THE HERMIT WARBLER. 



195 



In despair, one day, I determined to penetrate this supraniundane region 

 where tlie Hermit is at home, and selected for the purpose a well branched tree 

 in the center of the forest and some hundred and fifty feet in height. The tree 

 was, fortunately, of the tougher sort, and permitted ascent to a point where 

 the stem might be ; 



grasped with the tin- % 



ger and thumb of I 



one hand. It was a ' 



treat to see the for- 

 est as a bird does. 

 The surface viewed 

 fro m aljove was 

 surprisingly uneven. 

 Here and there 

 strong young trees, 

 green and full of 

 sap, rose to the level 

 of mine, but the ma- 

 jority were lower, 

 and some appeared 

 like green rosettes 

 set in a well of 

 green. Others still, 

 rugged and uneven 

 as to limb, towered 

 above my station by 

 fifty or seventy-five 

 feet. My first dis- 

 covery upon reach- 

 ing the top was that 

 the bulk of the bird 

 chorus now sounded 

 from below. But a 

 few singing Hermits 

 did occupy stations 

 more lofty t li a n 

 mine. One I marked 

 down — rather, up — 

 fifty feet above and a hundred yards away. He sang away like a contented 

 eremite from a single twig, and I was reverently constructing his high 

 biography and trying to pick out his domicile from the neighboring branches, 

 when flash ! he pitched headlong two hundred feet and was seen no more. 



HERMIT WARBLERS. 



