146 BRILLIANTS IN PLUMES. 



In the hollow to the right I find another gem, the 

 blue golden-winged warbler, whose general color 

 is slaty blue, relieved by a yellow crown, yellow 

 wing-bars, a black throat and a dark stripe through 

 the eye. 



Besides the warblers described, I espy a cat-bird 

 trying to screen himself in the thicket before me, 

 where he is building a nest ; in the trees of the 

 adjoining hollow I catch glimpses of a Baltimore 

 and an orchard oriole ; while an indigo bird in my 

 rear hurls out his loud, defiant cluster of notes, 

 which echo down the vale. Many other warblers, 

 some of them just as superb in color as those to 

 which we have paid our respects, have been seen 

 in the woods near by ; but a sufficient number 

 have been described to prove that bright-hued birds 

 are not to be seen in highly colored paintings only, 

 but in very fact as well, and that no one need go 

 to distant climes to find gems in feathers. 



Not only are they beautiful of plumage, but 

 there are rare days in May when they fill the woods 

 with their " anvil chorus." While there may not 

 be a great deal of melody in the voice of a single 

 songster, yet when a score of them are trilling 

 at once in the trees and bushes, in various runs and 

 quavers, the combined effect is enrapturing, mak- 



