AT NATURAL BRIDGE 253 



row. To-day, however, the birds favored 

 me ; no untimely whim hurried them away 

 to another wood, and patience had its re- 

 ward. Little by little my purpose was 

 accomplished and my mind cleared of all 

 uncertainty. Then I took out my pencil to 

 characterize the song while it was still in 

 my ears, and still new. " Greatly like one 

 of the more broken forms of the parula's," I 

 wrote, a bird repeating it at that very instant 

 by way of confirmation. " I can imagine a 

 fairly sharp ear being deceived by it, espe- 

 cially in a place like this, where parulas 

 have been singing from morning till night, 

 until the listener has tired of them and be- 

 come listless." This sentence the reader 

 may keep in mind, if he will, to glance back 

 upon for his amusement in the light of a 

 subsequent experience which it will be my 

 duty to relate before I have done with my 

 story. 



Between the migratory " transients " and 

 the birds already at home, the place was 

 pretty full of wings. A Swainson thrush 

 sang, and from a bushy slope came a nasal 

 thrush voice that should have been a veery's. 

 I took chase at once, and caught a glimpse 



