4 On the trail of vanishing birds 



the river curling around the foot of the mountain while there in 

 the town below, under its pall of fog, we could hear the whistles 

 tooting and the wheels grinding, but not for us. Somehow, for us, 

 the mountain was a better place. 



But there are other factors besides environment. Every other 

 boy of the same age in our town in those years was exposed to the 

 same surroundings as we were, yet only a few of them made the 

 same discoveries. They did not seem to find what we did in 

 Schooley's Woods, where the scarlet tanager nested, or in Gib- 

 son's Swamp, where we saw our first pileated woodpecker and 

 where the cardinals stayed all winter long at our feeding station. 

 If they looked at the river they did not see the flock of bluebills, 

 or take a chance on being late to school in order to watch the pin- 

 tails that splashed about in the wet meadow west of town. Other 

 boys discovered that for them reality was made of something else 

 they found it in the engine of a Model T perhaps, or in the 

 clattering presses at the newspaper building, in test tubes in the 

 high-school chem lab, or in their first crystal set. 



In the face of all the variety and wealth of interests that were 

 opened to us, my brother and I gradually drifted more and more 

 toward birds as the primary object of our busy lives. And it became 

 a serious interest, as attested in the detailed writings of many 

 a notebook. One late February afternoon, with two companions, 

 John and I were in Gibson's Swamp. My brother wrote in his notes 

 that we were looking for the cardinals that had wintered there that 

 year. Alan and myself walked along the north side of the swamp 

 while John and Maynard "pushed through the center." Suddenly, 

 he went on, in rather self-conscious prose for a thirteen-year-old: 



. . . while sitting astride a rather high tree I noticed that Bob 

 and Alan were showing signs of glee and constantly gazing at 

 some bird through their glasses. Climbing from my lofty perch 

 I hastened toward them to learn the cause of all the excitement. 

 Bob told me, "Fox sparrows, two of 'em!" That was enough, and 

 with fast beating heart I crept towards the spot where I thought 

 they were hidden. Soon I heard unfamiliar notes long-drawn- 



