FIRST MEETINGS. 47 



to their summer habitats in Northern Michigan and 

 along the shores of Hudson's Bay. 



I wish you could have been with me one lovely 

 spring day as I drove along a pleasant country 

 road. Seeing a strange little bird hopping about 

 in the grass of an orchard, I handed the lines to 

 my companion, leaped from the carriage and vault- 

 ing over the rail fence, soon got the feathered fairy 

 within the field of my glass. A beautiful bird it 

 was ; back, slaty blue, streaked with black ; breast 

 and sides, black ; throat and belly, pure white ; 

 central crown patch, sides of breast, and — now 

 that he lifts his wings — rump, gleaming yellow. 

 I exclaimed at once, " A yellow-rumped warbler ! " 

 a bird of fine mien and blithe bearing, and one 

 that I had been wanting to see for many months. 

 He is called the myrtle warbler by Ridgway : Den- 

 droica coronata. On the twenty-fifth of October 

 I met another chance acquaintance. A rather 

 plump, short-billed bird was greedily devouring 

 dogwood berries in the tree above me, scaling off 

 the pulp, and dropping the pits; but the sun shone 

 on him at such an angle that I could not decide as 

 to his color, though his form and mien proclaimed 

 him a new bird to me. Presently, much to my re- 

 gret, he flew away, but I rushed after him through 



