MY WOODLAND. 65 



In the same part of this woodland I found a pair 

 of purple finches one autumn day ; while in the 

 spring one male and three females remained in a 

 dogwood sapling just long enough for me to make 

 sure of their identity, and then darted into the 

 woods, where I was unable to find them with all 

 my " beating the bush." A beautiful little green, 

 black-capped, fly-catching warbler gladdened my 

 eyes as he flitted in the blackberry thicket one day 

 in May. 



There is another place in these woods where my 

 search for birds is invariably rewarded ; it is right 

 in the sylvan depths, where two grass-grown roads 

 intersect, close to a small wet-weather pond. Here 

 in the winter time I always meet my woodland 

 intimates, the snow-birds, the tree-sparrows, the 

 crested titmice, the white-breasted nuthatches, and 

 the hairy and downy woodpeckers. In the little 

 pond near by, the snow-birds were in the habit of 



letter from an intelligent writer in Chicago runs as follows : " I have re- 

 cently read with pleasure your article entitled ' My Woodland.' ... I was 

 much interested in your statement that another specimen of the rare Kirt- 

 land's warbler had come to light, and that you had been so fortunate as to 

 hear his song, a fact that I have never seen recorded before. Your obser- 

 vation of this warbler, and particularly a description of his song, certainly 

 should be recorded in some magazine devoted to ornithologj'. ... In Vol. 

 IV. of The Auk, Mr. Purdie gives an account of nine specimens of Kirtland's 

 warbler to that date (July, 1879), and I do not think any other record has 

 been made up to the- date of )'our observations." Surely the reader will 

 pardon my vanity in publishing these excerpts. 



