136 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
like of which would oot be found in the cabi- 
net before mentioned, I went thither that very 
evening. Alas, my silly fears! there stood the 
little beauty’s exact counterpart, labeled Seto- 
phaga ruticilla, the American redstart, — a bird 
which the manual assured me was very common 
in my neighborhood. 
But it was not my eyes only that were 
opened, my ears also were touched. It was as 
if all the birds had heretofore been silent, and 
now, under some sudden impulse, had broken 
out in universal concert. What a glorious 
chorus it was; and every voice a stranger! 
For a week or more I was puzzled by a song 
which I heard without fail whenever I went 
into the woods, but the author of which I could 
never set eyes on, — a song so exceptionally 
loud and shrill, and marked by such a vehe- 
ment crescendo, that, even to my new-found 
ears, it stood out from the general medley a 
thing by itself. Many times I struck into the 
woods in the direction whence it came, but 
without getting so much as a flying glimpse 
of the musician. Very mysterious, surely! 
Finally, by accident I believe, I caught the fel- 
low in the very act of singing, as he stood on 
a dead pine-limb; and a few minutes later he 
was on the ground, walking about (not hop- 
ping) with the primmest possible gait, —a 
