SPRING 111 



so it continued. I hope I was not blind to 

 other things. I remember at this moment 

 how rejoiced I was at coming all unexpect- 

 edly upon a little bunch of yellow lady's- 

 slippers, — nine blossoms, I believe ; rare 

 enough and pretty enough to excite the dull- 

 est man's enthusiasm. But the fact remains, 

 if comparisons are to be insisted upon, that 

 a creature like the Cape May warbler has 

 all the beauty of a flower, with the added 

 charm of voice and motion and elusiveness. 

 The lady's-slippers would wait for me, — un- 

 less somebody else picked them, — but the 

 warbler could be trusted to lead me a chase, 

 and give me, as the saying is, a run for my 

 money. In other words, he was more inter- 

 esting, and goes better into a story. 



My dehght in him was the greater for a 

 consideration yet to be specified. Twelve or 

 thirteen years ago, when a party of us were 

 in Franconia in June, we undertook a list of 

 the birds of the township, — a list which the 

 scientific ornithologist of the company after- 

 catcher, alder flycatcher, great-crested flycatcher, wood 

 pewee, hummingbird, chimney swift, ■whip-poor-will, 

 flicker, kingfisher, black-billed cuckoo. 



