48 LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 



about tlie Craven house was a similar growth 

 of sassafras. I had abeady noticed the ex- 

 treme abundance of sassafras (shrubs rather 

 than trees) in all this country, and especially 

 on Missionary Eidge. 



With my thoughts full of the past, while 

 my senses kept watch of the present, I re- 

 turned slowly to the " incline," where I had 

 five minutes to wait for a downward car. It 

 had been a good day, a day worth remember- 

 ing ; and just then there came to my ear the 

 new voice for which I had been on the alert : 

 a warbler's song, past all mistake, sharp, 

 thin, vivacious, in perhaps eight syllables, 

 — a song more like the redstart's than any- 

 tliing else I could think of. The singer was 

 in a tall tree, but by the best of luck, seeing 

 how short my time was, the opera-glass fell 

 upon him almost of itself, — a hooded war- 

 bler ; my first sight of him in full dress (he 

 might have been rigged out for a masquer- 

 ade, I thought), as it was my first hearing 

 of his song. If it had been also my last 

 hearing of it, I might have written that the 

 hooded warbler, though a frequenter of low 

 thickets, chooses a lofty perch to sing from. 

 So easy is it to generalize ; that is, to tell 



