WITH THE THICKET BIRDS 127 



of the wood and any trespasser would receive 

 short shrift. 



A tiny redstart and a warbling vireo were the 

 last of the arrivals. The little fire-brand 

 warbler made never a sound as he flitted here 

 and there in the sun-flecked shadows, but the 

 yireo, doubtless knowing that he had one of the 

 least conspicuous coats in the bird world and 

 thus stood a heavy chance of being missed, tuned 

 up his pipes and rippled a short song — that song 

 so characteristically summery that it is the very 

 embodiment of the dreamy, summer spirit. 



In the bird world as elsewhere, these later 

 May days were days of transition, warm spring 

 merging into early summer. Sometimes it was 

 one, sometimes the other. Early in the morn- 

 ing when a bobolink went rollicking overhead 

 northward, and the clicking calls of some be- 

 lated Lapland longspurs came from the same 

 quarter, or a string of orderly black-breasted 

 plover went by, their jetty breasts all in line, or 

 the last straggling line of snow geese passed 

 over, caUing loudly, it was spring-time. But 

 then when the day was warm and sunny, and a 

 veery song drifted prayerfully out of the 

 shadows, or an oven bird, somewhere out of 



