SOME TENNESSEE BIED NOTES. 207 



thing at which I have just now hinted, the 

 sight of one's home birds in strange sur- 

 roundings. You leave New England in 

 early February, for instance, and in two or 

 three days are loitering in the sunny pine- 

 lands about St. Augustine, with the trees 

 full of robins, bluebirds, and pine warblers, 

 and the savanna patches full of meadow 

 larks. Myrtle warblers are everywhere. 

 Phoebes salute you as you walk the city 

 streets, and flocks of chippers and vesper 

 sparrows enliven the fields along the country 

 roads. In a piece of hammock just outside 

 the town you find yourself all at once sur- 

 rounded by a winter colony of summer birds. 

 Here are solitary vireos, Maryland yellow- 

 throats, black-and-white creepers, prairie 

 warblers, red-poll warblers, hermit thrushes, 

 red-eyed chewinks, thrashers, catbirds, cedar- 

 birds, and many more. White-eyed vireos 

 are practicing in the smilax thickets, 

 though they have small need of practice, 

 and white-bellied swallows go flashing and 

 twittering overhead. The world is good, 

 you say, and life is a festival. 



My vacation in Tennessee afforded less of 

 contrast and surprise, for a twofold reason : 



