28 THE RETURN OF THE BIEDS. 



anderstood and my attention courted. A tone ol 

 pride and glee, and, occasionally, of bantering jocose- 

 ness, is discernible. I believe it is only rarely, and 

 when he is sure of his audience, that he displays 

 his par^s in this manner. You are to look for him, 

 not in tall trees or deep forests, but in low, dense 

 fihrubbery about wet places, where there are plenty 

 ff gnats and mosquitoes. 



The winter-wren is another marvelous songster, io 

 speaking of whom it is difficult to avoid superlatives. 

 He is not so conscious of his powers and so ambitious 

 of effect as the white-eyed fly-catcher, yet you will not 

 be less astonished and deliojhted on hearing him. He 

 possesses the fluency and copiousness for which the 

 wrens are noted, and besides these qualities, and 

 what is rarely found conjoined with them, a wild, 

 Bweet, rhythmical cadence that holds you entranced. 

 I shall not soon forget that perfect June day, when, 

 loitering in a low, ancient hemlock wood, in whose 

 cathedral aisles the coolness and freshness seems per- 

 ennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strain 

 80 rapid and gushing, and touched with such a wild, 

 sylvan plaintiveness, that I listened in amazement. 

 A-nd so shy and coy was the little minstrel, that 1 

 came twice to the woods before I was sure to whom 

 I was listening. In summer he is one of those birds 

 »f the deep northern forests, that, like the speckled 

 Canada warbler and the hermit-thrush, only the priv 

 *leged ones hear. 



Tlie distribution of plants in a given locality is no' 



