48 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



arrayed in white, and contrasted pleasantly with the 

 moose-wood and spice bushes, with their jackets of yel- 

 low. As the cars went by the patches of w^oods, the 

 trilliums showed their white cups, and the erythroniums 

 nodded gracefully amid their spotted leaves. Thrifty 

 bunches of cowslips, or marsh marigolds, in the wet 

 meadows were crowned with shining yellow blossoms, 

 and women were picking the bitter but palatable leaves 

 for greens, bearing Portage, one could readily see the 

 effects of the greater altitude in the more backward 

 foliage, especially that of the oaks. The cars had 

 hardly left the station at Portage, when a pair of blue 

 birds on the telegraph wires caroled a pleasant song. 

 A Hudsonian sparrow in a lilac bush tinkled his silvery 

 bell, while the mate sharply chirped her dissatisfaction 

 at something going on wrong about them. The chirp- 

 ing of these birds is quite different from that of other 

 sparrows, and reveals their presence oftener than their 

 songs. I have found several of their nests in this 

 neighborhood. The English sparrows have taken pos- 

 session of the evergreens in front of the hotel, and 

 driven out the purple finches that for several years past 

 have nested in the balsams. The finches, however, are 

 in the groves back of the house, and were merrily sing- 

 ing during most of the day. The red-eyed vireos, 

 cheerful and loud, were talking to one another in the 

 tree-tops, and one listening to their half questioning, 

 half expostulatory musical discourse, could readily 

 understand why Wilson Flagg called them the " Little 

 Preachers." The softer, sweeter voices of the warbling 



