218 TWO FRAGMENTS. 



heard them, while the song-sparrows, bush-sparrows, 

 robins, meadow hirks, CaroUna wrens, towhee bunt- 

 ings, cardinal grossbeaks, goldfinches, and bluebirds 

 were all doing their " level best " to swell the morn- 

 ing chorus. 1 have seldom heard more birds sing- 

 ing: at the same time. 



Still another surprise was in store for me that 

 morning. I noticed a couple of birds warbling in 

 the trees above me, and although I ogled them for 

 a long time with my opera glass, I could not iden- 

 tify them. They were perched too high to be seen 

 plainly. They twittered away in a continuous 

 strain, but the song was new to me, and for that 

 reason I was all the more anxious to identify the 

 songsters. The question was how to get them to 

 drop to a lower perch. At length I began to leap 

 about in a rather undignified way for a staid or- 

 nithologist, gesticulating wildly and yelling in a 

 loud voice. Finally my ruse proved successful ; 

 the birds, convinced, I suppose, that an inmate of 

 the county asylum had escaped, darted down into 

 the adjoining cornfield. As they alighted I caught 

 a flash of white in their tails. Could they be — but 

 no, I must make sure ; and so I scrambled over the 

 rail fence and hurried after the fugitives. Yes, 

 my presentiment had been correct; the feathered 



