THE CANADA WARBLER. 279 



arrangements? The wild grape-vine will festoon the forest 

 into domes, arches, and colonades, till it would seem the 

 very haunt of faries and sylvan deities. Liverworts, lichens 

 and ferns will drape the scars, rents and chasms of the 

 earth's surface with an inimitable beauty. I have seen an 

 old decayed stump in the forest, so dressed up from base 

 to top in fine mosses, and the whole broad top such a mass 

 of enchanter's nightshade with its delicate spray of leaves 

 and ethereal white blossoms, as to make it an object to be 

 coveted for the most royal domain. Had I enough of 

 Mother Earth that I could call my own, I would have a 

 flower garden according to nature; one which might show 

 no trace of human interference. If Adam and Eve had the 

 judgment and good taste generally attributed to them, in 

 some such manner, I think, must they have kept the Garden 

 of Eden. 



THE CANADA WARBLER. 



From a point in the thick bushes, somewhere near by, 

 there comes a song so peculiar both in enunciation and in 

 tone, that my genial companion in these sylvan studies 

 challenges my imitation of it. I finally resolve it, however, 

 into the following syllables: chi-reach-a-dee, reach-a-dee, 

 reach-a-dee-chi uttered in a hurried and spirited manner, 

 with a striking mixture of sibilant notes, and so much of 

 ventriloquism that it seems almost impossible to locate the 

 singer, though he be but a few yards distant. The bird, 

 moreover, is so shy and such an adept at concealment in 

 the thick foliage that I spend many minutes in the most 

 attentive observation before I can get even a glimpse of 

 him. Finally, while on hands and knees I am peering out 

 from under a thick bed of cinnamon ferns, the songster, all 

 unconscious of my presence, stands out in full view. About 

 5.50 long, the bluish-ash on the entire upper parts blends 



