cuckoo that dispossessed arobin of its nest; of another that set a blue jay adrift. Large, loosestructures, like the nests of the osprey and certain of the herons, have been found with half a dozen nests of the blackbirds set in theouter edges, like so many parasites, or, as Audubon says, like theretainers about the rude court of a feudal baron. 

The same birds breeding in a southern climate construct far lesselaborate nests than when breeding in a northern climate. Certainspecies of waterfowl, that abandon their eggs to the sand and the sunin the warmer zones, build a nest and sit in the usual way inLabrador. In Georgia, the Baltimore oriole places its nest upon thenorth side of the tree; in the Middle and Eastern States, it fixes itupon the south or east side, and makes it much thicker and warmer. Ihave seen one from the South that had some kind of coarse reed orsedge woven into it, giving it an open-work appearance, like a basket. 

Very few species use the same material uniformly. I have seen the nestof the robin quite destitute of mud. In one instance it was composedmainly of long black horse-hairs, arranged in a circular manner, witha lining of fine yellow grass; the whole presenting quite a novelappearance. In another case the nest was chiefly constructed of aspecies of rock moss. 

The nest for the second brood during the same season is often a meremakeshift. The haste of the female to deposit her eggs as the seasonadvances seems very great, and the structure is apt to be prematurelyfinished. I was recently reminded of this fact by happening, about thelast of July, to meet with several nests of the wood or bush sparrowin a remote blackberry field. The nests with eggs were far lesselaborate and compact than the earlier nests, from which the young hadflown. 

Day after day, as I go to a certain piece of woods, I observe a maleindigo-bird sitting on precisely the same part of a high branch, andsinging in his most vivacious style. As I approach he ceases to sing, and, flirting his tail right and left with marked emphasis, chirpssharply. In a low bush near by, I come upon the object of hissolicitude, --a thick compact nest composed largely of dry leaves andfine grass, in which a plain brown bird is sitting upon four pale blueeggs. 

The wonder is that a bird will leave the apparent security of thetreetops to place its nest in the way of the many dangers that walkand crawl upon the ground. There, far up out of reach, sings the bird;here, not three feet from the ground, are its eggs or helpless young. The truth is, birds are the greatest enemies of birds, and it is withreference to this fact that many of the smaller species build. 

Perhaps the greatest proportion of birds breed along highways. I haveknown the ruffed grouse to come out of a dense wood and make its nestat the root of a tree within ten paces of the road, where, no doubt, hawks and crows, as well as skunks and foxes, would be less likely tofind it out. Traversing remote mountain-roads through dense woods, Ihave repeatedly seen the veery, or Wilson's thrush, sitting upon hernest, so near me that I could almost take her from it by stretchingout my hand. Birds of prey show none of this confidence in man, and, when locating their nests, avoid rather than seek his haunts. 

In a certain locality in the interior of New York, I know, everyseason, where I am sure to find a nest or two of the slate-coloredsnowbird. It is under the brink of a low mossy bank, so near thehighway that it could be reached from a passing vehicle with a whip. Every horse or wagon or foot passenger disturbs the sitting bird. Sheawaits the near approach of the sound of feet or wheels, and thendarts quickly across the road, barely clearing the ground, anddisappears amid the bushes on the opposite side. 

In the trees that line one of the main streets and fashionable drivesleading our of Washington city and less than half a mile from theboundary, I have counted the nests of five different species at onetime, and that without any very close scrutiny of the foliage, while, in many acres of woodland half a mile off, I searched in vain for asingle nest. Among the five, the nest that interested me most was thatof the blue grosbeak. Here this bird, which according to Audubon'sobservations in Louisiana, is shy and recluse, affecting remotemarshes and the borders of large ponds of stagnant water, had placedits nest in the lowest twig of the lowest branch of a large sycamore, immediately over a great thoroughfare, and so near the ground that aperson standing in a cart or sitting on a horse could have reached itwith his hand. The nest was composed mainly of fragments of newspaperand stalks of grass, and, though so low, was remarkably well concealedby one of the peculiar clusters of twigs and leaves which characterizethis tree. The nest contained young when I discovered it, and, thoughthe parent birds were much annoyed by my loitering about beneath thetree, they paid little attention to the stream of vehicles that wasconstantly passing. It was a wonder to me when the birds could havebuilt it, for they are much shyer when building than at any othertimes. No doubt they worked mostly in the morning, having the earlyhours all to themselves. 

Another pair of blue grosbeaks built in a graveyard within the citylimits. The nest was placed in a low bush, and the male continued tosing at intervals till the young were ready to fly. The song of thisbird is a rapid, intricate warble, like that of the indigo-bird, though stronger and louder. Indeed, these two birds so much resembleeach other in color, form, manner, voice, and general habits that, were it not for the difference in size, --the grosbeak being nearly aslarge again as the indigo-bird, --it would be a hard matter to tellthem apart. The females of both species are clad in the samereddish-brown suits. So are the young the first season. 

Of course in the deep, primitive woods, also are nests; but how rarelywe find them! The simple art of the bird consists in choosing common, neutral-tinted material, as moss, dry leaves, twigs, and various oddsand ends, and placing the structure on a convenient branch, where itblends in color with its surroundings; but how consummate is this art, and how skillfully is the nest concealed! We occasionally light uponit, but who, unaided by the movements of the bird, could find it out?During the present season I went to the woods nearly every day for afortnight without making any discoveries of this kind, till one day, paying them a farewell visit, I chanced to come upon several nests. Ablack and white creeping warbler suddenly became much alarmed as I wasapproaching a crumbing old stump in a dense part of the forest. Healighted upon it, chirped sharply, ran up and down its sides, andfinally left it with much reluctance. The nest, which contained threeyoung birds nearly fledged, was placed upon the ground, at the foot ofthe stump, and in such a positions that the color of the youngharmonized perfectly with the bits of bark, sticks, etc. , lying about. My eye rested upon them for the second time before I made them out. They hugged the nest very closely, but as I put down my hand they allscampered off with loud cries for help, which caused the parent birdsto place themselves almost within my reach. The nest was merely alittle dry grass arranged in a thick bed of dry leaves. 

This was amid a thick undergrowth. Moving on into a passage of largestately hemlocks, with only here and there a small beech or maplerising up into the perennial twilight, I paused to make out a notewhich was entirely new to me. It is still in my ear. Thoughunmistakably a bird note, it yet suggested the beating of a tinylambkin. Presently the birds appeared, --a pair of the solitary vireo. They came flitting from point to point, alighting only for a moment ata time, the male silent, but the female uttering this strange, tendernote. It was a rendering into some new sylvan dialect of the humansentiment of maidenly love. It was really pathetic in its sweetnessand childlike confidence and joy. I soon discovered that the pair werebuilding a nest upon a low branch a few yards from me. The male flewcautiously to the spot and adjusted something, and the twain movedon, the female calling to her mate at intervals, love-e, love-e, with acadence and tenderness in the tone that rang in the ear longafterward. The nest was suspended to the fork of a small branch, as isusual with the vireos, plentifully lined with lichens, and bound andrebound with masses of coarse spider-webs. There was no attempt atconcealment except in the neutral tints, which make it look like anatural growth of the dim, gray woods. 

Continuing my random walk, I next paused in a low part of the woods, where the larger trees began to give place to a thick second-growththat covered an old Barkpeeling. I was standing by a large maple, whena small bird darted quickly away from it, as if it might have come outof a hole near its base. As the bird paused a few yards from me, andbegan to chirp uneasily, my curiosity was at once excited. When I sawit was the female mourning ground warbler, and remembered that thenest of this bird had not yet been seen by any naturalist, --that noteven Dr. Brewer had ever seen the eggs, --I felt that here wassomething worth looking for. So I carefully began the search, exploring inch by inch the ground, the base and roots of the tree, andthe various shrubby growths about it, till finding nothing and fearingI might really put my foot in it, I bethought me to withdraw to adistance and after some delay return again, and, thus forewarned, notethe exact point from which the bird flew. This I did, and, returning, had little difficulty in discovering the nest. It was placed but a fewfeet from the maple tree, in a bunch of ferns, and about six inchesfrom the ground. It was quite a massive nest, composed entirely of thestalks and leaves of dry grass, with an inner lining of fine, darkbrown roots. The eggs, three in number, were of light flesh-color, uniformly specked with fine brown specks. The cavity of the nest wasso deep that the back of the sitting bird sank below the edge. 

In the top of a tall tree, a short distance farther on, I saw the nestof the red-tailed hawk, --a large mass of twigs and dry sticks. Theyoung had flown, but still lingered in the vicinity, and as Iapproached, the mother bird flew about over me, squealing in a veryangry, savage manner. Tufts of the hair and other indigestiblematerial of the common meadow mouse lay around on the ground beneaththe nest. 

As I was about leaving the woods, my hat almost brushed the nest ofthe red-eyed vireo, which hung basket-like on the end of a low, drooping branch of the beech. I should never have seen it had the birdkept her place. It contained three eggs of the bird's own, and one ofthe cow bunting. The strange egg was only just perceptibly larger thanthe others, yet, in three days after, when I looked into the nestagain and found all but one egg hatched, the young interloper was atleast four times as large as either of the others, and with such asuperabundance of bowels as to almost smother his bedfellows beneaththem. That the intruder should fare the same as the rightfuloccupants, and thrive with them, was more than ordinary potluck; butthat it alone should thrive, devouring, as it were, all the rest, isone of those freaks of Nature in which she would seem to discouragethe homely virtues of prudence and honesty. Weeds and parasites havethe odds greatly against them, yet they wage a very successful warnonetheless. 

The woods hold not such another gem as the nest of the hummingbird. The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best thingto finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree, with asolitary green leaf, forming a complete canopy, about an inch and ahalf above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of the bird past myears, as I stood under the tree, caused me to suspect that I wasintruding upon some one's privacy; and, following it with my eye, Isoon saw the nest, which was in process of construction. Adopting myusual tactics of secreting myself near by, I had the satisfaction ofseeing the tiny artist at work. It was the female, unassisted by hermate. At intervals of two or three minutes she would appear with asmall tuft of some cottony substance in her beak, and alightingquickly in the nest, arrange the material she had brought, using herbreast as a model. 

The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on the side of amountain. The sitting bird was disturbed as I passed beneath her. Thewhirring of her wings arrested my attention, when, after a shortpause, I had the good luck to see, through an opening in the leaves, the bird return to her nest, which appeared like a mere wart orexcrescence an a small branch. The hummingbird, unlike all others, does not alight upon the nest, but flies into it. She enters it asquick as a flash, but as light as any feather. Two eggs are thecomplement. They are perfectly white, and so frail that only a woman'sfingers may touch them. Incubation lasts about ten days. In a week, the young have flown. 

The only nest like the hummingbirds, and comparable to it in neatnessand symmetry, is that of the blue-gray gnatcatcher. This is oftensaddled upon the limb in the same manner, though it is generally moreor less pendent; it is deep and soft, composed mostly of somevegetable down, covered all over with delicate tree-lichens, and, except that it is much larger, appears almost identical with the nestof the hummingbird. 

But the nest of nests, the ideal nest, after we have left the deepwoods, is unquestionably that of the Baltimore oriole. It is the onlyperfectly pensile nest we have. The nest of the orchard oriole isindeed mainly so, but this bird generally builds lower and shallower, more after the manner of the vireos. 

The Baltimore oriole loves to attach its nest to the swaying branchesof the tallest elms, making no attempt at concealment, but satisfiedif the position be high and the branch pendant. This nest would seemto cost more time and skill than any other bird structure. A peculiarflax-like substance seems to be always sought after and always found. The nest when completed assumes the form of a large, suspended gourd. The walls are thin but firm, and proof against the most driving rain. The mouth is hemmed or overhanded with horse-hair, and the sides areusually sewed through and through with the same. 

Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the bird is not particularto the material, so that be of the nature of the strings or threads. Alady friend once told me that, while working by an open window, one ofthese birds approaching during her momentary absence, and, seizing askein of some kind of thread or yarn, made off with it to itshalf-finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast in the branches, and, in the bird's effort to extricate it, got hopelessly tangled. Shetugged away at it all day, but was finally obliged to content herselfwith a few detached portions. The fluttering stings were an eyesore toher ever after, and, passing and repassing, she would give them aspiteful jerk, as much to say, "There is that confounded yarn thatgave me so much trouble. "

From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom I am indebted for othercurious facts) sent me this interesting story of an oriole. He says afriend of his curious in such things, on observing the bird beginningto build, hung out near the prospective nest skeins of many-coloredzephyr yarn, which the eager artist readily appropriated. He managedit so that the bird used nearly equal quantities of various, high, bright colors. The nest was made unusually deep and capacious, and itmay be questioned if such a thing of beauty was ever before woven bythe cunning of a bird. 

Nuttall, by far the most genial of American ornithologists, relatesthe following:--

"A female (oriole), which I observed attentively, carried off to hernest a piece of lamp-wick ten or twelve feet long. This long stringand many other shorter ones were left hanging out for a week beforeboth ends were wattled into the sides of the nest. Some other littlebirds, making use of similar materials, at times twitched theseflowing ends, and generally brought out the busy Baltimore from heroccupation in great anger. 

"I may perhaps claim indulgence for adding a little more of thebiography of this particular bird, as a representative also of theinstincts of her race. She completed the nest in about a weeks time, without any aid from her mate, who indeed appeared but seldom in hercompany and was now become nearly silent. For fibrous materials shebroke, hackled, and gathered the flax of the asclepias and hibiscusstalks, tearing off long strings and flying with them to the scene ofher labors. She appeared very eager and hasty in her pursuits, andcollected her materials without fear or restraint while three men wereworking in the neighboring walks and may persons were visiting thegarden. Her courage and perseverance were truly admirable. If watchedto narrowly, she saluted with her usual scolding, tshrr, tshrr, tshrr, seeing no reason, probably, why she should be interrupted in herindispensable occupation. 

"Though the males were now comparatively silent on the arrival oftheir busy mates, I could not help observing this female and a second, continually vociferating, apparently in strife. At last she wasobserved to attack this second female very fiercely, who slylyintruded herself at times into the same tree where she was building. These contests were angry and often repeated. To account for thisanimosity, I now recollected that two fine males had been killed inour vicinity, and I therefore concluded the intruder to be leftwithout a mate; yet she had gained the affections of the consort ofthe busy female, and thus the cause of their jealous quarrel becameapparent. Having obtained the confidence of her faithless paramour, the second female began preparing to weave a nest in an adjoining elmby tying together certain pendent twigs as a foundation. The male nowassociated chiefly with the intruder, whom he even assisted in herlabor, yet did not wholly forget his first partner, who called on himone evening in a low, affectionate tone, which was answered in thesame strain. While they were thus engaged in friendly whispers, suddenly appeared the rival, and a violent rencontre ensued, so thatone of the females appeared to be greatly agitated, and fluttered withspreading wings as if considerably hurt. The male, though prudentlyneutral in the contest, showed his culpable partiality by flying offwith his paramour, and for the rest of the evening left the tree tohis pugnacious consort. Cares of another kind, more imperious andtender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, these disputeswith the jealous females; and by the aid of the neighboring bachelors, who are never wanting among these and other birds, peace was at lengthcompletely restored by the restitution of the quiet and happycondition of monogamy. "

Let me not forget to mention the nest under the mountain ledge, thenest of the common pewee, --a modest mossy structure, with fourpearl-white eggs, --looking out upon some wild scene and overhung bybeetling crags. After all has been said about the elaborate, high-hungstructures, few nests perhaps awaken more pleasant emotions in themind of the beholder than this of the pewee, --the gray, silent rocks, with caverns and dens where the fox and the wolf lurk, and just out oftheir reach, in a little niche, as if it grew there, the mossytenement!

Nearly every high projecting rock in any range has one of these nests. Following a trout stream up a wild mountain gorge, not long since, Icounted five in the distance of a mile, all within easy reach, butsafe from the minks and the skunks, and well housed from the storms. In my native town I know a pine and oak clad hill, round-topped, witha bold, precipitous front extending halfway around it. Near the top, and along this front or side, there crops out a ledge of rocksunusually high and cavernous. One immense layer projects many feet, allowing a person or many persons, standing upright, to move freelybeneath it. There is a delicious spring of water there, and plenty ofwild, cool air. The floor is of loose stone, now trod by sheep andfoxes, once by Indian and wolf. How I have delighted from boyhood tospend a summer day in this retreat, or take refuge there from a suddenshower! Always the freshness and coolness, and always the delicatemossy nest of the phoebe-bird! The bird keeps her place till you arewithin a few feet of her, when she flits to a near branch, and, withmany oscillations of her tale, observes you anxiously. Since thecountry has become settled this pewee has fallen into the strangepractice of occasionally placing its nest under a bridge, hayshed, orother artificial structure, where it is subject to all kinds ofinterruptions and annoyances. When placed thus, the nest is larger andcoarser. I know a hay-loft beneath which a pair has regularly placedits nest for several successive seasons. Arranged along on a singlepole, which sags down a few inches from the flooring it was intendedto help support, are three of these structures, marking the number ofyears the birds have nested there. The foundation is of mud with asuperstructure of moss, elaborately lined with hair and feathers. Nothing can be more perfect and exquisite than the interior of one ofthese nests, yet a new one is built every season. Three broods, however, are frequently reared in it. 

The pewees, as a class, are the best architects we have. The kingbirdbuilds a nest altogether admirable, using various soft cotton andwoolen substances, and sparing neither time nor material to make itsubstantial and warm. The green-crested pewee builds its nest in manyinstances wholly of the blossoms of the white oak. The wood peweebuilds a neat, compact, socket-shaped nest of moss and lichens on ahorizontal branch. There is never a loose end or shred about it. Thesitting bird is largely visible above the rim. She moves her headfreely about and seems entirely at her ease, --a circumstance which Ihave never observed in any other species. The nest of thegreat-crested flycatcher is seldom free from snake skins, three orfour being sometimes woven into it. 

About the thinnest, shallowest nest, for its situation, that can befound is that of the turtle-dove. A few sticks and straws arecarelessly thrown together, hardly sufficient to prevent the eggs formfalling through or rolling off. The nest of the passenger pigeon isequally hasty and insufficient, and the squabs often fall to theground and perish. The other extreme among our common birds isfurnished by the ferruginous thrush, which collects together a mass ofmaterial that would fill a half-bushel measure; or by the fish hawk, which adds to and repairs its nest year after year, till the wholewould make a cart load. 

One of the rarest of nests is that of the eagle, because the eagle isone of the rarest of birds. Indeed, so seldom is the eagle seen thatits presence always seems accidental. It appears as if merely pausingon the way, while bound for some distant unknown region. OneSeptember, while a youth, I saw the ring-tailed eagle, the young ofthe golden eagle, an immense, dusky bird, the sight of which filled mewith awe. It lingered about the hills for two days. Some young cattle, a two-year-old colt, and half a dozen sheep were at pasture on a highridge that led up to the mountain, and in plain view of the house. Onthe second day this dusky monarch was seen flying about above them. Presently he began to hover over them, after the manner of a hawkwatching for mice. He then with extended legs let himself slowly downupon them, actually grappling the backs of the young cattle, andfrightening the creatures so that they rushed about the field in greatconsternation; and finally, as he grew bolder and more frequent in hisdescents, the whole herd broke over the fence and came tearing down tothe house "like mad. " It did not seem to be an assault with intent tokill, but was perhaps a stratagem resorted to in order to separate theherd and expose the lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. Whenhe occasionally alighted upon the oaks that stood near, the branchcould be seen to sway and bend beneath him. Finally, as a riflemanstarted out in pursuit of him, he launched into the air, set hiswings, and sailed away southward. A few years afterward, in January, another eagle passed through the same locality, alighting in a fieldnear some dead animal, but tarried briefly. 

So much by way of identification. The golden eagle is common to thenorthern parts of both hemispheres, and places its eyrie on highprecipitous rocks. A pair built on an inaccessible shelf of rock alongthe Hudson for eight successive years. A squad of Revolutionarysoldiers, also, as related by Audubon, found a nest along this river, and had an adventure with the bird that came near costing one of theirnumber his life. His comrades let him down by a rope to secure theeggs or young, when he was attacked by the female eagle with such furythat he was obliged to defend himself with his knife. In doing so, bya misstroke, he nearly severed the rope that held him, and was drawnup by a single strand from his perilous position. 

The bald eagle, also builds on high rocks, according to Audubon, though Wilson describes the nest of one which he saw near Great EggHarbor, in the top of a large yellow pine. It was a vast pile ofsticks, sods, sedge, grass, reeds, etc. , five or six feet high by fourbroad, and with little or no concavity. 

It had been used for many years, and he was told that the eagles madeit a sort of home or lodging-place in all seasons. 

The eagle in all cases uses one nest, with more or less repair, forseveral years. Many of our common birds do the same. The birds may bedivided, with respect to this and kindred points, into five generalclasses. First, those that repair or appropriate the last year's nest, as the wren, swallow, bluebird, great-crested flycatcher, owls, eagles, fish hawk, and a few others. Secondly, those that build aneweach season, though frequently rearing more than one brood in the samenest. Of these the phoebe-bird is a well-know example. Thirdly, thosethat build a new nest for each brood, which includes by far thegreatest number of species. Fourthly, a limited number that make nonest of their own, but appropriate the abandoned nests of other birds. Finally, those who use no nest at all, but deposit their eggs in thesand, which is the case with a large number of aquatic fowls. 1866. 

V

SPRING AT THE CAPITAL WITH AN EYE TO THE BIRDS

I came to Washington to live in the fall of 1863, and, with theexception of a month each summer spent in the interior of New York, have lived here ever since. 

I saw my first novelty in Natural History the day after my arrival. As I was walking near some woods north of the city, a grasshopper ofprodigious size flew up from the ground and alighted in a tree. As Ipursued him, he proved to be nearly as wild and as fleet of wing as abird. I thought I had reached the capital of grasshopperdom, and thatthis was perhaps one of the chiefs or leaders, or perhaps the greatHigh Cock O'lorum himself, taking an airing in the fields. I havenever yet been able to settle the question, as every fall I start up afew of these gigantic specimens, which perch on the trees. They areabout three inches long, of a gray striped or spotted color, and havequite a reptile look. 

The greatest novelty I found, however, was the superb autumn weather, the bright, strong, electric days, lasting well into November, and thegeneral mildness of the entire winter. Though the mercury occasionallysinks to zero, yet the earth is never so seared and blighted by thecold but that in some sheltered nook or corner signs of vegetable lifestill remain, which on a little encouragement even asserts itself. Ihave found wild flowers here every month of the year; violets inDecember, a single houstonia in January (the little lump of earth uponwhich it stood was frozen hard), and a tiny weed-like plant, with aflower almost microscopic in its smallness, growing along graveledwalks and in old plowed fields in February. The liverwort sometimescomes out as early as the first week in March, and the little frogsbegin to pipe doubtfully about the same time. Apricot-trees areusually in bloom on All-Fool's Day and the apple-trees on May Day. ByAugust, mother hen will lead forth her third brood, and I had a Marchpullet that came off with a family of her own in September. Ourcalendar is made for this climate. March is a spring month. One isquite sure to see some marked and striking change during the firsteight or ten days. This season (1868) is a backward one, and thememorable change did not come till the 10th. 

Then the sun rose up from a bed of vapors, and seemed fairly todissolve with tenderness and warmth. For an hour or two the air wasperfectly motionless, and full of low, humming, awakening sounds. Thenaked trees had a rapt, expectant look. From some unreclaimed commonnear by came the first strain of the song sparrow; so homely, becauseso old and familiar, yet so inexpressibly pleasing. Presently a fullchorus of voices arose, tender, musical, half suppressed, but full ofgenuine hilarity and joy. The bluebird warbled, the robin called, thesnowbird chattered, the meadowlark uttered her strong but tender note. Over a deserted field a turkey buzzard hovered low, and alighted on astake in the fence, standing a moment with outstretched, vibratingwings till he was sure of his hold. A soft, warm, brooding day. Roadsbecoming dry in many places, and looking so good after the mud and thesnow. I walk up beyond the boundary and over Meridian Hill. To movealong the drying road and feel the delicious warmth is enough. Thecattle low long and loud, and look wistfully into the distance. Isympathize with them. Never a spring comes but I have an almostirresistible desire to depart. Some nomadic or migrating instinct orreminiscence stirs within me. I ache to be off. 

As I pass along, the high-bole calls in the distance precisely as Ihave heard him in the North. After a pause he repeats his summons. What can be more welcome to the ear than these early first sounds!They have such a margin of silence!

One need but pass the boundary of Washington city to be fairly in thecountry, and ten minutes' walk in the country brings one to realprimitive woods. The town has not yet overflowed its limits like thegreat Northern commercial capitals, and Nature, wild and unkempt, comes up to its very threshold, and even in many places crosses it. 

The woods, which I soon reach, are stark and still. The signs ofreturning life are so faint as to be almost imperceptible, but thereis a fresh, earthy smell in the air, as if something had stirred hereunder the leaves. The crows caw above the wood, or walk about thebrown fields. I look at the gray silent trees long and long, but theyshow no sign. The catkins of some alders by a little pool have justswelled perceptibly; and, brushing away the dry leaves and débris on asunny slope, I discover the liverwort just pushing up a fuzzy, tendersprout. But the waters have brought forth. The little frogs aremusical. From every marsh and pool goes up their shrill but pleasingchorus. Peering into one of their haunts, a little body ofsemi-stagnant water, I discover masses of frogs' spawn covering thebottom. I take up great chunks of the cold, quivering jelly in myhands. In some places there are gallons of it. A youth who accompaniesme wonders if it would not be good cooked, or if it could not be usedas a substitute for eggs. It is a perfect jelly, of a slightly milkytinge, thickly imbedded with black spots about the size of a smallbird's eye. When just deposited it is perfectly transparent. Thesehatch in eight or ten days, gradually absorb their gelatinoussurroundings, and the tiny tadpoles issue forth. 

In the city, even before the shop-windows have caught the inspiration, spring is heralded by the silver poplars which line all the streetsand avenues. After a few mild, sunshiny March days, you suddenlyperceive a change has come over the trees. Their tops have a lessnaked look. If the weather continues warm, a single day will workwonders. Presently each tree will be one vast plume of gray, downytassels, while not the least speck of green foliage is visible. Thefirst week of April these long mimic caterpillars lie all about thestreets and fill the gutters. 

The approach of spring is also indicated by the crows and buzzards, which rapidly multiply in the environs of the city, and grow bold anddemonstrative. The crows are abundant here all winter, but are notvery noticeable except as they pass high in air to and from theirwinter quarters in the Virginia woods. Early in the morning, as soonas it is light enough to discern them, there they are, streamingeastward across the sky, now in loose, scattered flocks, now in thickdense masses, then singly and in pairs or triplets, but all setting inone direction, probably to the waters of eastern Maryland. Towardnight they begin to return, flying in the same manner, and directingtheir course to the wooded heights on the Potomac, west of the city. In spring these diurnal mass movements cease; the clan breaks up, therookery is abandoned, and the birds scatter broadcast over the land. This seems to be the course everywhere pursued. One would think that, when food was scarcest, the policy of separating into small bands orpairs, and dispersing over a wide country, would prevail, as a fewmight subsist where a larger number would starve. The truth is, however, that, in winter, food can be had only in certain clearlydefined districts and tracts, as along rivers and the shores of baysand lakes. 

A few miles north of Newburgh, on the Hudson, the crows go into winterquarters in the same manner, flying south in the morning and returningagain at night, sometimes hugging the hills so close during a strongwind as to expose themselves to the clubs and stones of schoolboysambushed behind trees and fences. The belated ones, that come laboringalong just at dusk, are often so overcome by the long journey and thestrong current that they seem almost on the point of sinking downwhenever the wind or a rise in the ground calls upon them for an extraeffort. 

The turkey buzzards are noticeable about Washington as soon as theseason begins to open, sailing leisurely along two or three hundredfeet overhead, or sweeping low over some common or open space where, perchance, a dead puppy or pig or fowl has been thrown. Half a dozenwill sometimes alight about some object out on the commons, and, withtheir broad dusky wings lifted up to their full extent, threaten andchase each other, while perhaps one or two are feeding. Their wingsare very large and flexible, and the slightest motion of them, whilethe bird stands upon the ground, suffices to lift its feet clear. Their movements when in the air are very majestic and beautiful to theeye, being in every respect identical with those of our common hen orred-tailed hawk. They sail along in the same calm, effortless, interminable manner, and sweep around in the same ample spiral. Theshape of their wings and tail, indeed their entire effect against thesky, except in size and color, is very nearly the same as that of thehawk mentioned. A dozen at a time may often be seen high in air, amusing themselves by sailing serenely round and round in the samecircle. 

They are less active and vigilant than the hawk; never poisethemselves on the wing, never dive and gambol in the air, and neverswoop down upon their prey; unlike the hawks also, they appear to haveno enemies. The crow fights the hawk, and the kingbird and the crowblackbird fight the crow; but neither takes any notice of the buzzard. He excites the enmity of none, for the reason that he molests none. The crow has an old grudge against the hawk, because the hawk robs thecrow's nest and carries off his young; the kingbird's quarrel with thecrow is upon the same grounds. But the buzzard never attacks livegame, or feeds upon new flesh when old can be had. 

In May, like the crows, they nearly all disappear very suddenly, probably to their breeding-haunts near the seashore. Do the malesseparate from the females at this time, and go by themselves? At anyrate, in July I discovered that a large number of buzzards roosted insome woods near Rock Creek, about a mile from the city limits; and, asthey do not nest anywhere in this vicinity, I thought they might bemales. I happened to be detained late in the woods, watching the nestof a flying squirrel, when the buzzards, just after sundown, began tocome by ones and twos and alight in the trees near me. Presently theycame in greater numbers, but from the same direction, flapping lowover the woods, and taking up their position in the middle branches. On alighting, each one would blow very audibly through his nose, justas a cow does when she lies down; this is the only sound I have everheard the buzzard make. They would then stretch themselves, after themanner of turkeys, and walk along the limbs. Sometimes a decayedbranch would break under the weight of two or three, when, with agreat flapping, the would take up new positions. They continued tocome till it was quite dark, and all the trees about me were full. Ibegan to feel a little nervous, but kept my place. After it wasentirely dark and all was still, I gathered a large pile of dry leavesand kindled it with a match, to see what they would think of a fire. Not a sound was heard till the pile of leaves was in full blaze, wheninstantaneously every buzzard started. I thought the treetops werecoming down upon me, so great was the uproar. But the woods were sooncleared, and the loathsome pack disappeared in the night. 

About the 1st of June I saw numbers of buzzards sailing around overthe great Falls of the Potomac. 

A glimpse of the birds usually found here in the latter part of wintermay be had in the following extract, which I take from my diary underdate of February 4th:--

"Made a long excursion through the woods and over the hills. Wentdirectly north from the Capitol for about three miles. The ground bareand the day cold and sharp. In the suburbs, among the scattered Irishand negro shanties, came suddenly upon a flock of birds, feeding aboutlike our northern snow buntings. Every now and then they uttered apiping, disconsolate note, as if they had a very sorry time of it. They proved to be shore larks, the first I had ever seen. They had thewalk characteristic of all larks; were a little larger than thesparrow; had a black spot on the breast, with much white on the underparts of their bodies. As I approached them the nearer ones paused, and, half squatting, eyed me suspiciously. Presently, at a movement ofmy arm, away they went, flying exactly like the snow bunting, andshowing nearly as much white. " (I have since discovered that the shorelark is a regular visitant here in February and March, when largequantities of them are shot or trapped, and exposed for sale in themarket. During a heavy snow I have seen numbers of them feeding uponthe seeds of various weedy growths in a large market-garden well intotown. ) "Pressing on, the walk became exhilarating. Followed a littlebrook, the eastern branch of the Tiber, lined with bushes and a rankgrowth of green-brier. Sparrows started out here and there, and flewacross the little bends and points. Among some pines just beyond theboundary, saw a number of American goldfinches, in their gray winterdress, pecking the pinecones. A golden-crowned kinglet was there also, a little tuft of gray feathers, hopping about as restless as a spirit. Had the old pine-trees food delicate enough for him also? Farther on, in some low open woods, saw many sparrows, --the fox, white-throated, white-crowned, the Canada, the song, the swamp, --all herding togetheralong the warm and sheltered borders. To my surprise, saw a chewinkalso, and the yellow-rumped warbler. The purple finch was therelikewise, and the Carolina wren and brown creeper. In the higher, colder woods not a bird was to be seen. Returning, near sunset, acrossthe eastern slope of a hill which overlooked the city, was delightedto see a number of grass finches or vesper sparrows, --birds whichwill be forever associated in my mind with my father's sheep pastures. They ran before me, now flitting a pace or two, now skulking in thelow stubble, just as I had observed them when a boy. "

A month later, March 4th, is this note:--

"After the second memorable inaguration of President Lincoln, took myfirst trip of the season. The afternoon was very clear and warm, --realvernal sunshine at last, though the wind roared like a lion over thewoods. It seemed novel enough to find within two miles of the WhiteHouse a simple woodsman chopping away as if no President was beinginaugurated! Some puppies, snugly nestled in the cavity of an oldhollow tree, he said, belonged to a wild dog. I imagine I saw the'wild dog, ' on the other side of Rock Creek, in a great state of griefand trepidation, running up and down, crying and yelping, and lookingwistfully over the swollen flood, which the poor thing had not thecourage to brave. This day, for the first time, I heard the song ofthe Canada sparrow, a soft, sweet note, almost running into a warble. Saw a small, black velvety butterfly with a yellow border to itswings. Under a warm bank found two flowers of the houstonia in bloom. Saw frogs' spawn near Piny Branch, and heard the hyla. "

Among the first birds that make their appearance in Washington is thecrow blackbird. He may come any time after the 1st of March. The birdscongregate in large flocks, and frequent groves and parks, alternatelyswarming in the treetops and filling the air with their sharp jangle, and alighting on the ground in quest of food, their polished coatsglistening in the sun from very blackness as they walk about. There isevidently some music in the soul of this bird at this season, thoughhe makes a sad failure in getting it out. His voice always sounds asif he were laboring under a severe attack of influenza, though a largeflock of them, heard at a distance on a bright afternoon of earlyspring, produce an effect not unpleasing. The air is filled withcrackling, splintering, spurting, semi-musical sounds, which are likepepper and salt to the ear. 

All parks and public grounds about the city are full of blackbirds. They are especially plentiful in the trees about the White House, breeding there and waging war on all other birds. The occupants of oneof the offices in the west wing of the Treasury one day had theirattention attracted by some object striking violently against one ofthe window-panes. Looking up, they beheld a crow blackbird pausing inmidair, a few feet from the window. On the broad stone window-sill laythe quivering form of a purple finch. The little tragedy was easilyread. The blackbird had pursued the finch with such murderous violencethat the latter, in its desperate efforts to escape, had sought refugein the Treasury. The force of the concussion against the heavyplateglass of the window had killed the poor thing instantly. Thepursuer, no doubt astonished at the sudden and novel termination ofthe career of its victim, hovered for a moment, as if to be sure ofwhat had happened, and made off. 

(It is not unusual for birds, when thus threatened with destruction bytheir natural enemy, to become so terrified as to seek safety in thepresence of man. I was once startled, while living in a countryvillage, to behold, on entering my room at noon, one October day, aquail sitting upon my bed. The affrighted and bewildered birdinstantly started for the open window, into which it had no doubt beendriven by a hawk. )

The crow blackbird has all the natural cunning of his prototype, thecrow. In one of the inner courts of the Treasury building there is afountain with several trees growing near. By midsummer the blackbirdsbecame so bold as to venture within this court. Various fragments offood, tossed from the surrounding windows, reward their temerity. Whena crust of dry bread defies their beaks, they have been seen to dropit into the water, and, when it has become soaked sufficiently, totake it out again. 

They build a nest of coarse sticks and mud, the whole burden of theenterprise seeming to devolve upon the female. For several successivemornings, just after sunrise, I used to notice a pair of them flyingto and fro in the air above me as I hoed in the garden, directingtheir course about half a mile distant, and disappearing, on theirreturn, among the trees about the Capitol. Returning, the femalealways had her beak loaded with building material, while the male, carrying nothing, seemed to act as her escort, flying a little aboveand in advance of her, and uttering now and then his husky, discordantnote. As I tossed a lump of earth up at them, the frightened motherbird dropped her mortar, and the pair scurried away, much put out. Later they avenged themselves by pilfering my cherries. 

The most mischievous enemies of the cherries, however, here as at theNorth, are the cedar waxwings, or "cherry-birds. " How quickly they spyout the tree! Long before the cherry begins to turn, they are around, alert and cautious. In small flocks they circle about, high in theair, uttering their fine note, or plunge quickly into the tops ofremote trees. Day by day they approach nearer and nearer, reconnoitring the premises, and watching the growing fruit. Hardlyhave the green lobes turned a red cheek to the sun, before their beakshave scarred it. At first they approach the tree stealthily, on theside turned from the house, diving quickly into the branches in onesand twos, while the main flock is ambushed in some shade tree not faroff. They are most apt to commit their depredations very early in themorning and on cloudy, rainy days. As the cherries grow sweeter thebirds grow bolder, till, from throwing tufts of grass, one has tothrow stones in good earnest, or lose all his fruit. In June theydisappear, following the cherries to the north, where by July they arenesting in the orchards and cedar groves. 

Among the permanent summer residents here (one might say cityresidents, as they seem more abundant in town than out), the yellowwarbler or summer yellowbird is conspicuous. He comes about the middleof April, and seems particularly attached to the silver poplars. Inevery street, and all day long, one may hear his thin, sharp warble. When nesting, the female comes about the yard, pecking at theclothes-line, and gathering up bits of thread to weave into her nest. 

Swallows appear in Washington form the first to the middle of April. They come twittering along in the way so familiar to every New Englandboy. The barn swallow is heard first, followed in a day or two by thesqueaking of the cliff swallow. The chimney swallows, or swifts, arenot far behind, and remain here in large numbers, the whole season. The purple martins appear in April, as they pass north, and again inJuly and August on their return, accompanied by their young. 

The national capital is situated in such a vast spread of wild, wooded, or semi-cultivated country and is in itself so open andspacious, with its parks and large government reservations, that anunusual number of birds find their way into it in the course of theseason. Rare warblers, as the black-poll, the yellow-poll, and thebay-breasted, pausing in May on their northward journey, pursue theirinsect game in the very heart of the town. 

I have heard the veery thrush in the trees near the White House; andone rainy April morning, about six o'clock, he came and blew his soft, mellow flute in a pear-tree in my garden. The tones had all thesweetness and wildness they have when heard in June in our deepnorthern forests. A day or two afterward, in the same tree, I heardfor the first time the song of the ruby-crowned wren, or kinglet, --thesame liquid bubble and cadence which characterize the wren-songsgenerally, but much finer and more delicate than the song of any othervariety known to me; beginning in a fine, round, needle-like note, andrising into a full, sustained warble, [SYMBOL DELETED] a strain, onwhole, remarkably exquisite and pleasing, the singer being all thewhile as busy as a bee, catching some kind of insects. It is certainlyon of our most beautiful bird-songs, and Audubon's enthusiasmconcerning its song, as he heard it in the wilds of Labrador, is not abit extravagant. The song of the kinglet is the only characteristicthat allies it to the wrens. 

The Capitol grounds, with their fine large trees of many varieties, draw many kinds of birds. In the rear of the building the extensivegrounds are peculiarly attractive, being a gentle slope, warm andprotected, and quite thickly wooded. Here in early spring I go to hearthe robins, catbirds, blackbirds, wrens, etc. In March thewhite-throated and white-crowned sparrows may be seen, hopping abouton the flower-beds or peering slyly from the evergreens. The robinhops about freely upon the grass, notwithstanding the keeperslarge-lettered warning, and at intervals, and especially at sunset, carols from the treetops his loud, hearty strain. 

The kingbird and orchard starling remain the whole season, and breedin the treetops. The rich, copious song of the starling may be heardthere all the forenoon. The song of some birds is likescarlet, --strong, intense, emphatic. This is the character of theorchard starlings, also the tanagers and the various grosbeaks. On theother hand, the songs of other birds, as of certain of the thrushes, suggest the serene blue of the upper sky. 

In February one may hear, in the Smithsonian grounds, the song of thefox sparrow. It is a strong, richly modulated whistle, --the finestsparrow note I have ever heard. 

A curious and charming sound may be heard here in May. You arewalking forth in the soft morning air, when suddenly there comes aburst of bobolink melody form some mysterious source. A score ofthroats pour out one brief, hilarious, tuneful jubilee and aresuddenly silent. There is a strange remoteness and fascination aboutit. Presently you will discover its source skyward, and a quick eyewill detect the gay band pushing northward. They seem to scent thefragrant meadows afar off, and shout forth snatches of their songs inanticipation. 

The bobolink does not breed in the District, but usually pauses in hisjourney and feeds during the day in the grass-lands north of the city. When the season is backward, they tarry a week or ten days, singingfreely and appearing quite at home. In large flocks they search overevery inch of ground, and at intervals hover on the wing or alight inthe treetops, all pouring forth their gladness at once, and fillingthe air with a multitudinous musical clamor. 

They continue to pass, traveling by night and feeding by day, tillafter the middle of May, when they cease. In September, with numbersgreatly increased, they are on their way back. I am first advised oftheir return by hearing their calls at night as they fly over thecity. On certain nights the sound becomes quite noticeable. I haveawakened in the middle of the night, and, through the open window, asI lay in bed, heard their faint notes. The warblers begin to returnabout the same time, and are clearly distinguished by their timidyeaps. On dark, cloudy nights the birds seem confused by the lights ofthe city, and apparently wander about above it. 

In the spring the same curious incident is repeated, though but fewvoices can be identified. I make out the snowbird, the bobolink, thewarblers, and on two nights during the early part of May I heard veryclearly the call of the sandpipers. 

Instead of the bobolink, one encounters here, in the June meadows, theblack-throated bunting, a bird very closely related to the sparrowsand a very persistent if not a very musical songster. He perches uponthe fences and upon the trees by the roadside, and, spreading histail, gives forth his harsh strain, which may be roughly worded thus:fscp fscp, fee fee fee. Like all sounds associated with early summer, it soon has a charm to the ear quite independent of its intrinsicmerits. 

Outside of the city limits, the great point of interest to the ramblerand lover of nature is the Rock Creek region. Rock Creek is a large, rough, rapid stream, which has its source in the interior of Maryland, and flows in to the Potomac between Washington and Georgetown. Itscourse, for five or six miles out of Washington, is marked by greatdiversity of scenery. Flowing in a deep valley, which now and thenbecomes a wild gorge with overhanging rocks and high precipitousheadlands, for the most part wooded; here reposing in long, darkreaches, there sweeping and hurrying around a sudden bend or over arocky bed; receiving at short intervals small runs and springrivulets, which open up vistas and outlooks to the right and left, ofthe most charming description, --Rock Creek has an abundance of all theelements that make up not only pleasing but wild and rugged scenery. There is perhaps, not another city in the Union that has on its verythreshold so much natural beauty and grandeur, such as men seek for inremote forests and mountains. A few touches of art would convert thiswhole region, extending from Georgetown to what is known as CrystalSprings, not more than two miles from the present State Department, into a park unequaled by anything in the world. There are passagesbetween these two points as wild and savage, and apparently as remotefrom civilization, as anything one meets with in the mountain sourcesof the Hudson or the Delaware. 

One of the tributaries to Rock Creek within this limit is called PinyBranch. It is a small, noisy brook, flowing through a valley of greatnatural beauty and picturesqueness, shaded nearly all the way by woodsof oak, chestnut, and beech, and abounding in dark recesses and hiddenretreats. 

I must not forget to mention the many springs with which this wholeregion is supplied, each the centre of some wild nook, perhaps thehead of a little valley one or two hundred yards long, through whichone catches a glimpse, or hears the voice, of the main creek rushingalong below. 

My walks tend in this direction more frequently than in any other. Here the boys go, too, troops of them, of a Sunday, to bathe and prowlaround, and indulge the semi-barbarous instincts that still lurkwithin them. Life, in all its forms, is most abundant near water. Therank vegetation nurtures the insects, and the insects draw the birds. The first week in March, on some southern slope where the sunshinelies warm and long, I usually find the hepatica in bloom, though withscarcely an inch of stalk. In the spring runs, the skunk cabbagepushes its pike up through the mould, the flower appearing first, asif Nature had made a mistake. 

It is not till about the 1st of April that many wild flowers may belooked for. By this time the hepatica, anemone saxifrage, arbutus, houstonia, and bloodroot may be counted on. A week later, theclaytonia or spring beauty, water-cress, violets, a low buttercup, vetch, corydalis, and potentilla appear. These comprise most of theApril flowers, and may be found in great profusion in the Rock Creekand Piny Branch region. 

In each little valley or spring run, some one species predominates. Iknow invariably where to look for the first liverwort, and where thelargest and finest may be found. On a dry, gravelly, half-woodedhill-slope the bird's-foot violet grows in great abundance, and issparse in neighboring districts. This flower, which I never saw in theNorth, is the most beautiful and showy of all the violets, and callsforth rapturous applause from all persons who visit the woods. Itgrows in little groups and clusters, and bears a close resemblance tothe pansies of the gardens. Its two purple, velvety petals seem tofall over tiny shoulders like a rich cape. 

On the same slope, and on no other, I go about the 1st of May forlupine, or sun-dial, which makes the ground look blue from a littledistance; on the other or northern side of the slope, the arbutus, during the first half of April, perfumes the wildwood air. A few pacesfarther on, in the bottom of a little spring run, the mandrake shadesthe ground with its miniature umbrellas. It begins to push its greenfinger-points up through the ground by the 1st of April, but is not inbloom till the 1st of May. It has a single white, wax-like flower, with a sweet, sickish odor, growing immediately beneath its broadleafy top. By the same run grow watercresses and two kinds ofanemones, --the Pennsylvania and the grove anemone. The bloodroot isvery common at the foot of almost every warm slope in the Rock Creekwoods, and, where the wind has tucked it up well with the coverlid ofdry leaves, makes its appearance almost as soon as the liverwort. Itis singular how little warmth is necessary to encourage these earlierflowers to put forth. It would seem as if some influence must come onin advance underground and get things ready, so that, when the outsidetemperature is propitious, they at once venture out. I have found thebloodroot when it was still freezing two or three nights in the week, and have known at least three varieties of early flowers to be buriedin eight inches of snow. 

Another abundant flower in the Rock Creek region is the spring beauty. Like most others, it grows in streaks. A few paces from where yourattention is monopolized by violets or arbutus, it is arrested by theclaytonia, growing in such profusion that it is impossible to set thefoot down without crushing the flowers. Only the forenoon walker seesthem in all their beauty, as later in the day their eyes are closed, and their pretty heads drooped in slumber. In only one locality do Ifind the lady's-slipper, --a yellow variety. The flowers that overleapall bounds in this section are the houstonias. By the 1st of Aprilthey are very noticeable in warm, damp places along the borders of thewoods and in half-cleared fields, but by May these localities areclouded with them. They become visible from the highway across widefields, and look like little puffs of smoke clinging close to theground. 

On the 1st of May I go to the Rock Creek or Piny Branch region to hearthe wood thrush. I always find him by this date leisurely chanting hislofty strain; other thrushes are seen now also, or even earlier, asWilson's, the olive-backed, the hermit, --the two latter silent, butthe former musical. 

Occasionally in the earlier part of May I find the woods literallyswarming with warblers, exploring every branch and leaf, from thetallest tulip to the lowest spice-bush, so urgent is the demand forfood during their long northern journeys. At night they are up andaway. Some varieties, as the blue yellow-back, the chestnut-sided, andthe Blackburnian, during their brief stay, sing nearly as freely as intheir breeding-haunts. For two or three years I have chanced to meetlittle companies of the bay-breasted warbler, searching for food in anoak wood on an elevated piece of ground. They kept well up among thebranches, were rather slow in their movements, and evidently disposedto tarry but a short time. 

The summer residents here, belonging to this class of birds, are few. I have observed the black and white creeping warbler, the Kentuckywarbler, the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat-catcher, breeding near Rock Creek. 

Of these the Kentucky warbler is by far the most interesting, thoughquite rare. I meet with him in low, damp places in the woods, usuallyon the steep sides of some little run. I hear at intervals a clear, strong, bell-like whistle or warble, and presently catch a glimpse ofthe bird as he jumps up from the ground to take an insect or worm fromthe under side of a leaf. This is his characteristic movement. Hebelongs to the class of ground warblers, and his range is very low, indeed lower than that of any other species with which I amacquainted. He is on the ground nearly all the time, moving rapidlyalong, taking spiders and bugs, overturning leaves, peeping understicks and into crevices, and every now and then leaping up eight orten inches to take his game from beneath some overhanging leaf orbranch. Thus each species has its range more or less marked. Draw aline three feet from the ground, and you mark the usual limit of theKentucky warbler's quest for food. Six or eight feet higher bounds theusual range of such birds as the worm-eating warbler, the mourningground warbler, the Maryland yellow-throat. The lower branches of thehigher growths and the higher branches of the lower growths areplainly preferred by the black-throated blue-backed warbler in thoselocalities where he is found. The thrushes feed mostly on and near theground, while some of the vireos and the true flycatchers explore thehighest branches. But the warblers, as a rule, are all partial tothick, rank undergrowths. 

The Kentucky warbler is a large bird for the genus and quite notablein appearance. His back is clear olive-green, his throat and breastbright yellow. A still more prominent feature is a black streak on theside of the face, extending down the neck. 

Another familiar bird here, which I never met with in the North, isthe gnatcatcher, called by Audubon the blue-gray flycatching warbler. In form and manner it seems almost a duplicate of the catbird on asmall scale. It mews like a young kitten, erects its tail, flirts, droops its wings, goes through a variety of motions when disturbed byyour presence, and in many ways recalls its dusky prototype. Its colorabove is a light gray-blue, gradually fading till it becomes white onthe breast and belly. It is a very small bird, and has a long, facile, slender tail. Its song is a lisping, chattering, incoherent warble, now faintly reminding one of the goldfinch, now of a miniaturecatbird, then of a tiny yellow-hammer, having much variety, but nounity and little cadence. 

Another bird which has interested me here is the Louisiana waterthrush, called also large-billed water-thrush, and water-wagtail. Itis one of a trio of birds which has confused the ornithologists much. The other two species are the well-known golden-crowned thrush orwood-wagtail, and the northern, or small, water-thrush. 

The present species, though not abundant, is frequently met with alongRock Creek. It is a very quick, vivacious bird, and belongs to theclass of ecstatic singers. I have seen a pair of these thrushes, on abright May day, flying to and fro between two spring runs, alightingat intermediate points, the male breaking out into one of the mostexuberant, unpremeditated strains I ever heard. Its song is a suddenburst, beginning with three or four clear round notes much resemblingcertain tones of the clarinet, and terminating in a rapid, intricatewarble. 

This bird resembles a thrush only in its color, which is olive-brownabove and grayish white beneath, with speckled throat and breast. Itshabits, manners, and voice suggest those of a lark. 

I seldom go the Rock Creek route without being amused and sometimesannoyed by the yellow-breasted chat. This bird also has something ofthe manners and build of the catbird, yet he is truly an original. Thecatbird is mild and feminine compared with this rollicking polyglot. His voice is very loud and strong and quite uncanny. No sooner haveyou penetrated his retreat, which is usually a thick undergrowth inlow, wet localities, near the woods or in old fields, than he beginshis serenade, which for the variety, grotesqueness, and uncouthness ofthe notes is not unlike a country skimmerton. If one passes directlyalong, the bird may scarcely break the silence. But pause a while, orloiter quietly about, and your presence stimulates him to do his best. He peeps quizzically at you from beneath the branches, and gives asharp feline mew. In a moment more he says very distinctly, who, who. Then in rapid succession follow notes the most discordant that everbroke the sylvan silence. Now he barks like a puppy, then quacks likea duck, then rattles like a kingfisher, then squalls like a fox, thencaws like a crow, then mews like a cat. Now he calls as if to be hearda long way off, then changes his key, as if addressing the spectator. Though very shy, and carefully keeping himself screened when you showany disposition to get a better view, he will presently, if you remainquiet, ascend a twig, or hop out on a branch in plain sight, lop histail, droop his wings, cock his head, and become very melodramatic. Inless than half a minute he darts into the bushes again, and againtunes up, no Frenchman rolling his r's so fluently. C-r-r-r-r-r-- Wrrr, --that's it, --chee, --quack, cluck, --yit-yit-yit, --now hit it, --tr-r-r-r, --when, --caw, caw, --cut, cut, --tea-boy, --who, who, --mew, mew, --and so on till you are tired of listening. Observing one very closely one day, I discovered that he was limitedto six notes or changes, which he went through in regular order, scarcely varying a note in a dozen repetitions. Sometimes, when aconsiderable distance off, he will fly down to have a nearer view ofyou. And such curious, expressive flight, --legs extended, head lowered, wings rapidly vibrating, the whole action piquant and droll!

The chat is an elegant bird, both in form and color. Its plumage isremarkably firm and compact. Color above, light olive-green; beneath, bright yellow; beak, black and strong. 

The cardinal grosbeak, or Virginia redbird, is quite common in thesame localities, though more inclined to seek the woods. It is muchsought after by bird fanciers, and by boy gunners, and consequently isvery shy. This bird suggests a British redcoat; his heavy, pointedbeak, his high cockade, the black stripe down his face, the expressionof weight and massiveness about his head and neck, and his erectattitude, give him a decided soldier-like appearance; and there issomething of the tone of the fife in his song or whistle, while hisordinary note, when disturbed, is like the clink of a sabre. Yesterday, as I sat indolently swinging in the loop of a grapevine, beneath a thick canopy of green branches, in a secluded nook by aspring run, one of these birds came pursuing some kind of insect, buta few feet above me. He hopped about, now and then uttering his sharpnote, till some moth or beetle trying to escape, he broke down throughthe cover almost where I sat. The effect was like a firebrand comingdown through the branches. Instantly catching sight of me, he dartedaway much alarmed. The female is tinged with brown, and shows but alittle red except when she takes flight. 

By far the most abundant species of woodpecker about Washington is thered-headed. It is more common than the robin. Not in the deep woods, but among the scattered dilapidated oaks and groves, on the hills andin the fields, I hear almost every day his uncanny note, ktr-r-r, ktr-r-r, like that of some larger tree-toad, proceeding from an oakgrove just beyond the boundary. He is a strong-scented fellow, andvery tough. Yet how beautiful, as he flits about the open woods, connecting the trees by a gentle arc of crimson and white! This isanother bird with a military look. His deliberate, dignified ways, andhis bright uniform of red, white, and steel-blue, bespeak him anofficer of rank. 

Another favorite beat of mine is northeast of the city. Looking fromthe Capitol in this direction, scarcely more than a mile distant, yousee a broad green hill-slope, falling very gently, and spreading intoa large expanse of meadow-land. The summit, if so gentle a swell ofgreensward may be said to have a summit, is covered with a grove oflarge oaks; and, sweeping black out of sight like a mantle, the frontline of a thick forest bounds the sides. This emerald landscape isseen from a number of points in the city. Looking along New YorkAvenue from Northern Liberty Market, the eye glances, as it were, fromthe red clay of the street, and alights upon this fresh scene in thedistance. It is a standing invitation to the citizen to come forth andbe refreshed. As I turn from some hot, hard street, how inviting itlooks! I bathe my eyes in it as in a fountain. Sometimes troops ofcattle are seen grazing upon it. In June the gathering of the hay maybe witnessed. When the ground is covered with snow, numerous stacks, or clusters of stacks, are still left for the eye to contemplate. 

The woods which clothe the east side of this hill, and sweep away tothe east, are among the most charming to be found in the District. Themain growth is oak and chestnut, with a thin sprinkling of laurel, azalea, and dogwood. It is the only locality in which I have found thedogtooth violet in bloom, and the best place I know of to gatherarbutus. On one slope the ground is covered with moss, through whichthe arbutus trails its glories. 

Emerging from these woods toward the city, one sees the white dome ofthe Capitol soaring over the green swell of earth immediately infront, and lifting its four thousand tons of iron gracefully andlightly into the air. Of all the sights in Washington, that which willsurvive the longest in my memory is the vision of the great dome thusrising cloud-like above the hills. 

 1868. 

VI

BIRCH BROWSINGS

The region of which I am about to speak lies in the southern part ofthe state of New York, and comprises parts of three counties, --Ulster, Sullivan and Delaware. It is drained by tributaries of both the Hudsonand Delaware, and, next to the Adirondack section, contains more wildland than any other tract in the State. The mountains which traverseit, and impart to it its severe northern climate, belong properly tothe Catskill range. On some maps of the State they are called the PineMountains, though with obvious local impropriety, as pine, so far as Ihave observed, is nowhere found upon them. "Birch Mountains" would bea more characteristic name, as on their summits birch is theprevailing tree. They are the natural home of the black and yellowbirch, which grow here to unusual size. On their sides beech and mapleabound; while, mantling their lower slopes and darkening the valleys, hemlock formerly enticed the lumberman and tanner. Except in remote orinaccessible localities, the latter tree is now almost never found. InShandaken and along the Esopus it is about the only product thecountry yielded, or is likely to yield. Tanneries by the score havearisen and flourished upon the bark, and some of them still remain. Passing through that region the present season, I saw that the fewpatches of hemlock that still lingered high up on the sides of themountains were being felled and peeled, the fresh white boles or thetrees, just stripped of their bark, being visible a long distance. 

Among these mountains there are no sharp peaks, or abrupt declivities, as in a volcanic region, but long, uniform ranges, heavily timbered totheir summits, and delighting the eye with vast, undulating horizonlines. Looking south from the heights about the head of the Delaware, one sees, twenty miles away, a continual succession of blue ranges, one behind the other. If a few large trees are missing on the skyline, one can see the break a long distance off. 

Approaching this region from the Hudson River side, you cross a rough, rolling stretch of country, skirting the base of the Catskills, whichfrom a point near Saugerties sweep inland; after a drive of a fewhours you are within the shadow of a high, bold mountain, which formsa sort of butt-end to this part of the range, and which is simplecalled High Point. To the east and southeast it slopes down rapidly tothe plain, and looks defiance toward the Hudson, twenty miles distant;in the rear of it, and radiating from it west and northwest, arenumerous smaller ranges, backing up, as it were, this haughty chief. 

From this point through to Pennsylvania, a distance of nearly onehundred miles, stretches the tract of which I speak. It is a belt ofcountry from twenty to thirty miles wide, bleak and wild, and butsparsely settled. The traveler on the New York and Erie Railroad getsa glimpse of it. 

Many cold, rapid trout streams, which flow to all points of thecompass, have their source in the small lakes and copious mountainsprings of this region. The names of some of them are Mill Brook, DryBrook, Willewemack, Beaver Kill, Elk Bush Kill, Panther Kill, Neversink, Big Ingin, and Callikoon. Beaver Kill is the main outlet onthe west. It joins the Deleware in the wilds of Hancock. The Neversinklays open the region to the south, and also joins the Delaware. To theeast, various Kills unite with the Big Ingin to form the Esopus, whichflows into the Hudson. Dry Brook and Mill Brook, both famous troutstreams, from twelve to fifteen miles long, find their way into theDelaware. 

The east or Pepacton branch of the Delaware itself takes its rise nearhere in a deep pass between the mountains. I have many times drunk ata copious spring by the roadside, where the infant river first seesthe light. A few yards beyond, the water flows the other way, directing its course through the Bear Kill and Schoharie Kill into theMohawk. 

Such game and wild animals as still linger in the State are found inthis region. Bears occasionally make havoc among the sheep. Theclearings at the head of a valley are oftenest the scene of theirdepredations. 

Wild pigeons, in immense numbers used to breed regularly in the valleyof the Big Ingin and about the head of the Neversink. The treetops formiles were full of their nests, while the going and coming of the oldbirds kept up a constant din. But the gunners soon got wind of it, andfrom far and near were wont to pour in during the spring, and toslaughter both old and young. This practice soon had the effect ofdriving the pigeons all away, and now only a few pairs breed in thesewoods. 

Deer are still met with, though they are becoming scarcer every year. Last winter near seventy head were killed on the Beaver Kill alone. Iheard of one wretch, who, finding the deer snowbound, walked up tothem on his snowshoes, and one morning before breakfast slaughteredsix, leaving their carcasses where they fell. There are traditions ofpersons having been smitten blind or senseless when about to commitsome heinous offense, but the fact that this villain escaped withoutsome such visitation throws discredit on all such stories. 

The great attraction, however, of this region, is the brook trout, with which the streams and lakes abound. The water is of excessivecoldness, the thermometer indicating 44° and 45°in the springs, and47° or 48° in the smaller streams. The trout are generally small, butin the more remote branches their number is very great. In suchlocalities the fish are quite black, but in the lakes they are of alustre and brilliancy impossible to describe. 

These waters have been much visited of late years by fishing parties, and the name of the Beaver Kill is now a potent name among New Yorksportsmen. 

One lake, in the wilds of Callikoon, abounds in a peculiar species ofwhite sucker, which is of excellent quality. It is taken only inspring, during the spawning season, at the time "when the leaves areas big as a chipmunk's ears. " The fish run up the small streams andinlets, beginning at nightfall, and continuing till the channel isliterally packed with them, and every inch of space is occupied. Thefishermen pounce upon them at such times, and scoop them up by thebushel, usually wading right into the living mass and landing the fishwith their hands. A small party will often secure in this manner awagon-load of fish. Certain conditions of the weather, as a warm southor southwest wind, are considered most favorable for the fish to run. 

Though familiar all my life with the outskirts of this region, I haveonly twice dipped into its wilder portions. Once in 1860 a friend andmyself traced the Beaver Kill to its source, and encamped by BalsamLake. A cold and protracted rainstorm coming on, we were obliged toleave the woods before we were ready. Neither of us will soon forgetthat tramp by an unknown route over the mountains, encumbered as wewere with a hundred and one superfluities which we had foolishlybrought along to solace ourselves with in the woods; nor that halt onthe summit, where we cooked and ate our fish in the drizzling rain;nor, again, that rude log house, with its sweet hospitality, which wereached just at nightfall on Mill Brook. 

In 1868 a party of three of us set out for a brief trouting excursionto a body of water called Thomas's Lake, situated in the same chain ofmountains. On this excursion, more particularly than on any other Ihave ever undertaken, I was taught how poor an Indian I should make, and what a ridiculous figure a party of men may cut in the woods whenthe way is uncertain and the mountains high. 

We left our team at a farmhouse near the head of the Mill Brook, oneJune afternoon, and with knapsacks on our shoulders struck into thewoods at the base of the mountain, hoping to cross the range thatintervened between us and the lake by sunset. We engaged agood-natured but rather indolent young man, who happened to bestopping at the house, and who had carried a knapsack in the Unionarmies, to pilot us a couple of miles into the woods so as to guardagainst any mistakes at the outset. It seemed the easiest thing in theworld to find the lake. The lay of the land was so simple, accordingto accounts, that I felt sure I could go it in the dark. "Go up thislittle brook to its source on the side of the mountain, " they said. "The valley that contains the lake heads directly on the other side. "What could be easier! But on a little further inquiry, they said weshould "bear well to the left" when we reached the top of themountain. This opened the doors again; "bearing well to the left" wasan uncertain performance in strange woods. We might bear so well tothe left that it would bring us ill. But why bear to the left at all, if the lake was directly opposite? Well, not quite opposite; a littleto the left. There were two or three other valleys that headed in nearthere. We could easily find the right one. But to make assurancedoubly sure, we engaged a guide, as stated, to give us a good start, and go with us beyond the bearing-to-the-left point. He had been tothe lake the winter before and knew the way. Our course, the firsthalf hour, was along an obscure wood-road which had been used fordrawing ash logs off mountain in winter. There was some hemlock, butmore maple and birch. The woods were dense and free from underbrush, the ascent gradual. Most of the way we kept the voice of the creek inour ear on the right. I approached it once, and found it swarming withtrout. The water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a while theascent grew steeper, the creek became a mere rill that issued frombeneath loose, moss-covered rocks and stones, and with much labor andpuffing we drew ourselves up the rugged declivity. Every mountain hasits steepest point, which is usually near the summit, in keeping, Isuppose, with the providence that makes the darkest hour just beforeday. It is steep, steeper, steepest, till you emerge on the smoothlevel or gently rounded space at the top, which the old ice-godspolished off so long ago. 

We found this mountain had a hollow in its back where the ground wassoft and swampy. Some gigantic ferns, which we passed through, camenearly to our shoulders. We passed also several patches of swamphoneysuckles, red with blossoms. 

Our guide at length paused on a big rock where the land begin to dipdown the other way, and concluded that he had gone far enough, andthat we would now have no difficulty in finding the lake. "It must lieright down there, " he said pointing with his hand. But it was plainthat he was not quite sure in his own mind. He had several timeswavered in his course, and had shown considerable embarrassment whenbearing to the left across the summit. Still we thought little of it. We were full of confidence, and bidding him adieu, plunged down themountain-side, following a spring run that we had no doubt left to thelake. 

In these woods, which had a southeastern exposure, I first began tonotice the wood thrush. In coming up the other side, I had not seen afeather of any kind, or heard a note. Now the golden trillide-de ofthe wood thrush sounded through the silent woods. While looking for afish-pole about halfway down the mountain, I saw a thrush's nest in alittle sapling about ten feet from the ground. 

After continuing our descent till our only guide, the spring run, became quite a trout brook, and its tiny murmur a loud brawl, we beganto peer anxiously through the trees for a glimpse of the lake, or forsome conformation of the land that would indicate its proximity. Anobject which we vaguely discerned in looking under the near trees andover the more distant ones proved, on further inspection, to be apatch of plowed ground. Presently we made out a burnt fallow near it. This was a wet blanket to our enthusiasm. No lake, no sport, no troutfor supper that night. The rather indolent young man had either playedus a trick, or, as seemed more likely, had missed the way. We wereparticularly anxious to be at the lake between sundown and dark, as atthat time the trout jump most freely. 

Pushing on, we soon emerged into a stumpy field, at the head of asteep valley, which swept around toward the west. About two hundredrods below us was a rude log house, with smoke issuing from thechimney. A boy came out and moved toward the spring with a pail in hishand. We shouted to him, when he turned and ran back into the housewithout pausing to reply. In a moment the whole family hastily rushedinto the yard, and turned their faces toward us. If we had come downtheir chimney, they could not have seemed more astonished. Not makingout what they said, I went down to the house, and learned to mychagrin that we were still on the Mill Brook side, having crossed onlya spur of the mountain. We had not borne sufficiently to the left, sothat the main range, which, at the point of crossing, suddenly breaksoff to the southeast, still intervened between us and the lake. Wewere about five miles, as the water runs, from the point of starting, and over two from the lake. We must go directly back to the top of therange where the guide had left us, and then, by keeping well to theleft, we would soon come to a line of marked trees, which would leadus to the lake. So, turning upon our trail, we doggedly began the workof undoing what we had just done, --in all cases a disagreeable task, in this case a very laborious one also. It was after sunset when weturned back, and before we had got halfway up the mountain, it beganto be quite dark. We were often obliged to rest our packs against thetrees and take breath, which made our progress slow. Finally a haltwas called, beside an immense flat rock which had paused on its slidedown the mountain, and we prepared to encamp for the night. A fire wasbuilt the rock cleared off, a small ration of bread served out, ouraccoutrements hung up out of the way of the hedgehogs that weresupposed to infest the locality, and then we disposed ourselves forsleep. If the owls or porcupines (and I think I heard one of thelatter in the middle of the night) reconnoitred our camp, they saw abuffalo robe spread upon a rock, with three old felt hats arranged onone side, and three pairs of sorry-looking cowhide boots protrudingfrom the other. 

When we lay down, there was apparently not a mosquito in the woods;but the "no-see-ems, " as Thoreau's Indian aptly named the midges, soonfound us out, and after the fire had gone down, annoyed us very much. My hands and wrists suddenly began to smart and itch in a mostuncomfortable manner. My first thought was that they had been poisonedin some way. Then the smarting extended to my neck and face, even tomy scalp, when I began to suspect what was the matter. So, wrappingmyself up more thoroughly, and stowing my hands away as best I could, I tried to sleep, being some time behind my companions, who appearednot to mind the "no-see-ems. " I was further annoyed by some littleirregularity on my side of the couch. The chambermaid had not beatenit up well. One huge lump refused to be mollified, and each attempt toadapt it up some natural hollow in my own body brought only a moment'srelief. But at last I got the better of this also and slept. Late inthe night I woke up, just in time to hear a golden-crowned thrush singin a tree near by. It sang as loud and cheerily as at midday, and Ithought myself, after all, quite in luck. Birds occasionally sing atnight, just as the cock crows. I have heard the hairbird, and the noteof the kingbird; and the ruffed grouse frequently drums at night. 

At the first faint signs of day a wood thrush sang, a few rods belowus. Then after a little delay, as the gray light began to grow around, thrushes broke out in full song in all parts of the woods. I thought Ihad never before heard them sing so sweetly. Such a leisurely, goldenchant!--it consoled us for all we had undergone. It was the firstthing in order, --the worms were safe till after this morning chorus. Ijudged that the birds roosted but a few feet from the ground. In fact, a bird in all cases roosts where it builds, and the wood thrushoccupies, as it were, the first story of the woods. 

There is something singular about the distribution of the woodthrushes. At an earlier stage of my observations I should have beenmuch surprised at finding them in these woods. Indeed, I had stated inprint on two occasions that the wood thrush was not found in thehigher lands of the Catskills, but that the hermit thrush and theveery, or Wilson's thrush, were common. It turns out that thestatement is only half true. The wood thrush is found also, but ismuch more rare and secluded in its habits than either of the others, being seen only during the breeding season on remote mountains, andthen only on their eastern and southern slopes. I have never yet inthis region found the bird spending the season in the near andfamiliar woods, which is directly contrary to observations I have madein other parts of the state. So different are the habits of birds indifferent localities. 

As soon as it was fairly light we were up and ready to resume ourmarch. A small bit of bread and butter and a swallow or two of whiskeywas all we had for breakfast that morning. Our supply of each was verylimited, and we were anxious to save a little of both, to relieve thediet of trout to which we looked forward. 

At an early hour we reached the rock where we had parted with theguide, and looked around us into the dense, trackless woods with manymisgivings. To strike out now on our own hook, where the way was soblind and after the experience we had just had, was a step not to becarelessly taken. The tops of these mountains are so broad, and ashort distance in the woods seems so far, that one is by no meansmaster of the situation after reaching the summit. And then there areso many spurs and offshoots and changes of direction, added to theimpossibility of making any generalization by the aid of the eye, thatbefore one is aware of it he is very wide of his mark. 

I remembered now that a young farmer of my acquaintance had told mehow he had made a long day's march through the heart of this region, without path or guide of any kind, and had hit his mark squarely. Hehad been barkpeeling in Callikoon, --a famous country forbarkpeeling, --and, having got enough of it, he desired to reach hishome on Dry Brook without making the usual circuitous journey betweenthe two places. To do this necessitated a march of ten or twelve milesacross several ranges of mountains and through an unbroken forest, --ahazardous undertaking in which no one would join him. Even the oldhunters who were familiar with the ground dissuaded him and predictedthe failure of his enterprise. But having made up his mind, hepossessed himself thoroughly of the topography of the country from theaforesaid hunters, shouldered his axe, and set out, holding a straitcourse through the woods, and turning aside for neither swamps, streams, nor mountains. When he paused to rest he would mark someobject ahead of him with his eye, in order that on getting up again, he might not deviate from his course. His directors had told him of ahunter's cabin about midway on his route, which if he struck he mightbe sure he was right. About noon this cabin was reached, and at sunsethe emerged at the head of Dry Brook. 

After looking in vain for the line of marked trees, we moved off tothe left in a doubtful, hesitating manner, keeping on the highestground and blazing the trees as we went. We were afraid to godownhill, lest we should descend to soon; our vantage-ground was highground. A thick fog coming on, we were more bewildered than ever. Still we pressed forward, climbing up ledges and wading through fernsfor about two hours, when we paused by a spring that issued frombeneath an immense wall of rock that belted the highest part of themountain. There was quite a broad plateau here, and the birch wood wasvery dense, and the trees of unusual size. 

After resting and exchanging opinions, we all concluded that is wasbest not to continue our search encumbered as we were; but we were notwilling to abandon it altogether, and I proposed to my companions toleave them beside the spring with our traps, while I made one thoroughand final effort to find the lake. If I succeeded and desired them tocome forward, I was to fire my gun three times; if I failed and wishedto return, I would fire twice, they of course responding. 

So, filling my canteen from the spring, I set out again, taking thespring run for my guide. Before I had followed it two hundred yards, it sank into the ground at my feet. I had half a mind to besuperstitious and to believe that we were under a spell, since ourguides played us such tricks. However, I determined to put the matterto a further test, and struck out boldly to the left. This seemed tobe the keyword, --to the left, to the left. The fog had now lifted, sothat I could form a better idea of the lay of the land. Twice I lookeddown the steep sides of the mountain, sorely attempted to risk aplunge. Still I hesitated and kept along on the brink. As I stood on arock deliberating, I heard a crackling of the brush, like the tread ofsome large game, on the plateau below me. Suspecting the truth of thecase, I moved stealthily down, and found a herd of young cattleleisurely browsing. We had several times crossed their trail, and hadseen that morning a level, grassy place on the top of the mountain, where they had passed the night. Instead of being frightened, as I hadexpected, they seemed greatly delighted, and gathered around me as ifto inquire the tidings from the outer world, --perhaps the quotationsof the cattle market. They came up to me, and eagerly licked my hand, clothes, and gun. Salt was what they were after, and they were readyto swallow anything that contained the smallest percentage of it. Theywere mostly yearlings and as sleek as moles. They had a very gamylook. We were afterwards told that, in the spring, the farmers roundabout turn into these woods their young cattle, which do not come outagain till fall. They are then in good condition, --not fat, likegrass-fed cattle, but trim and supple, like deer. Once a month theowner hunts them up and salts them. They have their beats, and seldomwander beyond well-defined limits. It was interesting to see themfeed. They browsed on the low limbs and bushes, and on the variousplants, munching at everything without any apparent discrimination. 

They attempted to follow me, but I escaped them by clambering downsome steep rocks. I now found myself gradually edging down the side ofthe mountain, keeping around it in a spiral manner, and scanning thewoods and the shape of the ground for some encouraging hint or sign. Finally the woods became more open, and the descent less rapid. Thetrees were remarkably straight and uniform in size. Black birches, thefirst I had ever seen, were very numerous. I felt encouraged. Listening attentively, I caught, from a breeze just lifting thedrooping leaves, a sound that I willingly believed was made by abullfrog. On this hint, I tore down through the woods at my highestspeed. Then I paused and listened again. This time there was nomistaking it; it was the sound of frogs. Much elated, I rushed on. Byand by I could hear them as I ran. Pthrung, pthrung, croaked the oldones; pug, pug, shrilly joined in the smaller fry. 

Then I caught, through the lower trees, a gleam of blue, which I firstthought was distant sky. A second look and I knew it to be water, andin a moment more I stepped from the woods and stood upon the shore ofthe lake. I exulted silently. There it was at last, sparkling in themorning sun, and as beautiful as a dream. It was so good to come uponsuch open space and such bright hues, after wandering in the dim, dense woods! The eye is as delighted as an escaped bird, and dartsgleefully from point to point. 

The lake was a long oval, scarcely more than a mile in circumference, with evenly wooded shores, which rose gradually on all sides. Aftercontemplating the serene for a moment, I stepped back into the woods, and, loading my gun as heavily as I dared, discharged it three times. The reports seemed to fill all the mountains with sound. The frogsquickly hushed, and I listened for the response. But no response came. Then I tried again and again, but without evoking an answer. One of mycompanions, however, who had climbed to the top of the high rocks inthe rear of the spring, thought he heard faintly one report. It seemedan immense distance below him, and far around under the mountain. Iknew I had come a long way, and hardly expected to be able tocommunicate with my companions in the manner agreed upon. I thereforestarted back, choosing my course without any reference to thecircuitous route by which I had come, and loading heavily and firingat intervals. I must have aroused many long-dormant echoes from a RipVan Winkle sleep. As my powder got low, I fired and halloedalternately, till I cam near splitting both my throat and gun. Finally, after I had begun to have a very ugly feeling of alarm anddisappointment, and to cast about vaguely for some course to pursue inan emergency that seemed near at hand, --namely the loss of mycompanions now I had found the lake, --a favoring breeze brought me thelast echo of a response. I rejoined with spirit, and hastened with allspeed in the direction whence the sound had come, but, after repeatedtrials, failed to elicit another answering sound. This filled me withapprehension again. I feared that my friends had been mislead by thereverberations, and I pictured them to myself, hastening in theopposite direction. Paying little attention to my course, but payingdearly for my carelessness afterward, I rushed forward to undeceivethem. But they had not been deceived, and in a few moments ananswering shout revealed them near at hand. I heard their tramp, thebushed parted, and we three met again. 

In answer to their eager inquiries, I assured them that I had seen thelake, that it was at the foot of the mountain, and that we could notmiss it if we kept straight down from where we then were. 

My clothes were soaked in perspiration, but I shouldered my knapsackwith alacrity, and we began the descent. I noticed that the woods weremuch thicker, and had quite a different look from those I had passedthrough, but thought nothing of it, as I expected to strike the lakenear its head, whereas I had before come out at its foot. We had notgone far when we crossed a line of marked trees, which my companionswere disposed to follow. It intersected our course nearly at rightangles, and kept along and up the side of the mountain. My impressionwas that it lead up from the lake, and that by keeping our course weshould reach the lake sooner than if we followed this line. Abouthalfway down the mountain, we could see through the interstices theopposite slope. I encouraged my comrades by telling them that the lakewas between us and that, and not more than half a mile distant. Wesoon reached the bottom, where we found a small stream and quite anextensive alder swamp, evidently the ancient bed of a lake. Iexplained to my half-vexed and half-incredulous companions that wewere probably above the lake, and that this stream must lead to it. "Follow it, " they said; "we will wait here till we hear from you. "

So I went on, more than ever disposed to believe that we were under aspell, and that the lake had slipped from my grasp after all. Seeingno favorable sign as I went forward, I laid down my accoutrements, andclimbed a decayed beech that leaned out over the swamp and promised agood view from the top. As I stretched myself up to look around fromthe highest attainable branch, there was suddenly a loud crack at theroot. With a celerity that would at least have done credit to a bear, I regained the ground, having caught but a momentary glimpse of thecountry, but enough to convince me no lake was near. Leaving allincumbrances here but my gun, I still pressed on, loath to be thusbaffled. After floundering through another alder swamp for nearly halfa mile, I flattered myself that I was close to the lake. I caughtsight of a low spur of the mountain sweeping around like ahalf-extended arm, and I fondly imagined that within its clasp was theobject of my search. But I found only more alder swamp. After thisregion was cleared the creek began to descend the mountain veryrapidly. Its banks became high and narrow, and it went whirling awaywith a sound that seemed to my ears like a burst of ironical laughter. I turned back with a feeling of mingled disgust, shame and vexation. In fact I was almost sick, and when I reached my companions, after anabsence of nearly two hours, hungry, fatigued, and disheartened, Iwould have sold my interest in Thomas's Lake at a very low figure. Forthe first time, I heartily wished myself well out of the woods. Thomasmight keep his lake, and the enchanters guard his possession! Idoubted if he had ever found it the second time, or if any one elseever had. 

My companions, who were quite fresh and who had not felt the strain ofbaffled purpose as I had, assumed a more encouraging tone. After I hadrested awhile, and partaken sparingly of the bread and whisky, whichin such an emergency is a great improvement on bread and water, Iagreed to their proposition that we should make another attempt. As ifto reassure us, a robin sounded his cheery call near by, and thewinter wren, the first I had ever heard in these woods, set hismusic-box going, which fairly ran over with fin, gushing, lyricalsounds. There can be no doubt but this bird is one of our finestsongsters. If it would only thrive and sing well when caged, like thecanary, how far it would surpass that bird! It has all the vivacityand versatility of the canary, without any of its shrillness. Its songis indeed a little cascade of melody. 

We again retraced our steps, rolling the stone, as it were, back upthe mountain, determined to commit ourselves to the line of markedtrees. These we finally reached, and, after exploring the country tothe right, saw that bearing to the left was still the order. The trailled up over a gentle rise of ground, and in less than twenty minutes, we were in the woods I had passed through when I found the lake. Theerror I had made was then plain: we had come off the mountain a fewpaces too far to the right, and so had passed down on the wrong sideof the ridge, into what we afterwards learned was the valley of AlderCreek. 

We now made good time, and before many minutes I again saw the mimicsky glance through the trees. As we approached the lake, a solitarywoodchuck, the first wild animal we had seen since entering the woods, sat crouched upon the root of a tree a few feet from the water, apparently completely nonplused by the unexpected appearance of dangeron the land side. All retreat was cut off, and he looked his fate inthe face without flinching. I slaughtered him just as a savage wouldhave done, and from the same motive, --I wanted his carcass to eat. 

The mid-afternoon sun was now shining upon the lake, and a low, steadybreeze drove the little waves rocking to the shore. A herd of cattlewere browsing on the other side, and the bell of the leader soundedacross the water. In these solitudes its clang was wild and musical. 

To try the trout was the first thing in order. On a rude raft of logwhich we found moored at the shore, and which with two aboard shippedabout a food of water, we floated out and wet our first fly inThomas's Lake; but the trout refused to jump, and to be frank, notmore than a dozen and a half were caught during our stay. Only a weekprevious, a party of three had taken in a few hours all the fish theycould carry out of the woods, and had nearly surfeited their neighborswith trout. But from some cause, they now refused to rise, or to touchany kind of bait: so we fell to catching the sunfish, which were smallbut very abundant. Their nests were all along the shore. A space aboutthe size of a breakfast-plate was cleared of sediment and decayedvegetable matter, revealing the pebbly bottom, fresh and bright, withone or two fish suspended over the centre of it, keeping watch andward. If an intruder approached, they would dart at him spitefully. These fish have the air of bantam cocks, and, with their sharp, prickly fins and spines and scaly sides, must be ugly customers in ahand-to-hand encounter with other finny warriors. To a hungry man theylook about as unpromising as hemlock slivers, so thorny and thin arethey; yet there is sweet meat in them, as we found that day. 

Much refreshed, I set out with the sun low in the west to explore theoutlet of the lake and try for trout there, while my companions madefurther trials in the lake itself. The outlet, as is usual in bodiesof water of this kind, was very gentle and private. The stream, six oreight feet wide, flowed silently and evenly along for a distance ofthree or four rods, when it suddenly, as if conscious of its freedom, took a leap down some rocks. Thence as far as I followed it, itsdecent was very rapid through a continuous succession of brief fallslike so many steps down the mountain. Its appearance promised moretrout than I found, though I returned to camp with a very respectablestring. 

Toward sunset I went round to explore the inlet, and found that asusual the stream wound leisurely through marshy ground. The waterbeing much colder than in the outlet, the trout were more plentiful. As I was picking my way over the miry ground and through the rankgrowths, a ruffed grouse hopped up on a fallen branch a few pacesbefore me, and jerking his tail, threatened to take flight. But as Iwas at the moment gunless and remained stationary, he presently jumpeddown and walked away. 

A seeker of birds, and ever on the alert for some new acquaintance, myattention was arrested, on first entering the swamp, by a bright, lively song, or warble, that issued from the branches overhead, andthat was entirely new to me, though there was something in the tonethat told me the bird was related to the wood-wagtail and to thewater-wagtail or thrush. The strain was emphatic and quite loud, likethe canary's, but very brief. The bird kept itself well secreted inthe upper branches of the trees, and for a long time eluded my eye. Ipassed to and fro several times, and it seemed to break out afresh asI approached a certain little bend in the creek, and to cease after Ihad got beyond it; no doubt its nest was somewhere in the vicinity. After some delay the bird was sighted and brought down. It proved tobe the small, or northern, water-thrush, (called also the New Yorkwater-thrush), --a new bird to me. In size it was noticeably smallerthan the large, or Louisiana, water-thrush, as described by Audubon, but in other respects its general appearance was the same. It was agreat treat to me, and again I felt myself in luck. 

This bird was unknown to the older ornithologists, and is but poorlydescribed by the new. It builds a mossy nest on the ground, or underthe edge of a decayed log. A correspondent writes me that he has foundit breeding on the mountains in Pennsylvania. The large-billedwater-thrush is much the superior songster, but the present specieshas a very bright and cheerful strain. The specimen I saw, contrary tothe habits of the family, kept in the treetops like a warbler, andseemed to be engaged in catching insects. 

The birds were unusually plentiful and noisy about the head of thislake; robins, blue jays, and woodpeckers greeted me with theirfamiliar notes. The blue jays found an owl or some wild animal a shortdistance above me, and, as is their custom on such occasions, proclaimed it at the top of their voices, and kept on till thedarkness began to gather in the woods. 

I also heard, as I had at two or three other points in the course ofthe day, the peculiar, resonant hammering of some species ofwoodpecker upon the hard, dry limbs. It was unlike any sound of thekind I had ever heard, and, repeated at intervals through the silentwood, was a very marked and characteristic feature. Its peculiaritywas the ordered succession of the raps, which gave it the character ofa premeditated performance. There were first three strokes followingeach other rapidly, then two much louder ones with longer intervalsbetween them. I heard the drumming here, and the next day at sunset atFurlow Lake, the source of Dry Brook, and in no instance was the ordervaried. There was a melody in it, such as a woodpecker knows how toevoke from a smooth, dry branch. It suggested something quite aspleasing as the liveliest bird-song, and was if anything more woodsyand wild. As the yellow-bellied woodpecker was the most abundantspecies in these woods, I attributed it to him. It is the one soundthat still links itself with those scenes in my mind. 

At sunset the grouse began to drum in all parts of the woods about thelake. I could hear five at one time, thump, thump, thump, thump, thr-r-r-r-r-r-rr. It was a homely, welcome sound. As I returned tocamp at twilight, along the shore of the lake, the frogs also were infull chorus. The older ones ripped out their responses to each otherwith terrific force and volume. I know of no other animal capable ofgiving forth so much sound, in proportion to its size, as a frog. Someof these seemed to bellow as loud as a two-year-old bull. They were ofimmense size, and very abundant. No frog-eater had ever been there. Near the shore we felled a tree which reached far out in the lake. Upon the trunk and branches, the frogs soon collected in largenumbers, and gamboled and splashed about the half submerged top, likea parcel of schoolboys, making nearly as much noise. 

After dark, as I was frying the fish, a panful of the largest troutwas accidently capsized in the fire. With rueful countenances wecontemplated the irreparable loss our commissariat had sustained bythis mishap; but remembering there was virtue in ashes, we poked thehalf-consumed fish from the bed of coals and ate them, and they weregood. 

We lodged that night on a brush-heap and slept soundly. The green, yielding beech-twigs, covered with a buffalo robe, were equal to ahair mattress. The heat and smoke from a large fire kindled in theafternoon had banished every "no-see-em" from the locality, and in themorning the sun was above the mountain before we awoke. 

I immediately started again for the inlet, and went far up the streamtoward its source. A fair string of trout for breakfast was my reward. The cattle with the bell were at the head of the valley, where theyhad passed the night. Most of them were two-year-old steers. They cameup to me and begged for salt, and scared the fish by theirimportunities. 

We finished our bread that morning, and ate every fish we could catch, and about ten o'clock prepared to leave the lake. The weather had beenadmirable, and the lake as a gem, and I would gladly have spent a weekin the neighborhood; but the question of supplies was a serious one, and would brook no delay. 

When we reached, on our return, the point where we had crossed theline of marked trees the day before, the question arose whether weshould still trust ourselves to this line, or follow our own trailback to the spring and the battlement of rocks on the top of themountain, and thence to the rock where the guide had left us. Wedecided in favor of the former course. After a march of three quartersof an hour the blazed trees ceased, and we concluded we were near thepoint at which we had parted with our guide. So we built a fire, laiddown our loads, and cast about on all sides for some clew as to ourexact locality. Nearly an hour was consumed in this manner, andwithout any result. I came upon a brood of young grouse, whichdiverted me for a moment. The old one blustered about at a furiousrate, trying to draw all attention to herself, while the young ones, which were unable to fly, hid themselves. She whined like a dog ingreat distress, and dragged herself along apparently with the greatestdifficulty. As I pursued her, she ran very nimbly, and presently flewa few yards. Then, as I went on, she flew farther and farther eachtime, till at last she got up, and went humming through the woods asif she had no interest in them. I went back and caught one of theyoung, which had simply squatted close to the ground. I then put in mycoatsleeve, when it ran and nestled in my armpit. 

When we met at the sign of the smoke, opinions differed as to the mostfeasible course. There was no doubt but that we could get out of thewoods; but we wished to get out speedily, and as near as possible tothe point where we had entered. Half ashamed of our timidity andindecision, we finally tramped away back to where we had crossed theline of blazed trees, followed our old trail to the spring on the topof the range, and, after much searching and scouring to the right andleft, found ourselves at the very place we had left two hours before. Another deliberation and a divided council. But something must bedone. It was then mid-afternoon, and the prospect of spending anothernight on the mountains, without food or drink, was not pleasant. So wemoved down the ridge. Here another line of marked trees was found, thecourse of which formed an obtuse angle with the one we had followed. It kept on the top of the ridge for perhaps a mile, when itdisappeared, and we were as much adrift as ever. Then one of the partyswore an oath, and said he was going out of those woods, hit or miss, and, wheeling to the right, instantly plunged over the brink of themountain. The rest followed, but would fain have paused and cipheredaway at their own uncertainties, to see if a certainty could not bearrived at as to where we would come out. But our bold leader wassolving the problem in the right way. Down and down and still down wewent, as if we were to bring up in the bowels of the earth. It was byfar the steepest descent we had made, and we felt a grim satisfactionin knowing we could not retrace our steps this time, be the issue whatit might. As we paused on the brink of a ledge of rocks, we chanced tosee through the trees distant cleared land. A house or barn also wasdimly descried. This was encouraging; but we could not make outwhether it was on Beaver Kill or Mill Brook or Dry Brook, and did notlong stop to consider where it was. We at last brought up at thebottom of a deep gorge, through which flowed a rapid creek thatliterally swarmed with trout. But we were in no mood to catch them, and pushed on along the channel of the stream, sometimes leaping fromrock to rock, and sometimes splashing heedlessly through the water, and speculating the while as to where we should probably come out. Onthe Beaver Kill, my companions thought; but from the position of thesun, I said, on the Mill Brook, about six miles below our team; for Iremembered having seen, in coming up this stream, a deep, wild valleythat led up into the mountains, like this one. Soon the banks of thestream became lower, and we moved into the woods. Here we entered uponan obscure wood-road, which presently conducted us into the midst of avast hemlock forest. The land had a gentle slope, and we wondered bythe lumbermen and barkmen who prowl through these woods had left thisfine tract untouched. Beyond this the forest was mostly birch andmaple. 

We were now close to settlement, and began to hear human sounds. Onerod more, and we were out of the woods. It took us a moment tocomprehend the scene. Things looked very strange at first; but quicklythey began to change and to put on familiar features. Some magicscene-shifting seemed to take place before my eyes, till, instead ofthe unknown settlement which I had at first seemed to look upon, therestood the farmhouse at which we had stopped two days before, and atthe same moment we heard the stamping of our team in the barn. We satdown and laughed heartily over our good luck. Our desperate venturehad resulted better than we had dared to hope, and had shamed ourwisest plans. At the house our arrival had been anticipated about thistime, and dinner was being put upon the table. 

It was then five o'clock, so that we had been in the woods justforty-eight hours; but if time is only phenomenal, as the philosopherssay, and life only in feeling, as the poets aver, we were some months, if not years, older at that moment than we had been two days before. Yet younger, too, --though this be a paradox, --for the birches hadinfused into us some of their own suppleness and strength. 1869. 

VII

THE BLUEBIRD

When Nature made the bluebird she wished to propitiate both the skyand the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back andthe hue of the other on his breast, and ordained that his appearancein the spring should denote that the strife and war between these twoelements was at an end. He is the peace-harbinger; in him thecelestial and terrestrial strike hands and are fast friends. He meansthe furrow and he means the warmth; he means all the soft, wooinginfluences of the spring on one hand, and the retreating footsteps ofwinter on the other. 

It is sure to be a bright March morning when you first hear his note;and it is as if the milder influences up above had found a voice andlet a word fall upon your ear, so tender is it and so prophetic, ahope tinged with a regret. 

"Bermuda! Bermuda! Bermuda!" he seems to say, as if both invoking andlamenting, and, behold! Bermuda follows close, though the littlepilgrim may only be repeating the tradition of his race, himselfhaving come only from Florida, the Carolinas, or even from Virginia, where he has found his Bermuda on some broad sunny hillside thicklystudded with cedars and persimmon-trees. 

In New York and in New England the sap starts up in the sugar maplethe very day the bluebird arrives, and sugar-making begins forthwith. The bird is generally a mere disembodied voice; a rumor in the air fortow of three days before it takes visible shape before you. The malesare the pioneers, and come several days in advance of the females. Bythe time both are here and the pairs have begun to prospect for aplace to nest, sugar-making is over, the last vestige of snow hasdisappeared, and the plow is brightening its mould-board in the newfurrow. 

The bluebird enjoys the preëminence of being the first bit of colorthat cheers our northern landscape. The other birds that arrive aboutthe same time--the sparrow, the robin, the phoebe-bird--are clad inneutral tints, gray, brown, or russet; but the bluebird brings one ofthe primary hues and the divinest of them all. 

This bird also has the distinction of answering very nearly to therobin redbreast of English memory, and was by the early settlers ofNew England christened the blue robin. 

It is a size or two larger, and the ruddy hue of its breast does notverge so nearly on an orange, but the manners and habits of the twobirds are very much alike. Our bird has the softer voice, but theEnglish redbreast is much the more skilled musician. He has indeed afine, animated warble, heard nearly the year through about Englishgardens and along the old hedge-rows, that is quite beyond the compassof our bird's instrument. On the other hand, our bird is associatedwith the spring as the British species cannot be, being a winterresident also, while the brighter sun and sky of the New World havegiven him a coat that far surpasses that of his transatlantic cousin. 

It is worthy of remark that among British birds there is no blue bird. The cerulean tint seems much rarer among the feathered tribes therethan here. On this continent there are at least three species of thecommon bluebird, while in all our woods there is the blue jay and theindigo-bird, --the latter so intensely blue as to fully justify itsname. There is also the blue grosbeak, not much behind the indigo-birdin intensity of color; and among our warblers the blue tint is verycommon. 

It is interesting to know that the bluebird is not confined to any onesection of the country; and that when one goes West he will still havethis favorite with him, though a little changed in voice and color, just enough to give variety without marring the identity. 

The Western bluebird is considered a distinct species, and is perhapsa little more brilliant and showy than its Eastern brother; andNuttall thinks its song is more varied, sweet, and tender. Its colorapproaches to ultramarine, while it has a sash of chestnut-red acrossits shoulders, --all the effects, I suspect, of that wonderful air andsky of California, and of those great Western plains; or, if one goesa little higher up into the mountainous regions of the West, he findsthe Arctic bluebird, the ruddy brown on the breast changed to agreenish blue, and the wings longer and more pointed; in otherrespects not differing much from our species. 

The bluebird usually builds its nest in a hole in a stump or stub, orin an old cavity excavated by a woodpecker, when such can be had; butits first impulse seems to be to start in the world in much morestyle, and the happy pair make a great show of house-hunting about thefarm buildings, now half persuaded to appropriate a dove-cote, thendiscussing in a lively manner a last year's swallow nest, orproclaiming with much flourish and flutter that they have taken thewren's house, or the tenement of the purple martin; till finallynature becomes too urgent, when all this pretty make-believe ceases, and most of them settle back upon the old family stumps and knotholesin remote fields, and go to work in earnest. 

In such situations the female is easily captured by approaching verystealthily and covering the entrance to the nest. The bird seldommakes any effort to escape, seeing how hopeless the case is, and keepsher place on the nest till she feels your hand closing around her. Ihave looked down into the cavity and seen the poor thing palpitatingwith fear and looking up with distended eyes, but never moving till Ihad withdrawn a few paces; then she rushes out with a cry that bringsthe male on the scene in a hurry. He warbles and lifts his wingsbeseechingly, but shows no anger or disposition to scold and complainlike most birds. Indeed, this bird seems incapable of uttering a harshnote, or of doing a spiteful, ill-tempered thing. 

The ground-builders all have some art or device to decoy one away fromthe nest, affecting lameness, a crippled wing, or a broken back, promising an easy capture if pursued. The tree-builders depend uponconcealing the nest or placing it beyond reach. But the bluebird hasno art either way, and its nest is easily found. 

About the only enemies of the sitting bird or the nest is in danger ofare snakes and squirrels. I knew of a farm-boy who was in the habit ofputting his hand down into a bluebird's nest and taking out the oldbird whenever he came that way. One day he put his hand in, and, feeling something peculiar, withdrew it hastily, when it was instantlyfollowed by the head of an enormous black snake. The boy took to hisheels and the snake gave chase, pressing him close till a plowman nearby came to the rescue with his ox-whip. 

There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the malebluebird is. But among nearly all our familiar birds the serious caresof life seem to devolve almost entirely upon the female. The male ishilarious and demonstrative, the female serious and anxious about hercharge. The male is the attendant of the female, following herwherever she goes. He never leads, never directs, but only seconds andapplauds. If his life is all poetry and romance, hers is all businessand prose. She has no pleasure but her duty, and no duty but to lookafter her nest and brood. She shows no affection for the male, nopleasure in his society; she only tolerates him as a necessary evil, and, if he is killed, goes in quest of another in the mostbusiness-like manner, as you would go for the plumber or the glazier. In most cases the male is the ornamental partner in the firm, andcontributes little of the working capital. There seems to be moreequality of the sexes among the woodpeckers, wrens, and swallows;while the contrast is greatest, perhaps, in the bobolink family, wherethe courting is done in the Arab fashion, the female fleeing with allher speed and the male pursuing with equal precipitation; and were itnot for the broods of young birds that appear, it would be hard tobelieve that the intercourse ever ripened into anything more intimate. 

With the bluebirds the male is useful as well as ornamental. He isthe gay champion and escort of the female at all times, and while sheis sitting he feeds her regularly. It is very pretty to watch thembuilding their nest. The male is very active in hunting out a placeand exploring the boxes and cavities, but seems to have no choice inthe matter and is anxious only to please and to encourage his mate, who has the practical turn and knows what will do and what will not. After she has suited herself he applauds her immensely, and away thetwo go in quest of material for the nest, the male acting as guard andflying above and in advance of the female. She brings all the materialand does all the work of building, he looking on and encouraging herwith gesture and song. He acts also as inspector of her work, but Ifear is a very partial one. She enters the nest with her bit of drygrass or straw, and, having adjusted it to her notion, withdraws andwaits near by while he goes in and looks it over. On coming out heexclaims very plainly, "Excellent! Excellent!" and away the two goagain for more material. 

The bluebirds, when they build about the farm buildings, sometimescome into contact with the swallows. The past season I knew a pair totake forcible possession of the domicile of a pair of the latter, --thecliff species that now stick their nests under the eaves of the barn. The bluebirds had been broken up in a little bird-house near by, bythe rats or perhaps a weasel, and being no doubt in a bad humor, andthe season being well advanced, they made forcible entrance into theadobe tenement of their neighbors, and held possession of it for somedays, but I believe finally withdrew, rather than live amid such asqueaky, noisy colony. I have heard that these swallows, when ejectedfrom their homes in that way by the phoebe-bird, have been known tofall to and mason up the entrance to the nest while their enemy wasinside of it, thus having a revenge as complete and cruel as anythingin human annals. 

The bluebirds and the house wrens more frequently come into collision. A few years ago I put up a little bird-house in the back end of mygarden for the accommodation of the wrens, and every season a pair ofbluebirds looked into the tenement and lingered about several days, leading me to hope that they would conclude to occupy it. But theyfinally went away, and later in the season the wrens appeared, and, after a little coquetting, were regularly installed in their oldquarters, and were as happy as only wrens can be. 

One of our younger poets, Myron Benton, saw a little bird

 "Ruffled with whirlwind of his ecstasies, "

which must have been the wren, as I know of no other bird that sothrobs and palpitates with music as this little vagabond. And the pairI speak of seemed exceptionally happy, and the male had a smalltornado of song in his crop that kept him "ruffled" every moment inthe day. But before their honeymoon was over the bluebirds returned. Iknew something was wrong before I was up in the morning. Instead ofthat voluble and gushing song outside the window, I heard the wrensscolding and crying at a fearful rate, and on going out saw thebluebirds in possession of the box. The poor wrens were in despair;they wrung their hands and tore their hair, after the wren fashion, but chiefly did they rattle out their disgust and wrath at theintruders. I have no doubt that, if it could have been interpreted, itwould have proven the rankest and most voluble Billingsgate everuttered. For the wren is saucy, and he has a tongue in his head thatcan outwag any other tongue known to me. 

The bluebirds said nothing, but the male kept an eye on Mr. Wren; and, when he came to near, gave chase, driving him to cover under thefence, or under a rubbish heap or other object, where the wren wouldscold and rattle away, while his pursuer sat on the fence or thepea-brush waiting for him to reappear. 

Days passed, and the usurpers prospered and the outcasts werewretched; but the latter lingered about, watching and abusing theirenemies, and hoping, no doubt, that things would take a turn, as theypresently did. The outraged wrens were fully avenged. The motherbluebird had laid her full complement of eggs and was beginning toset, when one day, as her mate was perched above her on the barn, along came a boy with one of those wicked elastic slings and cut himdown with a pebble. There he lay like a bit of sky fallen upon thegrass. The widowed bird seemed to understand what had happened, andwithout much ado disappeared next day in quest of another mate. Howshe contrived to make her wants known, without trumpeting them about, I am unable to say. But I presume that birds have a way of advertisingthat answers the purpose well. Maybe she trusted to luck to fall inwith some stray bachelor or bereaved male who would undertake toconsole a widow or one day's standing. I will say, in passing, thatthere are no bachelors from choice among the birds; they are allrejected suitors, while old maids are entirely unknown. There is aJack to every Jill; and some to boot. 

The males, being more exposed by their song and plumage, and by beingthe pioneers in migrating, seem to be slightly in excess lest thesupply fall short, and hence it sometimes happens that a few arebachelors perforce; there are not females enough to go around, butbefore the season is over there are sure to be some vacancies in themarital ranks, which they are called on to fill. 

In the mean time the wrens were beside themselves with delight; theyfairly screamed with joy. If the male was before "ruffled withwhirlwind of his ecstasies, " he was now in danger of being rentasunder. He inflated his throat and caroled as wren never caroledbefore. And the female, too, how she cackled and darted about! Howbusy they both were! Rushing into the nest, they hustled those eggsout in less than a minute, wren time. They carried in new material, and by the third day were fairly installed again in their oldheadquarters; but on the third day, so rapidly are these little dramasplayed, the female bluebird reappeared with another mate. Ah! how thewren stock went down then! What dismay and despair filled again thoselittle breasts! It was pitiful. They did not scold as before, butafter a day or two withdrew from the garden, dumb with grief, and gaveup the struggle. 

The bluebird, finding her eggs gone and her nest changed, seemedsuddenly seized with alarm and shunned the box; or else, finding shehad less need for another husband than she thought, repented herrashness and wanted to dissolve the compact. But the happy bridegroomwould not take the hint, and exerted all his eloquence to comfort andreassure her. He was fresh and fond, and until this bereaved femalefound him I am sure his suit had not prospered that season. He thoughtthe box just the thing, and that there was no need of alarm, and spentdays in trying to persuade the female back. Seeing he could not be astepfather to a family, he was quite willing to assume a nearerrelation. He hovered about the box, he went in and out, he called, hewarbled, he entreated; the female would respond occasionally and comeand alight near, and even peep into the nest, but would not enter it, and quickly flew away again. Her mate would reluctantly follow, but hewas soon back, uttering the most confident and cheering calls. If shedid not come he would perch above the nest and sound his loudest notesover and over again, looking in the direction of his mate andbeckoning with every motion. But she responded less and lessfrequently. Some days I would see him only, but finally he gave it up;the pair disappeared, and the box remained deserted the rest of thesummer. 

1867

VIII

THE INVITATION

Years ago, when quite a youth, I was rambling in the woods one Sunday, with my brothers, gathering black birch, wintergreens, etc. , when, aswe reclined upon the ground, gazing vaguely up into the trees, Icaught sight of a bird, that paused a moment on a branch above me, thelike of which I had never before seen or heard of. It was probably theblue yellow-backed warbler, as I have since found this to be a commonbird in those woods; but to my young fancy it seemed like some fairybird, so unexpected. I saw it a moment as the flickering leavesparted, noted the white spot on its wing, and it was gone. How thethought of it clung to me afterward! It was a revelation. It was thefirst intimation I had had that the woods we knew so well held birdsthat we knew not at all. Were our eyes and ears so dull, then? Therewas the robin, the blue jay, the bluebird, the yellow-bird, thecherry-bird, the catbird, the chipping-bird, the woodpecker, thehigh-hole, an occasional redbird, and a few others, in the woods oralong their borders, but who ever dreamed that there were still othersthat not even the hunters saw, and whose names no one had ever heard?

When, one summer day, later in life, I took my gun and went to thewoods again, in a different though perhaps a less simple spirit Ifound my youthful vision more than realized. There were, indeed, otherbirds, plenty of them, singing, nesting, breeding, among the familiartrees, which I had before passed by unheard and unseen. 

It is a surprise that awaits every student of ornithology, and thethrill of delight that accompanies it, and the feeling of fresh, eagerinquiry that follows, can hardly be awakened by any other pursuit. Take the first step in ornithology, procure one new specimen, and youare ticketed for the whole voyage. There is a fascination about itquite overpowering. It fits so well with other things, --with fishing, hunting, farming, walking, camping-out, --with all that takes one tothe fields and woods. One may go a-blackberrying and make some rarediscovery; or, while driving his cow to pasture, hear a new song, ormake a new observation. Secrets lurk on all sides. There is news inevery bush. Expectation is ever on tiptoe. What no man ever saw beforemay the next moment be revealed to you. What a new interest the woodshave! How you long to explore every nook and corner of them! You wouldeven find consolation in being lost in them. You could then hear thenight birds and the owls, and, in your wanderings, might stumble uponsome unknown specimen. 

In all excursions to the woods or to the shore, the student ofornithology has an advantage over his companions. He has one moreresource, one more avenue of delight. He, indeed, kills two birds withone stone and sometimes three. If others wander, he can never go outof his way. His game is everywhere. The cawing of a crow makes himfeel at home, while a new note or a new song drowns all care. Audubon, on the desolate coast of Labrador, is happier than any king ever was;and on shipboard is nearly cured of his seasickness when a new gullappears in sight. 

One must taste it to understand or appreciate its fascination. Thelooker-on sees nothing to inspire such enthusiasm. Only a few feathersand a half-musical note or two; why all this ado? "Who would give ahundred and twenty dollars to know about the birds?" said an Easterngovernor, half contemptuously, to Wilson, as the latter solicited asubscription to his great work. Sure enough. Bought knowledge is dearat any price. The most precious things have no commercial value. It isnot, your Excellency, mere technical knowledge of the birds that youare asked to purchase, but a new interest in the fields and the woods, a new moral and intellectual tonic, a new key to the treasure-house ofNature. Think of the many other things your Excellency would get, --theair, the sunshine, the healing fragrance and coolness, and the manyrespites from the knavery and turmoil of political life. 

Yesterday was an October day of rare brightness and warmth. I spentthe most of it in a wild, wooded gorge of Rock Creek. A persimmon-treewhich stood upon the bank had dropped some of its fruit in the water. As I stood there, half-leg deep, picking them up, a wood duck cameflying down the creek and passed over my head. Presently it returned, flying up; then it came back again, and, sweeping low around a bend, prepared to alight in a still, dark reach in the creek which washidden from my view. As I passed that way about half an hourafterward, the duck started up, uttering its wild alarm note. In thestillness I could hear the whistle of its wings and the splash of thewater when it took flight. Near by I saw where a raccoon had come downto the water for fresh clams, leaving his long, sharp track in the mudand sand. Before I had passed this hidden stretch of water, a pair ofthose mysterious thrushes, the gray-cheeked, flew up from the groundand perched on a low branch. 

Who can tell how much this duck, this footprint in the sand, and thesestrange thrushes from the far north, enhanced the interest and charmof the autumn woods?

Ornithology cannot be satisfactorily learned from the books. Thesatisfaction is in learning it from nature. One must have an originalexperience with the birds. The books are only the guide, theinvitation. Though there remain not another new species to describe, any young person with health and enthusiasm has open to him or her thewhole field anew, and is eligible to experience all the thrill anddelight of the original discoverers. 

But let me say, in the same breath, that the books can by no manner ofmeans be dispensed with. A copy of Wilson or Audubon, for referenceand to compare notes with, is invaluable. In lieu of these, access tosome large museum or collection would be a great help. In thebeginning, one finds it very difficult to identify a bird from anyverbal description. Reference to a colored plate, or to a stuffedspecimen, at once settles the matter. This is the chief value ofbooks; they are the charts to sail by; the route is mapped out, andmuch time and labor are thereby saved. First find your bird; observeits ways, its song, its calls, its flight, its haunts; then shoot it(not ogle it with a glass), and compare it with Audubon. [footnote: Mylater experiences have led me to prefer a small field-glass to a gun. ]In this way the feathered kingdom may soon be conquered. 

The ornithologists divide and subdivide the birds into a great manyorders, families, genera, species etc. , which, at first sight, are aptto confuse and discourage the reader. But any interested person canacquaint himself with most of our song-birds by keeping in mind a fewgeneral divisions, and observing the characteristics of each. By farthe greater number of our land-birds are either warblers, vireos, flycatchers, thrushes, or finches. 

The warblers are, perhaps, the most puzzling. These are the trueSylvia, the real wood-birds. They are small, very active, but feeblesongsters, and, to be seen, must be sought for. In passing through thewoods, most persons have a vague consciousness of slight chirping, semi-musical sounds in the trees overhead. In most cases these soundsproceed from the warblers. Throughout the Middle and Eastern States, half a dozen species or so may be found in almost every locality, asthe redstart, the Maryland yellow-throat, the yellow warbler (not thecommon goldfinch, with black cap, and black wings and tail), thehooded warbler, the black and white creeping warbler; or others, according to the locality and the character of the woods. In pine orhemlock woods, one species may predominate; in maple or oak woods, orin mountainous districts, another. The subdivisions of groundwarblers, the most common members of which are the Marylandyellow-throat, the Kentucky warbler, and the mourning ground warbler, are usually found in low, wet, bushy, or half-open woods, often on andalways near the ground. The summer yellowbird, or yellow warbler, isnot now a wood-bird at all, being found in orchards and parks, andalong streams and in the trees of villages and cities. 

As we go north the number of warblers increases, till, in the northernpart of New England, and in the Canadas, as many as ten or twelvevarieties may be found breeding in June. Audubon found the black-pollwarbler breeding in Labrador, and congratulates himself on being thefirst white man who had ever seen its nest. When these warblers passnorth in May, they seem to go singly or in pairs, and their black capsand striped coats show conspicuously. When they return in Septemberthey are in troops or loose flocks, are of a uniform dull drab orbrindlish color, and are very fat. They scour the treetops for a fewdays, almost eluding the eye by their quick movements, and are gone. 

According to my own observation, the number of species of warblerswhich one living in the middle districts sees, on their return in thefall, is very small compared with the number he may observe migratingnorth in the spring. 

The yellow-rumped warblers are the most noticeable of all in Autumn. They come about the streets and garden, and seem especially drawn todry, leafless trees. They dart spitefully about, uttering a sharpchirp. In Washington I have seen them in the outskirts all winter. 

Audubon figures and describes over forty different warblers. Morerecent writers have divided and subdivided the group very much, givingnew names to new classifications. But this part is of interest andvalue only to the professional ornithologist. 

The finest songster among the Sylvia, according to my notions, is theblack-throated greenback. Its song is sweet and clear, but brief. 

The rarest of the species are Swainson's warbler, said to bedisappearing; the cerulean warbler, said to be abundant about Niagara;and the mourning ground warbler, which I have found breeding about thehead-waters of the Delaware, in New York. 

The vireos, or greenlets, are a sort of connecting link between thewarblers and the true flycatchers, and partake of the characteristicsof both. 

The red-eyed vireo, whose sweet soliloquy is one of the most constantand cheerful sounds in our woods and groves, is perhaps the mostnoticeable and abundant species. The vireos are a little larger thanthe warblers, and are far less brilliant and variegated in color. 

There are five species found in most of our woods, namely the red-eyedvireo, the white-eyed vireo, the warbling vireo, the yellow-throatedvireo, and the solitary vireo, --the red-eyed and warbling being mostabundant, and the white-eyed being the most lively and animatedsongster. I meet the latter bird only in the thick, bush growths oflow, swampy localities, where, eluding the observer, it pours forthits song with a sharpness and a rapidity of articulation that aretruly astonishing. This strain is very marked, and, though inlaid withthe notes of several other birds, is entirely unique. The iris of thisbird is white, as that of the red-eyed is red, though in neither casecan this mark be distinguished at more than two or three yards. Inmost cases the iris of birds is a dark hazel, which passes for black. 

The basket-like nest, pendent to the low branches in the woods, whichthe falling leaves of autumn reveal to all passers, is, in most cases, the nest of the red-eyed, though the solitary constructs a similartenement, but in much more remote and secluded localities. 

Most birds exhibit great alarm and distress, usually with a strongdash of anger, when you approach their nests; but the demeanor of thered-eyed, on such an occasion, is an exception to this rule. Theparent birds move about softly amid the branches above, eying theintruder with a curious, innocent look, uttering, now and then, asubdued note or plaint, solicitous and watchful, but making nodemonstration of anger or distress. 

The birds, no more than the animals, like to be caught napping; but Iremember, one autumn day, coming upon a red-eyed vireo that wasclearly oblivious to all that was passing around it. It was a youngbird, though full grown, and it was taking its siesta on a low branchin a remote heathery field. Its head was snugly stowed away under itswing, and it would have fallen easy prey to the first hawk that camealong. I approached noiselessly, and when within a few feet of itpaused to note its breathings, so much more rapid and full than ourown. A bird has greater lung capacity than any other living thing, hence more animal heat, and life at a higher pressure. When I reachedout my hand and carefully closed it around the winged sleeper, itssudden terror and consternation almost paralyzed it. Then it struggledand cried piteously, and when released hastened and hid itself in somenear bushes. I never expected to surprise it thus a second time. 

The flycatchers are a larger group than the vireos, withstronger-marked characteristics. They are not properly songsters, butare classed by some writers as screechers. Their pugnaciousdispositions are well known, and they not only fight among themselves, but are incessantly quarreling with their neighbors. The kingbird, ortyrant flycatcher might serve as the type of the order. 

The common or wood pewee excites the most pleasant emotions, both onaccount of its plaintive note and its exquisite mossy nest. 

The phoebe-bird is the pioneer of the flycatchers, and comes in April, sometimes in March. Its comes familiarly about the house andoutbuildings, and usually builds beneath hay-sheds or under bridges. 

The flycatchers always take their insect prey on the wing, by a suddendarting or swooping movement; often a very audible snap of the beakmay be heard. 

These birds are the least elegant, both in form and color, of any ofour feathered neighbors. They have short legs, a short neck, largeheads, and broad, flat beaks, with bristles at the base. They oftenfly with a peculiar quivering movement of the wings, and when at restsome of the species oscillate their tails at short intervals. 

There are found in the United States nineteen species. In the Middleand Eastern districts, one may observe in summer, without any specialsearch, about five of them, namely, the kingbird, the phoebe-bird, thewood pewee, the great crested flycatcher (distinguished from allothers by the bright ferruginous color of its tail), and the smallgreen-crested flycatcher. 

The thrushes are the birds of real melody, and will afford one moredelight perhaps than any other class. The robin is the most familiarexample. Their manners, flight, and form are the same in each species. See the robin hop along upon the ground, strike an attitude, scratchfor a worm, fix his eye upon something before him or upon thebeholder, flip his wings suspiciously, fly straight to his perch, orsit at sundown on some high branch caroling his sweet and honeststrain, and you have seen what is characteristic of all the thrushes. Their carriage is preëminently marked by grace, and their songs bymelody. 

Beside the robin, which is in no sense a woodbird, we have in New Yorkthe wood thrush, the hermit thrush, the veery, or Wilson's thrush, theolive-backed thrush, and, transiently, one or two other species not soclearly defined. 

The wood thrush and the hermit stand at the head as songsters, no twopersons, perhaps, agreeing as to which is the superior. 

Under the general head of finches, Audubon describes over sixtydifferent birds, ranging from the sparrows to the grosbeaks, andincluding the buntings, the linnets, the snowbirds, the crossbills, and the redbirds. 

We have nearly or quite a dozen varieties of the sparrow in theAtlantic States, but perhaps no more than half that number would bediscriminated by the unprofessional observer. The song sparrow, whichevery child knows, comes first; at least, his voice is first heard. And can there be anything more fresh and pleasing than this firstsimple strain heard from the garden fence or a near hedge, on somebright, still March morning?

The field or vesper sparrow, called also grass finch 8 andbay-winged sparrow, a bird slightly larger than the song sparrow andof a lighter gray color, is abundant in all our upland fields andpastures, and is a very sweet songster. It builds upon the ground, without the slightest cover or protection, and also roosts there. Walking through the fields at dusk, I frequently start them up almostbeneath my feet. When disturbed by day, they fly with a quick, sharpmovement, showing two white quills in the tail. The traveler along thecountry roads disturbs them earthing their wings in the soft dryearth, or sees them skulking and flitting along the fences in front ofhim. They run in the furrow in advance of the team, or perch upon thestones a few rods off. They sing much after sundown, hence the aptnessof the name vesper sparrow, which a recent writer, Wilson Flagg, hasbestowed upon them. 

In the meadows and low, wet lands the savanna sparrow is met with, andmay be known by its fine, insect-like song; in the swamp, the swampsparrow. 

The fox sparrow, the largest and handsomest species of this family, comes to us in the fall, from the North, where it breeds. Likewise thetree or Canada sparrow, and the white-crowned and white-throatedsparrow. 

The social sparrow, alias "hairbird, " alias "red-headedchipping-bird, " is the smallest of the sparrows, and I believe, theonly one that builds in trees. 

The finches, as a class, all have short conical bills, with tails moreor less forked. The purple finch heads the list in varied musicalabilities. 

Besides the groups of our more familiar birds which I have thushastily outlined, there are numerous other groups, more limited inspecimens but comprising some of our best-known songsters. Thebobolink, for instance, has properly no congener. The famousmockingbird of the Southern States belongs to a genus which has buttwo other representatives in the Atlantic States, namely, the catbirdand the long-tailed or ferruginous thrush. 

The wrens are a large and interesting family, and as songsters arenoted for vivacity and volubility. The more common species are thehouse wren, the marsh wren, the great Carolina wren, and the winterwren, the latter perhaps deriving its name from the fact that it breedin the North. It is an exquisite songster, and pours forth its notesso rapidly, and with such sylvan sweetness and cadence, that it seemsto go off like a musical alarm. 

Wilson called the kinglets wrens, but they have little to justify thename, except that the ruby-crown's song is of the same gushing, lyrical character as that referred to above. Dr. Brewer was entrancedwith the song of one of these tiny minstrels in the woods of NewBrunswick, and thought he had found the author of the strain in theblack-poll warbler. He seems loath to believe that a bird so small aseither of the kinglets could possess such vocal powers. It may indeedhave been the winter wren, but from my own observation I believe theruby-crowned kinglet quite capable of such a performance. 

But I must leave this part of the subject and hasten on. As to workson ornithology, Audubon's, though its expense puts it beyond the reachof the mass of readers, is by far the most full and accurate. Hisdrawings surpass all others in accuracy and spirit, while hisenthusiasm and devotion to the work he had undertaken have but fewparallels in the history of science. His chapter on the wild goose isas good as a poem. One readily overlooks his style, which is oftenverbose and affected, in consideration of enthusiasm so genuine andpurpose so single. 

There has never been a keener eye than Audubon's, though there havebeen more discriminative ears. Nuttall, for instance is far more happyin his descriptions of the songs and notes of birds, and more to berelied upon. Audubon thinks the song of the Louisiana water-thrushequal to that of the European nightingale, and, as he had heard bothbirds, one would think was prepared to judge. Yet he has, no doubt, overrated the one and underrated the other. The song of thewater-thrush is very brief, compared with the philomel's, and itsquality is brightness and vivacity, while that of the latter bird, ifthe books are to be credited, is melody and harmony. Again, he saysthe song of the blue grosbeak resembles the bobolink's, which it doesabout as much as the two birds resemble each other in color; one isblack and white and the other is blue. The song of the wood-wagtail, he says, consists of a "short succession of simple notes beginningwith emphasis and gradually falling. " The truth is, they run up thescale instead of down, beginning low and ending in a shriek. 

Yet considering the extent of Audubon's work, the wonder is the errorsare so few. I can at this moment recall but one observation of his, the contrary of which I have proved to be true. In his account of thebobolink he makes a point of the fact that, in returning south in thefall, they do not travel by night as they do when moving north in thespring. In Washington I have heard their calls as they flew over atnight for four successive autumns. As he devoted the whole of a longlife to the subject, and figured and described over four hundredspecies, one feels a real triumph on finding in our common woods abird not described in his work. I have seen but two. Walking in thewoods one day in early fall, in the vicinity of West Point, I startedup a thrush that was sitting on the ground. It alighted on a branch afew yards off, and looked new to me. I thought I had never before seenso long-legged a thrush. I shot it, and saw that it was a newacquaintance. Its peculiarities were its broad, square tail; thelength of its legs, which were three and three quarters inches fromthe end of the middle toe to the hip-joint; and the deep uniformolive-brown of the upper parts, and the gray of the lower. It provedto be the gray-cheeked thrush, named and first described by ProfessorBaird. But little seems to be known concerning it, except that itbreeds in the far north, even on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Iwould go a good way to hear its song. 

The present season I met with a pair of them near Washington, asmentioned above. In size this bird approaches the wood thrush, beinglarger than either the hermit or the veery; unlike all other species, no part of its plumage has a tawny or yellowish tinge. The otherspecimen was the northern or small water-thrush, cousin-german to theoven-bird and the half-brother to the Louisiana water-thrush orwagtail. I found it at the head of the Delaware, where it evidentlyhad a nest. It usually breeds much further north. It has a strong, clear warble, which at once suggests the song of its congener. I havenot been able to find any account of this particular species in thebooks, though it seems to be well known. 

More recent writers and explorers have added to Audubon's list overthree hundred new species, the greater number of which belong to thenorthern and western parts of the continent. Audubon's observationswere confined mainly to the Atlantic and Gulf States and the adjacentislands; hence the Western or Pacific birds were but little known tohim, and are only briefly mentioned in his works. 

It is, by the way, a little remarkable how many of the Western birdsseem merely duplicates of the Eastern. Thus, the varied thrush of theWest is our robin, a little differently marked; and the red-shaftedwoodpecker is our golden-wing, or high-hole, colored red instead ofyellow. There is also a Western chickadee, a Western chewink, aWestern blue jay, a Western bluebird, a Western song sparrow, Westerngrouse, quail, hen-hawk, etc. 

One of the most remarkable birds of the West seems to be a species ofskylark, met with on the plains of Dakota, which mounts to the heightof three or four hundred feet, and showers down its ecstatic notes. Itis evidently akin to several of our Eastern species. 

A correspondent, writing to me from the country one September, said:"I have observed recently a new species of bird here. They alight uponthe buildings and fences as well as upon the ground. They arewalkers. " In a few days he obtained one and sent me the skin. Itproved to be what I had anticipated, namely the American pipit, ortitlark, a slender brown bird, about the size of the sparrow, whichpasses through the States in the fall and spring, to and from itsbreeding haunts in the far north. They generally appear by twos andthrees, or in small loose flocks, searching for food on banks andplowed ground. As they fly up, they show two or three white quills inthe tail, like the vesper sparrow. Flying over, they utter a singlechirp or cry every few rods. They breed in the bleak, moss-coveredrocks of Labrador. It is reported that their eggs have also been foundin Vermont, and I feel quite certain that I saw this bird in theAdirondack Mountains in the month of August. The male launches intothe air, and gives forth a brief but melodious song, after the mannerof all larks. They are walkers. This is a characteristic of but few ofour land-birds. By far the greater number are hoppers. Note the trackof the common snowbird; the feet are not placed one in front of theother, as in the track of the crow or partridge, but side and side. The sparrows, thrushes, warblers, woodpeckers, buntings, etc. , are allhoppers. On the other hand, all aquatic or semi-aquatic birds arewalkers. The plovers and sandpipers and snips run rapidly. Among theland-birds, the grouse, pigeons, quails, larks and various blackbirdswalk. The swallows walk, also, whenever they use their feet at all, but very awkwardly. The larks walk with ease and grace. Note themeadowlarks strutting about all day in the meadows. 

Besides being walkers, the larks, or birds allied to the larks, allsing upon the wing, usually poised or circling in the air, with ahovering, tremulous flight. The meadowlark occasionally does this inthe early part of the season. At such times its long-drawn note orwhistle becomes a rich, amorous warble. 

The bobolink, also, has both characteristics, and, notwithstanding thedifference of form and build, etc. , is very suggestive of the Englishskylark, as it figures in the books, and is, no doubt, fully its equalas a songster. 

Of our small wood-birds we have three varieties east of theMississippi, closely related to each other, which I have alreadyspoken of, and which walk, and sing, more or less, on the wing, namelythe two species of water-thrush or wagtails, and the oven-bird orwood-wagtail. The latter is the most common, and few observers of thebirds can have failed to notice its easy, gliding walk. Its other larktrait, namely singing in the air, seems not to have been observed byany other naturalist. Yet it is a well-established characteristic, andmay be verified by any person who will spend a half hour in the woodswhere this bird abounds on some June afternoon or evening. I hear itvery frequently after sundown, when the ecstatic singer can hardly bedistinguished against the sky. I know of a high, bald-top mountainwhere I have sat late in the afternoon and heard them as often as oneevery minute. Sometimes the bird would be far below me, sometimes nearat hand; and very frequently the singer would be hovering a hundredfeet above the summit. He would start from the trees on one side ofthe open space, reach his climax in the air, and plunge down on theother side. His descent after the song is finished is very rapid, andprecisely like that of the titlark when it sweeps down from its courseto alight on the ground. 

I first verified this observation some years ago. I had long beenfamiliar with the song, but had only strongly suspected the author ofit, when, as I was walking in the woods one evening, just as theleaves were putting out, I saw one of these birds but a few rods fromme. I was saying to myself, half audibly, "Come, now, show off, if itis in you; I have come to the woods expressly to settle this point, "when it began to ascend, by short hops and flights, through thebranches, uttering a sharp, preliminary chirp. I followed it with myeye; saw it mount into the air and circle over the woods; and saw itsweep down again and dive through the trees, almost to the very perchfrom which it had started. 

As the paramount question in the life of a bird is the question offood, perhaps the most serious troubles our feathered neighborsencounter are early in the spring, after the supply of fat with whichNature stores every corner and by-place of the system, therebyanticipating the scarcity of food, has been exhausted, and the suddenand severe changes in the weather which occur at this season makeunusual demands upon their vitality. No doubt many of the earlierbirds die from starvation and exposure at this season. Among a troopof Canada sparrows which I came upon one March day, all of themevidently much reduced, one was so feeble that I caught it in my hand. 

During the present season, a very severe cold spell the first week inMarch drove the bluebirds to seek shelter about the houses andoutbuildings. As night approached, and the winds and the coldincreased, they seemed filled with apprehension and alarm, and in theoutskirts of the city came about the windows and the doors, creptbeneath the blinds, clung to the gutters and beneath the cornice, flitted from porch to porch, and from house to house, seeking in vainfrom some safe retreat from the cold. The street pump, which had asmall opening just over the handle, was an attraction which they couldnot resist. And yet they seemed aware of the insecurity of theposition; for no sooner would they stow themselves away into theinterior of the pump, to the number of six or eight, than they wouldrush out again, as if apprehensive of some approaching danger. Timeafter time the cavity was filled and refilled, with blue and brownintermingled, and as often emptied. Presently they tarried longer thanusual, when I made a sudden sally and captured three, that found awarmer and safer lodging for the night in the cellar. 

In the fall, birds and fowls of all kinds become very fat. Thesquirrels and mice lay by a supply of food in their dens and retreats, but the birds, to a considerable extent, especially our winterresidents, carry an equivalent in their own systems, in the form ofadipose tissue. I killed a red-shouldered hawk one December, and onremoving the skin found the body completely encased in a coating offat one quarter of an inch in thickness. Not a particle of muscle wasvisible. This coating not only serves as a protection against thecold, but supplies the waste of the system when food is scarce orfails altogether. 

The crows at this season are in the same condition. It is estimatedthat a crow needs at least half a pound of meat per day, but it isevident that for weeks and months during the winter and spring theymust subsist on a mere fraction of that amount. I have no doubt that acrow or hawk, when in his fall condition, would live two weeks withouta morsel of food passing his beak; a domestic fowl will do as much. One January I unwittingly shut a hen under the door of an outbuilding, where not a particle of food could be obtained, and where she wasentirely unprotected from the severe cold. When the luckless Dominickwas discovered, about eighteen days afterward, she was brisk andlively, but fearfully pinched up, and as light as a bunch of feathers. The slightest wind carried her before it. But by judicious feeding shewas soon restored. 

The circumstances of the bluebirds being emboldened by the coldsuggests the fact that the fear of man, which by now seems like aninstinct in the birds, is evidently an acquired trait, and foreign tothem in a state of primitive nature. Every gunner has observed, to hischagrin, how wild the pigeons become after a few days of firing amongthem; and, to his delight, how easy it is to approach near his game innew or unfrequented woods. Professor Baird [footnote: Then at the headof the Smithsonian Institution] tells me that a correspondent oftheirs visited a small island in the Pacific Ocean, situated about twohundred miles off Cape St. Lucas, to procure specimens. The island wasbut a few miles in extent, and had probably never been visited half adozen times by human beings. The naturalist found the birds andwater-fowls so tame that it was but a waste of ammunition to shootthem. Fixing a noose on the end of a long stick, he captured them byputting it over their necks and hauling them to him. In some cases noteven this contrivance was needed. A species of mockingbird inparticular, larger than ours and a splendid songster, made itself sofamiliar as to be almost a nuisance, hopping on the table where thecollector was writing, and scattering the pens and paper. Eighteenspecies were found, twelve of them peculiar to the island. 

Thoreau relates that in the woods of Maine the Canada jay willsometimes make its meal with the lumbermen, taking the food out oftheir hands. 

Yet notwithstanding the birds have come to look upon man as theirnatural enemy, there can be little doubt that civilization is on thewhole favorable to their increase and perpetuity, especially to thesmaller species. With man comes flies and moths, and insects of allkinds in greater abundance; new plants and weeds are introduced, and, with the clearing up of the country, are sowed broadcast over theland. 

The larks and snow buntings that come to us from the north subsistalmost entirely upon the seeds of grasses and plants; and how many ofour more common and abundant species are field-birds, and entirestrangers to deep forests?

In Europe some birds have become almost domesticated, like the housesparrow; and in our own country the cliff swallow seems to haveentirely abandoned ledges and shelving rocks, as a place to nest, forthe eaves and projections of farm and other outbuildings. 

After one has made the acquaintance of most of the land-birds, thereremain the seashore and its treasures. How little one knows of theaquatic fowls, even after reading carefully the best authorities, wasrecently forced home to my mind by the following circumstance: I wasspending a vacation in the interior of New York, when one day astranger alighted before the house, and with a cigar box in his handapproached me as I sat in the doorway. I was about to say that hewould waste his time in recommending his cigars to me, as I neversmoked, when he said that, hearing I knew something about birds, hehad brought me one which had been picked up a few hours before in ahay-field near the village, and which was stranger to all who had seenit. As he began to undo the box I expected to see some of our ownrarer birds, perhaps the rose-breasted grosbeak or Bohemian chatterer. Imagine, then, how I was taken aback when I beheld instead aswallow-shaped bird, quite as large as a pigeon, with a forked tail, glossy black above and snow-white beneath. Its parti-webbed feet, andits long graceful wings, at a glance told that it was a sea-bird; butas to its name or habitat I must defer my answer till I could get apeep into Audubon or some collection. 

The bird had fallen down exhausted in a meadow, and was picked up justas the life was leaving its body. The place must have been one hundredand fifty miles from the sea as the bird flies. As it was the sootytern, which inhabits the Florida Keys, its appearance so far north andso far inland may be considered somewhat remarkable. On removing theskin I found it terribly emaciated. It had no doubt starved to death, ruined by too much wing. Another Icarus. Its great power of flight hadmade it bold and venturesome, and had carried it so far out of itsrange that it starved to death before it could return. 

The sooty tern is sometimes called the sea-swallow on account of itsform and the power of flight. It will fly nearly all day at sea, picking up food from the surface of the water. There are severalspecies of terns, some of them strikingly beautiful. 

 1868. 

INDEX

[Transcribist's note: condensed to bird names and theirscientific names]

 Blackbird, crow, or purple grackle (Quiscalus quiscula). Bluebird (Sialia sialis). Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus). Bunting, black-throated or dickcissel (Spiza americana). Bunting, snow (Passerina nivalis). Buzzard, turkey, or turkey vulture (Cathartes aura). 

 Cardinal. SEE Grosbeak, cardinal. Catbird (Galeoscoptes carolinensis). Cedar-bird, or Cedar waxwing (Ampelis cedrorum). Chat, yellow-breasted (Icteria virens). Chewink, or towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). Chickadee (Parus atricapillus). Cow-bunting, or cowbird (Molothrus ater). Creeper, brown (Certhia familiaris americana). Crow, American (Corvus brachyrhynchos). Cuckoo, black-billed (Coccyzux erythrophthalmus). Cuckoo, European. Cuckoo, yellow-billed (Coccyzus americanus). 

 Dickcissel. SEE Bunting, black-throated. Dove, turtle, or mourning dove (Zenaidura macroura). Duck, wood (Aix sponsa). 

 Eagle, bald (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Eagle, golden (Aquila chrysaetos). 

 Finch, grass. SEE Sparrow, field. Finch, pine, OR pine siskin (Spinus pinus). Finch, purple, OR linnet (Carpodacus purpureus). Flicker. SEE Woodpecker, golden-winged. Flycatcher, great crested (Myiarchus crinitus). Flycatcher, green-crested, OR green-crested pewee (Empidonax virescens). Flycatcher, white-eyed. SEE Vireo, white-eyed. Fox, gray, 43. 

 Gnatcatcher, blue-gray (Polioptila caerulea). Goldfinch, American, OR yellow-bird (Astragalinus tristis). Grackle, purple. SEE Blackbird, crow. Grosbeak, blue (Guiraca caerulea). Grosbeak, cardinal, OR Virginia red-bird, OR cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis). Grosbeak, rose-breasted (Zamelodia ludoviciana). Grouse, ruffed. SEE Partridge. 

 Hairbird. SEE Sparrow, social. Hawk, fish, OR American osprey (Pandion haliaetus carolinensis). Hawk, hen. Hawk, pigeon. Hawk, red-shouldered (Buteo lineatus). Hawk, red-tailed (Buteo borealis). Hawk, sharp-shinned (Accipiter velox). Hen, domestic. Heron, great blue (Ardea herodias). High-hole. SEE Woodpecker, golden-winged. Hummingbird, ruby-throated (Trochilus colubris). 

 Indigo-bird (Cyanospiza cyanea). 

 Jay, blue (Cyanocitta cristata). Jay, Canada (Perisoreus canadensis). 

 Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus). Kinglet, golden-crowned (Regulus satrapa). Kinglet, ruby-crowned (Regulus calendula). 

 Lark, shore, OR horned lark (Otocoris alpestris). 

 Martin, purple (Progne subis). Meadowlark (sturnella magna). Merganser, red-breasted (Merganser serrator). Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos). 

 Nightingale. Nuthatch, (Sitta). 

 Oriole, Baltimore (Icterus galbula). Oriole, orchard. SEE Starling, orchard. Osprey. SEE Hawk, fish. Owl, screech (megascops asio). 

 Partridge, OR ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus). Pewee. SEE Phoebe-bird. Pewee, green-crested. SEE Flycatcher, green-crested. Pewee, wood (Contopus virens). Phoebe-bird, OR pewee (Sayornis phoebe). Pickerel. Pigeon, wild, OR passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius). Pipit, American, OR titlark (Anthus pensilvanicus). 

 Quail, OR bob-white (Colinus virginianus). 

 Red-bird, summer, OR summer tanager (Piranga rubra). Red-bird, Virginia. SEE Grosbeak, cardinal. Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla). Robin (Merula migratoria). . 

 Sandpiper, solitary (Helodromas solitarius). Snipes. Snowbird, OR slate-colored junco (Junco hyemalis). Sparrow, bush. SEE Sparrow, wood. Sparrow, Canada, OR tree sparrow (Spizella monticola). Sparrow, English. SEE Sparrow, house. Sparrow, field, OR vesper sparrow, OR grass finch (Poaecetes gramineus). SEE ALSO Sparrow, wood. Sparrow, fox (Passerella iliaca). Sparrow, house, OR English sparrow (Passer domesticus). Sparrow, savanna (Passerculus sandwichensis savanna). Sparrow, social, OR chipping sparrow, OR chippie, OR hairbird (Spizella socialis). Sparrow, song (Melospiza cinerea melodia). Sparrow, swamp (Melospiza georgiana). Sparrow, tree. SEE Sparrow, Canada. Sparrow, vesper. SEE Sparrow, field. Sparrow, white-crowned (Zonotrichia leucophrys). Sparrow, white-throated (Zonotrichia albicollis). Sparrow, wood, OR bush sparrow, OR field sparrow (Spizella pusilla). Squirrel, black. Squirrel, gray. Squirrel, red. Starling, orchard, OR orchard oriole (Icterus spurius). Swallow, barn (Hirundo erythrogastra). Swallow, chimney, OR chimney swift (Chaetura pelagica). Swallow, cliff (Petrochelidon lunifrons). Swallow, rough-winged (Stelgidopteryx serripennis). 

 Tanager, scarlet (Piranga erythromelas). Tanager, summer. SEE Red-bird, summer. Tern, sooty (sterna fuliginosa). Thrush, golden-crowned, OR wood-wagtail, OR oven-bird (Seiurus aurocapillus). Thrush, gray-cheeked (Hylocichla alicae). Thrush, hermit (Hylocichla guttata pallasii). Thrush, olive-backed, OR Swainson's thrush (Hylocichla ustulata swainsoni). Thrush, red, OR mavis, OR ferrugninous thrush, OR brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum). Thrush, varied (Ixoreus naevius). Thrush, Wilson's. SEE Veery. Thrush, wood (Hylocichla mustelina). Titlark. SEE Pipit, American. Titmouse, gray-crested, OR tufted titmouse (Baelophus bicolor). Turkey, domestic. Turkey, wild (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). 

 Veery, OR Wilson's thrush (Hylocichla fuscescens). Vireo, red-eyed (Vireo olivaceus). Vireo, solitary, OR blue-headed vireo (Vireo solitarius). Vireo, warbling (Vireo gilvus). Vireo, white-eyed, OR white-eyed flycatcher (Vireo noveboracensis). Vireo, yellow-throated, OR yellow-breasted flycatcher (Vireo flavifrons). 

 Wagtail. SEE Water-thrush AND Thrush, golden-crowned. Warbler, Audubon's (Dendroica auduboni). Warbler, bay-breasted (Dendroica castanea). Warbler, black and white (Mniotilta varia). Warbler, black and yellow, OR magnolia warbler (Dendroica maculosa). Warbler, Blackburnian (Dendroica blackburniae). Warbler, black-poll (Dendroica striata). Warbler, black-throated blue, OR blue-backed warbler (Dendroica caerulescens). Warbler, black-throated green, OR green-backed warbler (Dendroica virens). Warbler, blue-winged (Helminthophila pinus). Warbler, blue yellow-backed, OR northern parula warbler (Compsothlypis americana usneae). Warbler, Canada (Wilsonia canadensis). Warbler, cerulean (Dendroica caerulea). Warbler, chestnut-sided (Dendroica pensylvanica). Warbler, hooded (Wilsonia mitrata). Warbler, Kentucky (Geothlypis formosa). Warbler, mourning (Geothlypis philadelphia). Warbler, Swainson's (Helinaia swainsonii). Warbler, worm-eating (Helmitheros vermivorus). Warbler, yellow (Dendroica aestiva). Warbler, yellow red-poll, OR yellow palm warbler (Dendroica palmarum hypochrysea). Warbler, yellow-rumped, OR myrtle warbler (Dendroica coronata). Water-thrush, Louisiana, OR large-billed water thrush (Seiurus noveboracensis). Water-thrush, northern (Seiurus noveboracensis). Woodpecker, downy (Dryobates pubescens medianus). Woodpecker, golden-winged, OR high-hole, OR flicker, OR yarup, OR yellow-hammer (Colaptes auratus luteus). Woodpecker, red-headed (Melanerpes erythrocephalus). Woodpecker, red-shafted, OR red-shafted flicker (Colaptes cafer collaris). Woodpecker, yellow-bellied, OR yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius). Wood-wagtail. SEE Thrush, golden-crowned. Wren, Carolina (Thryothorus ludovicianus). Wren, house (Troglodytes Aedon). Wren, ruby-crowned. SEE Kinglet, ruby crowned. Wren, winter (Olbiorchilus hiemalis). 

 Yarup. SEE Woodpecker, golden-winged. Yellow-hammer. SEE Woodpecker, golden winged. Yellow-throat, Maryland, OR northern yellow-throat (Geothlypis trichas brachydactyla). 

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[Transcribist's note: John Burroughs used some characterswhich are not standard to our writing in 2001. 

He used a diaeresis in preeminent, and accented "e's indebris and denouement. These have been replaced with plainletters. 

[Updater's note: "preeminent", "debris", and "denouement"have all been corrected to have their accented letters. 

I substituted the letters "oe" for the ligature, used oftenin the word phoebe. Simularly the "e" in the golden eagle'sscientific name is modernized. 

He also used symbols available to a typesetter which areunavailable to us in ASCII (plain vanilla text) to illustratebird calls and notes. I have replaced these with a descriptionof what was there originally. 

Finally, he used italics throughout the book that I wasunable to retain, because of the ASCII format. The twouses of the italics were to denote scientific names and toemphasize. I have done nothing to note where the italics wereused, as I don't think it really has a great affect on readingthis book. ]

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