64 m THE HEMLOCKS. 



with their backs and some with their breasts toward 

 me, but every head turned squarely in my direction, 

 Their eyes are closed to a mere black line ; through 

 this crack they are watching me, evidently thinking 

 themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and 

 grotesque, and suggests something impish and un- 

 canny. It is a new effect, the night side of the 

 woods by daylight. After observing them a moment 

 I take a single step toward them, when, quick as 

 thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitude is 

 changed, they bend, some this way, some that, and, 

 instinct with life and motion, stare wildly around 

 them. Another step, and they all take flight but 

 one, which stoops low on the branch, and with the 

 look of a frightened cat regards me for a few seconds 

 over its shoulder. They fly swiftly and softly, and 

 disperse through the trees. I shoot one, which is of 

 a tawny red tint, like that figured by Wilson, who 

 mistook a young bird for an old one. The old birds 

 are a beautiful ashen gray mottled with black. In 

 the present instance, they were sitting on the branch 

 with the young. 



Coming to a drier and less mossy place in the 

 woods, I am amused with the golden-crowned thrush^ 

 .— which, however, is no thrush at all, but a warbler, 

 the Seiurus aurocapillus. He walks on the ground 

 ahead of me with such an easy gliding motion, and 

 with such an unconscious, preoccupied air, jerking hij 

 head like a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, no\f 

 ilackeuing his pace, that I pause to observe him. I 



