66 IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



warbles his finest strain. In this song yuu iiistanth 

 detect his relationship to the water- wagtail (Seiurui 

 novehoracensis) — erroneously called water-thrush, — 

 whose song is likewise a sudden burst, full and ring- 

 ing, and with a tone of youthful joyousness in it, as 

 if the bird had just had some unexpected good fort- 

 une. For nearly two years this strain of the pretty 

 walker was little more than a disembodied voice t 

 Ene, and I was puzzled by it as Thoreau by his mys- 

 terious night-warbler, which, by the way, I suspect 

 was no new bird at all, but one he was otherwise 

 familiar with. The little bird himself seems disposed 

 to keep the matter a secret, and improves every op- 

 portunity to repeat before you hi^ shrill, accelerat- 

 ing lay, as if this were quite enough and all he laid 

 claim to. Still, I trust I am betraying no confidence 

 in making the matter public here I think this is 

 preeminently his love-song, as I hear it oftenest 

 about the mating season. I have laught half-sup- 

 pressed bursts of it from two males chasing each 

 other with fearful speed through the forest. 



Turning to the left from the old road, I wander 

 ver soft logs and gray yielding debris, across the 

 little trout brook, until I emerge in the overgrown 

 " Barkpeeling," — pausing now and then on the way 

 to admire a small, solitary white flowe*- which rises 

 above the moss, with radical, heart-shaped leaves, and 

 % blossom precisely like the liverwort except in color, 

 but which is not put down in my botany, — or to ob» 

 Berve the ferns, of which I count six varietief», *Qm# 

 dgantic one.> nearly shoulder-hifjh. 



