AN IDLEE ON MISSION ART RIDGE. 1 



a great singer ; but to my Northern ears the 

 wood thrush carried the day with his voice. 



Having climbed the Kidge again, 

 though climbing might be thought rather 

 too laborious a word for so gradual a slope, 

 and started down on the side toward the 

 city, I came to a patch of blackberry vines, 

 in the midst of which sat a thrasher on her 

 nest, all a mother's anxiety in her staring 

 yellow eyes. Close by her stood an olive- 

 backed thrush. There, too, was my first 

 hooded warbler, a female. She escaped me 

 the next instant, though I made an eager 

 chase, not knowing yet how common birds 

 of her sort were to prove in that Chatta- 

 nooga country. 



In my delight at finding Missionary Eidge 

 so happy a hunting-ground for an opera-glass 

 naturalist, I went thither again the very 

 next morning. This time some Virginia 

 veterans were in the car (they all wore 

 badges), and when we had left it, and were 

 about separating, after a bit of talk about 

 the battle, of course, one of them, with 

 almost painful scrupulosity, insisted upon as- 

 suring me that if the thing were all to be 

 done over again, he should do just as before. 



