206 SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES. 



whicli reacli Massachusetts by the 10th of 

 May, or earlier, were still very abundant — 

 both sexes — May 25 ! Such dates are not 

 what we should have expected, I suppose, 

 especially in the case of a bird like the 

 bobolink, which has no very high northern 

 range ; but they seem not to be exceptional, 

 and are surprising only because we have not 

 yet mastered the general subject. Nothing 

 exists by itself, and therefore nothing can 

 be understood by itself. One thing the 

 most ignorant of us may see, — that the 

 long period covered by the migratory jour- 

 neys is a matter for ornithological thankful- 

 ness. In Massachusetts, for example, spring 

 migrants begin to appear in late February 

 or early March, and some of the most inter- 

 esting members of the procession — notably 

 the mourning warbler and the yellow-bellied 

 flycatcher — are to be looked for after the 

 first of June. The autumnal movement is 

 equally protracted ; so that for at least half 

 the year — leaving winter with its arctic 

 possibilities out of consideration — we may 

 be on the lookout for strangers. 



One of the dearest pleasures of a southern 

 trip in winter or early spring is the very 



