134 A WEEK ON WALDEN'S EIDGE. 



forgotten, and was just bringing my glass 

 into play when the fellow took wing, and 

 began singing at the very point I had just 

 left. I hastened back ; he flew again, far- 

 ther up the hill, and again I put myself out 

 of breath with pursuing him. Again and 

 again he sang, now in this tree, now in that, 

 but there was no getting sight of him. The 

 trees should have been shorter, or the bird 

 larger. Straight upward I gazed, till the 

 muscles of my neck cried for mercy. At 

 last I saw him, flitting amid the dense foli- 

 age, but so far above me, and so exactly 

 between me and the sun, that I might as 

 well not have seen him. at all. 



It was a foolish half-hour. The bird, as 

 I afterwards discovered, was nothing but a 

 blue yellow-back, with an original twist to 

 his song. In Massachusetts, I should not 

 have listened to it twice, but on new hunt- 

 ing-grounds a man is bound to look for new 

 game ; else what would be the use of travel- 

 ing ? It was a foolish half -hour, I say ; but 

 I wish some moralist would explain, in a 

 manner not inconsistent with the dignity of 

 human nature, how it happens that foolish 

 half-hours are commonly so much more 



