202 VIRGINIA 



midge "more formidable than wolves," 

 as Thoreau says to disturb his meditations. 



By far the most characteristic birds of the 

 city were the Bewick wrens, of whose town- 

 loving habits I have already spoken. Con- 

 stantly as I heard them, I could never be- 

 come accustomed to the unwrennish charac- 

 ter of their music. Again and again, when 

 the bird happened to be a little way off, so 

 that only the concluding measure of his tune 

 reached me, I caught myself thinking of him 

 as a song sparrow. If I had been in Massa- 

 chusetts, I should certainly have passed on 

 without a suspicion of the truth. 



The tall old rock maples in the hotel 

 yard decaying at the tops were occu- 

 pied by a colony of bronzed grackles, busy 

 and noisy from morning till night ; excellent 

 company, as they stalked about the lawn 

 under my windows. In the same trees a 

 gorgeous Baltimore oriole whistled for three 

 or four days, and once I heard there a 

 warbling vireo. Neither oriole nor vireo 

 was detected elsewhere. 



Of my seventy-five Pulaski species (April 

 24-May 1), eighteen were warblers and 

 fifteen belonged to the sparrow-finch family. 



