98 In Touch with Nature. 



from the tall trees, and there, sure enough, were 

 a host of these beauties, fly-catching on the out- 

 skirts of creation. In the clear sunlight their 

 contrasted colors showed well, but the moment 

 they entered the shade each was black as ebony. 

 Not one would come near me ; none came within 

 thirty or forty feet from the ground. So far, a most 

 commonplace occurrence; but, with that abrupt- 

 ness that bewilders the on-looker, these warblers 

 suddenly disappeared. Not a trace of them any- 

 where, though I searched most diligently : for 

 aught I knew, they had dissolved into the thin air 

 in which they had been sporting. 



Merely a coincidence, doubtless, but this is a 

 foundation we all build upon. Late in the evening 

 of that day, while sitting before a film of smoke 

 that half hid the andirons, there came a tapping 

 at the window, loud enough to suggest Poe's raven, 

 and, when the sash was raised, in came a bay- 

 breasted warbler. There was no bust of Pallas 

 for it ; and, after flitting aimlessly in the dim light, 

 it rested on the head of a stuffed owl. The yield- 

 ing feathers offered no foothold, and it perched 

 next upon my table, twittered as if half afraid, and 



