Ill 



WHIMSICAL WHITE-THROATS 



FAR more perplexing than the oven-bird's 

 eccentricities was the conduct of a bird in 

 another part of the island. One day, with 

 a fellow bird-lover, I was walking down a 

 shady road that led to the sea. I was in 

 search of a rare warbler, but not because 

 it was rare. Rarity has no special charms 

 for me. The cleverest monstrosity of the 

 florist's ftrt is not so welcome to me as a 

 daisy even if it is called " whiteweed " ; 

 no deformed, double, forced rose affords me 

 so much pleasure as the fragrant wilding 

 beside the road ; no old musty black-letter 

 tome gives half the joy I receive from a 

 brand-new edition of a writer I love, with 

 leaves nicely cut and smooth to my fingers, 

 - in all of which tastes I know I am hope- 

 lessly out of fashion. So it was not because 

 he was rare that I sought him, but because I 

 had been attracted by his mysterious ways, 



