BIRDS OF CHOCORUA 207 



this year their favorite food must have been hang- 

 ing high, for they were up there after it. 



With the Canadians was the first wave of the 

 tide of blackpolls which sweeps over the moun- 

 tains, also bound north, in late May. More rest- 

 less were these, constantly flitting and seeking 

 food among the leaves, now in deciduous growth, 

 again in the evergreens, ever moving on and ever 

 singing their high-pitched, hissing whistle which is 

 not so very different from the song of the black 

 and white creeper, though a little more deliberate 

 in movement and having a more staccato quality. 

 So far as coloration goes one might mistake the 

 male blackpoll for the black and white creeper 

 were not the movements of the birds so distinctly 

 different and the song as wiry but as soothingly 

 crepitant as that of the cicada. 



Night falls early in the deep heart of Chocorua, 

 and full and clear the wood thrushes were yodeling 

 of peace, one to another in the shadows, as I 

 turned to descend. In the worn fields of the 

 ancient clearing about the farmhouse where Bolles 

 lived and loved the woods and all that therein 

 lived with him, the song sparrows were trilling 



