170 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
while was flitting a tree to tree, intent upon 
his breakfast. As far as I could discover, he 
was without company; and his music, too, 
seemed to be nothing more than an unpremed- 
itated, half-unconscious talking to himself. 
Wonderfully sweet it was, and full of the hap- 
piest content. “TI listened till I had my fill,” 
and returned the favor, as best I could, by hop- 
ing that the little wayfarer’s lightsome mood 
would not fail him, all the way to Guatemala 
and back again. 
Exactly a month before this, and not far from 
the same spot, I had stood for some minutes to 
enjoy the “recital” of the solitary’s saucy 
cousin, the white-eye. Even at that time, al- 
though the woods were swarming with birds, — 
many of them travelers from the North, —this 
white-eye was nearly the only one still in song. 
He, however, was fairly brimming over with 
music; changing his tune again and again, and 
introducing (for the first time in Weymouth, as 
concert programmes say) a notably fine shake. 
Like the solitary, he was all the while busily 
feeding (birds in general, and vireos in particu- 
lar, hold with Mrs. Browning that we may 
*‘ prove our work the better for the sweetness of 
our song”’), and one while was exploring a poi- 
son-dogwood bush, plainly without the slightest 
fear of any ill-result. It occurred to me that 
