118 MOBNING IN THE NORTH WOODS. 



as I now remember, — and went back among 

 the dry hills (through the powdery soil of 

 which the almost daily showers seemed to 

 run as through a sieve), I presently caught 

 sight of a scarlet tanager, — a beauty, and, 

 except on the mountains, a rarity. Then I 

 stopped — on a street corner ! — to admire 

 the singing of a Bachman's finch, wishing 

 also to compare his plumage with that of a 

 bird seen and greatly enjoyed a few days 

 before at Chickamauga. To judge from 

 my limited observation, this is one of the 

 sparrows — the song sparrow being another 

 — which exhibit a strange diversity of indi- 

 vidual coloration ; as if the fashion were 

 not yet fully set, or perhaps were being 

 outgrown. The bird here in the north 

 woods, so far as color and markings went, 

 might well enough have been of a different 

 species from that of the Chickamauga singer, 

 yet there was no reason to suspect the pres- 

 ence of more than one variety of Peuccea, so 

 far as I knew, and the music of the two 

 birds was precisely the same. A wonder- 

 fully sweet and various tune it is; with 

 sometimes a highly ventriloquial effect, as if 

 the different measures or phrases came from 



