16 JUNE IN FRANC ON I A. 



a Blackburnian warbler perched, as usual, 

 at the very top of a tall spruce, his orange 

 throat flashing fire as he faced the sun, 

 and his song, as my notebook expresses it, 

 "sliding up to high Z at the end" in his 

 quaintest and most characteristic fashion. I 

 spent nearly three hours in climbing the 

 mountain path, and during all that time saw 

 and heard only twelve kinds of birds : red- 

 starts, Canada warblers (near the base), 

 black-throated blues, black-throated greens, 

 Nashvilles, black -polls, red -eyed vireos, 

 snowbirds (no white -throated sparrows!), 

 winter wrens, Swainson and gray-cheeked 

 thrushes, and yellow - bellied flycatchers. 

 Black -poll and Nashville warblers were es- 

 pecially numerous, as they are also upon 

 Mount Washington, and, as far as I have 

 seen, upon the White Mountains generally. 

 The feeble, sharp song of the black-poll is a 

 singular affair; short and slight as it is, it 

 embraces a perfect crescendo and a perfect 

 decrescendo. Without question I passed 

 plenty of white -throated sparrows, but by 

 some coincidence not one of them announced 

 himself. The gray-cheeked thrushes, which 

 sang freely, were not heard till I was per- 



