230 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



more surprise — also witliin limits — the 

 more pleasure. At present I can hardly 

 put my head out of the door without hearing 

 the wheezy calls of siskins and the importu- 

 nate cackles of crossbills. They are among 

 the commonest and most voluble inhabitants 

 of the valley, and seem even commoner and 

 more talkative than they really are because 

 they are so incessantly on the move. 



An alder flycatcher is calling as I go up 

 the first hiU (he, too, is very common and 

 very free with his voice, although, unlike 

 siskin and crossbill, he knows where he be- 

 longs, and is to be foimd there, and nowhere 

 else), and when I reach the plateau a sap- 

 sucker alights near the foot of a telegraph 

 post just before me ; a bird in Quakerish 

 drab, with no trace of red upon either crown 

 or throat. He (or she) is only two or three 

 months old, I suppose, like more than half 

 of all the birds now about us. Not far be- 

 yond, as the road runs into light woods, with 

 a swampy tract by a brook on the lower side, 

 I hear a chickadee's voice and look up to 

 see also two Canadian warblers, bits of pure 

 loveliness, the first ones of my present visit. 



