196 SOME TENNESSEE BIED NOTES. 



country near the river and on Walden's 

 Ridge. This, too, is a rare bird in Virginia ; 

 so much so that Dr. Rives has never met 

 with it there. In certain places about Chat- 

 tanooga it was as common as it is locally in 

 the towns about Boston, where, to satisfy a 

 skeptical friend, I once counted eleven males 

 in song in the course of a morning's walk. 

 That the Chattanooga birds were on their 

 breeding grounds I had at the time no ques- 

 tion, although I happened upon no proof of 

 the fact. 



In the same way, from the manner in 

 which the oven-birds were scattered over 

 Walden's Ridge in the middle of May, I 

 assumed, rather hastily, that they were at 

 home for the summer. Months afterward, 

 however, happening to notice their southern 

 breeding limits as given by the best of 

 authorities, " breeding from . . . Virginia 

 northward," I saw that I might easily 

 have been in error. I wrote, therefore, to 

 a Chattanooga gentleman, who pays atten- 

 tion to birds while disclaiming acquaintance 

 with ornithology, and he replied that if the 

 oven-bird summered in that country he did 

 not know it. The case seemed to be going 



