LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 31 



(May 7) I made a day of it on the mountain, 

 mostly in the woods along the western bluffs. 

 An oven-bird's song drew me in that direc- 

 tion, to begin with ; and just as the singer 

 had shown himself, and been rewarded with 

 an entry as " No. 79 " in my Tennessee cat- 

 alogue, a cuckoo, farther away, broke into a 

 shuffling introductory measure that marked 

 him at once as a black-bill. Till now I had 

 seen yellow-bills only, and though the voice 

 was perhaps a sufficient identification, a 

 double certainty would be better, especially 

 in the retrospect. Luckily it was a short 

 chase, and there sat the bird, his snowy 

 throat swelling as he cooed, while his red 

 eye-ring and his abbreviated tail-spots gave 

 him a clear title to count as " No. 80." 



As I approached the precipitous western 

 edge of the mountain, I heard, just below, 

 the sharp, wiry voice of a Blackburnian 

 warbler ; a most splendid specimen, for in 

 a moment more his orange-red throat shone 

 like fire among the leaves. From farther 

 down rose the hoarse notes of a black- 

 throated blue warbler and two or three black- 

 throated greens. 



Here were comfortable, well-shaded boul- 



