268 THE CLERK OP THE WOODS 



day of May. If conditions favor his pas- 

 sage, he may even anticipate the date, per- 

 haps by forty-eight hours. This year not a 

 yellow warbler was to be seen up to May 6. 

 Then, between the evening of the 6th and 

 the morning of the 7th, the birds dropped 

 into their accustomed places, and in the 

 early forenoon, when I went out to look for 

 them, they were singing as cheerily as if they 

 had never been away. With nothing but 

 their wits and their wings to depend upon, 

 I thought they had done exceedingly well. 

 To me, on such terms, South America would 

 seem a very long way off. 



The same night brought the Nashville 

 warblers. On the 6th not one was visible, 

 for I made it my business to look. On the 

 morning of the 7th I had no need to search 

 for them. In all the old haunts, among the 

 pitch-pines and the gray birches, they were 

 flitting about and singing, as fresh as larks 

 and as lively as crickets. They, too, have 

 come from the tropics, and will go as far 

 north, some of them, as " Labrador and the 

 fur countries." A bold spirit may live under 

 a few feathers. 



