154 Brewster on the Prothonotary Warbler. 



the pleasant company of Mr. Robert Ridgway, with the delightful 

 anticipation of a prospective four weeks among the birds of a, to 

 me, new region. What ornithologist but has felt the sensations 

 arising at such times, — the pleasing certainty of meeting many 

 species that are known to occur ; the stimulating hope of detecting 

 others that may, nay, probably will, be found ; and the vague dream 

 of securing some rare prize that shall excite the interest of the whole 

 ornithological world 1 But most potent of all to encourage and sus- 

 tain are the possibilities, without which the toils and hardships of field 

 collecting would be but sad drudgery. A person of prosaic temper- 

 ament can rarely if ever make a good field-worker. Enthusiasm 

 must be the spur to success. At the time of our arrival there was 

 a temporary lull in the development of the season. March and early 

 April had been unusually warm and pleasant, and vegetation had 

 far advanced. Many of the forest trees were already green with 

 young foliage, and the leaves of others were beginning to unfold. 

 But a period of cold rainy weather succeeded, and everything for 

 a time was at a stand-still. On April 19 the first Prothonotary 

 "Warblers were seen. They seemed to be new arrivals, forerunners 

 of the general migration ; shy, comparatively silent, and with that 

 peculiar restraint of manner observable in the first comers of most 

 migratory birds, — a restraint not so much to be wondered at, for a 

 subtile chill and gloom still brooded over the budding forest. Nature 

 seemed to hold her breath in expectancy, and the bh'ds, as well as all 

 wild creatures, are her children, and sympathize in all her varying 

 moods. What lover of the woods has not observed the effect pro- 

 duced upon them by a sudden undefinablc something that comes 

 at times over the face of everything, — a slight imperceptible chill, 

 perhaps, or a brief period of cloudiness ; where a moment before all 

 was life, bustle, and joyous activity, there is now brooding depres- 

 sion and almost death-like silence. Oftentimes the effect is but 

 transient, and the former state of things soon resumes. 



With a few warm days the change came, and Nature entered upon 

 her gala-day. The tree-tops became canopies of dense foliage ; from 

 the starlit, heavens at night came the mysterious lisping voices of 

 numberless little feathered wanderers pushing their way northward 

 amid the darkness, guided by some faculty which must ever remain 

 hidden from mortals. Each succeeding morning found new-comers 

 taking their places in the woodland choir, and every thicket was 

 enlivened by glancing wings and merry bird voices. The spell was 



