272 AN OWL'S gan HOLIDAY. 
Immature warblers are a puzzling set. The 
birds themselves have no difficulty, I suppose ; 
but seeing young and old together, and noting 
how unlike they are, I have before now been 
reminded of Launcelot Gobbo’s saying, “ It is 
a wise father that knows his own child.” 
While traversing the woods between these 
two clearings I saw, as I thought, a chimney 
swift fly out of the top of a tree which had been 
broken off at a height of twenty-five or thirty 
feet. I stopped, and pretty soon the thing was 
repeated ; but even then I was not quick enough 
to be certain whether the bird really came from 
the stump or only out of the forest behind it. 
Accordingly, after sounding the trunk to make 
sure it was hollow, I sat down in a clump of 
raspberry bushes, where I should be sufficiently 
concealed, and awaited further developments. 
I waited and waited, while the mosquitoes, 
seeing how sheltered I was from the breeze, 
gathered about my head in swarms. A win- 
ter wren at my elbow struck up to sing, going 
over and over with his exquisite tune; anda 
scarlet tanager, also, not far off, did what he 
could — which was somewhat less than the 
wren’s — to relieve the tedium of my situation. _ 
Finally, when my patience was well-nigh ex- 
hausted, — for the afternoon was wearing away 
and I had some distance to walk, — a swift flew 
