328 NATURE STUDY REVIEW 



owl, sounding for all the world like the filing of a saw, or the 

 "blood-curdling" yells and hoots of the Great Homed and Barred 

 Owls, or the dreamy sleep song of some smaller bird. Now and 

 then I would take a mental census of the species of birds seen 

 along the way when the trip was in day-time, and at the end ask 

 my companion, the driver: "How many kinds of birds do you 

 think we saw today?" He would say, "Oh, five or six." Where- 

 upon I would report, "No, 30 species," which he considered im- 

 possible until I would enum.erate them.. All this besides watching 

 the ever-changing aspect of the flora along the way, the coming 

 and going of the flowers and leaves, some rare or especially early 

 or late occurrences and the like. On the brink of one lake we 

 would pass was the largest colony of the fly mushroom, Amanita 

 muscana, I had ever seen. Or some shy and perhaps rare habena- 

 ria or other orchid would make me halt the rig in order to get 

 down and investigate more closely. Riding in the crisp, cool 

 air of autumn, we would spy the first Snow-buntings, Plectro- 

 phenax n. nivalis of the season, together with a belated Bluebird; 

 further on, several Pine Grosbeaks, Pinicola enucleagor leucura, 

 would be eating of the sumac berries, or a Goshawk would be 

 seen foraging. Thus hardly a minute passed without some in- 

 teresting fact to note, to be afterwards duly recorded in the 

 notebook and "ledger". In spring, one would hear from the 

 moss-covered stumps in the woods on either side of the road 

 the exquisite song of the Winter Wren, a well-modulated, sustained 

 performance in an extremely high pitch, making the impression 

 of a slender thread of silver being woven or spun over the dark 

 green hemlock and spruce boughs. The Hermit Thrush and 

 Veery would add their charming chorus while a Pilated or Arctic 

 Three-toed Woodpecker would keep tune with his hammered 

 tattoo. Nature lovers and nature students are often popularly 

 looked upon as cranks, are termed ' ' nuts" or whatever slang happens 

 to be in vogue, especially if your nature person be an entomologist, 

 sweeping about him with an insect-net, or your botanically in- 

 clined one, going out with a vasculum. Even a physician once 

 opened a vasculum of a friend of mine who was returning from 

 an outing, and, seeing the plants inside, asked, "Have these 

 any commercial value?" — these people are really to be pitied. 

 They are surrounded by beautiful, interesting things, but see and 



