AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE. 25 



zontal limb of a maple, and a goldfinch 

 warbled as if he could never cease. A veery 

 sang, also (I heard but one other in Ten- 

 nessee), with a chestnut-sided warbler, two 

 redstarts (one of them in the modest garb 

 of his mother), a Carolina chickadee, a 

 mocking wren, a pine warbler, a prairie war- 

 bler, and a catbird. In time, probably, all 

 the birds for a mile around might have been 

 heard or seen beside that scanty rill. 



To-day, however, my mood was less Sun- 

 dayish than before, and in spite of the heat 

 I ventured across an open pasture, where 

 a Bachman's finch was singing an ingenious 

 set of variations, and a rabbit stamped with 

 a sudden loudness that made me jump, 

 and then through a piece of wood, till I came 

 to another hollow like the one I had left, 

 but without water, and therefore less thickly 

 shaded. Here was the inevitable thicket of 

 brambles (since I speak so much of chats 

 and indigo-birds, the presence of a sufficiency 

 of blackberry bushes may be taken for 

 granted), and I waited to see what it would 

 bring forth. A field sparrow sang from the 

 hillside, a sweet and modest tune that 

 went straight to the heart, and had nothing 



