236 VIRGINIA 



ment they were gone, though I did not see 

 them go ; and nothing was left but the wea- 

 risome iterations of oven-birds and red-eyes 

 where just now were so many singers and 

 talkers, among which, for aught I could tell, 

 there might have been some that it would 

 have been worth the price of a long vaca- 

 tion to scrape even a treetop acquaintance 

 with. 



Indeed, it was certain that one member 

 of the flock was a rarity, if not an absolute 

 novelty. That was the most exciting and by 

 all odds the most deplorable incident of 

 the whole affair. I had obtained several 

 glimpses of him, but had been unable to 

 determine his identity; a warbler, past all 

 reasonable doubt, with pure white under 

 parts (the upper parts quite invisible) ex- 

 cept for a black or blackish line, barely 

 made out, across the lower throat or the 

 upper breast. He, of course, had vanished 

 with the rest, the more was the pity. I had 

 made a guess at him, to be sure ; it is a 

 poor. naturalist who cannot do as much as 

 that (but a really good naturalist would 

 "form a hypothesis," I suppose) under al- 

 most any circumstances. I had called him 



