170 MINOR SONGSTERS. 



while was flitting from tree to tree, intent upon 

 his breakfast. As far as I could discover, he 

 was without company ; and his music, too, 

 seemed to be nothing more than an unpremed- 

 itated, half-unconscious talking to himself. 

 Wonderfully sweet it was, and full of the hap- 

 piest content. " I listened till I had my fill," 

 and returned the favor, as best I could, by hop- 

 ing that the little wayfarer's lightsome mood 

 would not fail him, all the way to Guatemala 

 and back again. 



Exactly a month before this, and not far from 

 the same spot, I had stood for some minutes to 

 enjoy the '* recital" of the solitary's saucy 

 cousin, the white-eye. Even at that time, al- 

 though the woods were swarming with birds, — 

 many of them travelers from the North, — this 

 white-eye was nearly the onl}^ one still in song. 

 He, however, was fairly brimming over Avith 

 music ; changing his tune again and again, and 

 introducing (for the first time in Weymouth, as 

 concert programmes say) a notably fine shake. 

 Like the solitary, he was all the while busily 

 feeding (birds in general, and vireos in particu- 

 lar, hold with Mrs. Browning that we may 

 *' prove our work the better for the sweetness of 

 our song "), and one while was exploring a poi- 

 son-dogwood bush, plainly without the slightest 

 fear of any ill-result. It occurred to me that 



