178 THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS. 
I say; but who knows how many of them 
are gone already? Where are the blue gol- 
den-winged warblers that sang daily on the 
edge of the wood opposite my windows, so 
that I listened to them at my work? I have 
heard nothing of their rough dsee, dsee since 
the 21st of June, and in all that time have 
seen them but once — a single bird, a young- 
ling of the present year, stumbled upon by 
accident while pushing my way through a 
troublesome thicket on the first day of Au- 
gust. Who knows, I say, how many such 
summer friends have already left us? An 
odd coincidence, however, warns me at this 
very moment that too much is not to be made 
of merely negative experiences ; for even 
while I was penciling the foregoing sentence 
about the blue golden-wing there came 
through the open window the hoarse upward- 
sliding chant of his close neighbor, the prairie 
warbler. I have not heard that sound be- 
fore since the 6th of July, and it is now the 
22d of August. The singers had ,not gone, 
I knew; I saw several of them (and beauti- 
ful creatures they are!) a few days ago among 
the pitch pines; but why did that fellow, af- 
ter being dumb for six or seven weeks, pipe 
