THE HERMIT WARBLER. 195 
In despair, one day, I determined to penetrate this supramundane region 
where the Hermit is at home, and selected for the purpose a well branched tree 
in the center of the forest and some hundred and fifty feet in height. The tree 
was, fortunately, of the tougher sort, and permitted ascent to a point where 
the stem might be 
grasped with the fin- 
ger and thumb of 
one hand. It was a 
treat to see the for- 
est as a bird does. 
The surface viewed 
from above was 
surprisingly uneven. 
flere) and there 
strong young trees, 
green and full of 
sap, rose to the level 
of mine, but the ma- 
jority were lower. 
and some appeared 
like green rosettes 
set in a well of 
green. Others still, 
rugged and uneven 
as to limb, towered 
above my station by 
fifty or seventy-five 
feet. My first dis- 
covery upon reach- 
ing the top was that 
the bulk of the bird 
chorus now sounded 
from below. But a 
few singing Hermits 
did occupy stations 
more lofty than 
mine. One I marked 
down—rather, up— 
' 
Brooks: 
HERMIT WARBLERS. 
fifty feet above and a hundred yards away. He sang away like a contented 
eremite from a single twig, and I was reverently constructing his high 
biography and trying to pick out his domicile from the neighboring branches, 
when flash! he pitched headlong two hundred feet and was seen no more. 
