116 MOBNING IN THE NORTH WOODS. 



the noise loses its musical character ; so that 

 it would be easy to hear it without divining 

 any connection between it and the grand 

 pervasive hum of the universal chorus. 



One of the first birds at which I stopped 

 to look was a Kentucky warbler, walking 

 about the ground and pausing now and then 

 to sing ; one of six or seven seen and heard 

 during the forenoon. Few birds are more 

 freely and easily observed. I mean in open 

 woodlands with clear margins, such as I was 

 now exploring. In a mountain forest, where 

 they haunt brookside jungles of laurel and 

 rhododendron, the story is different, as a 

 matter of course. How it happens that the 

 same bird is equally at home in surroundings 

 so dissimilar is a question I make no attempt 

 to answer. 



All the hill woods, mostly oak, were dry 

 and stony ; but after a while I came unex- 

 pectedly to a valley, a place of another sort ; 

 not moist, to be sure, but looking as if it 

 had been moist at some time or other ; and 

 with pleasant grassy openings and another 

 set of trees — red maples, persimmons, and 

 sweet -gums. Here was a fine bunch of 

 birds, including many migrants, and I went 



