144 NEWS FROM THE BIRDS. 



make another nocturnal journey northward, 

 and thus by degrees the whole pilgrimage is 

 accomplished. 



Here is an instance which came under my 

 own eye. On the twelfth of April my train, 

 bound for New Orleans, stopped for some min- 

 utes at a small station in northern Alabama. 

 Stepping from the train, I got a glimpse of sev- 

 eral myrtle warblers flitting about in the trees 

 of the woods near the tracks. About four weeks 

 later, on my return to the North, I stopped for 

 several days at the same station to watch the 

 })irds, but not a single myrtle warbler did I see 

 in the whole country round, though I traversed 

 it for miles over valley and mountain. These 

 warblers had stopped there for a while in April 

 on their migratory tour, and then had skimmed 

 away for more northern climes. 



Yet some of them did not go very far — 

 not more than eighty or ninety miles — for I 

 found them quite abundant on the ninth of 

 May on the top of Lookout Mountain in Ten- 

 nessee, where they probably breed; while others 

 had hied away to the distant North, some of 

 them venturing as far as Greenland. It is 

 somewhat curious that some species that breed 

 in the far North will also breed in the South 

 on the wooded tops of high mountains. 



