76 NEW HAMPSHIRE 



characteristic, as nothing is more welcome, than 

 the continual familiar presence of bluebirds. 

 This year, because I have stayed later than usual, 

 it may be, they have seemed uncommonly abun- 

 dant. Their voices are sure to be among the first 

 to be heard as I step out of the door in the morn- 

 ing, and wherever I walk in the open country 

 I find myself surrounded at frequent intervals 

 by a larger or smaller flock. Two days ago I 

 counted forty in sight at once ; and a bunch of 

 forty bluebirds well, there may be pleasanter 

 sights for a bird-lover (a flock of sixty, for exam- 

 ple), but it is a sight to raise low spirits, espe- 

 cially for a man who remembers the time after 

 a cruel winter when the vision of a single bird 

 was accepted by all of us as an event to talk about. 

 Myrtle warblers (yellow-rumps) are still more 

 numerous, and if a bluebird quits a perch and 

 takes wing it is almost an even chance that a 

 yellow-rump, who has been sitting near at hand, 

 waiting for this to happen, will be seen dashing 

 in pursuit. You may go down the village street 

 and watch the trick repeated half a dozen times 

 within half a mile. To my walking companion 

 and myself the sight has come to be part of a 

 Franconia autumn. If you are pretty close to the 

 birds you may hear a bill snapping (the warbler's, 

 I think), as if in anger, but on the whole I am 



