130 



mthout making any discoveries of this kind ; till on« 

 day, paying them a farewell visit, I chanced to come 

 upon several nests. A black and white creeping war- 

 bler suddenly became much alarmed as I a{)proached 

 a crumbling old stump in a dense part of the forest. 

 He alighted upon it, chirped sharply, ran up and 

 down its sides, and finally left it with much reluc- 

 tance. The nest, which contained three young birds 

 nearly fledged, was placed upon the ground, at the 

 foot of the stump, and in such a position that the color 

 of the young harmonized 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 all scampered off with loud cries for 

 help, which caused the parent birds to place them- 

 selves almost within my reach. The nest was merely 

 a little dry grass arranged in a thick bed of dry leaves. 

 This was amid a thick underojrowth. Movinor on 

 ioto a passage of large stately hemlocks, with only 

 here and there a small beech or maple rising up into 

 the perennial twilight, I paused to make out a note 

 which was entirely new to me. It is still in my ear. 

 Though unmistakably a bird note, it yet suggested 

 the bleating of a tiny lambkin. Presently the birds 

 appeared, — a pair of the solitary vireo. They came 

 flitting from point to point, alighting only for a mo- 

 ment at a time, the male silent, but the female utter 

 ing this strange, tender note. It was a rendering into 

 wme new sylvan dialect of the human sentim<;nt of 



