96 OBCHARD KNOB. 



on their way to New Hampshire, perhaps, or 

 it might be to upper Michigan ; and not far 

 from the entrance, and almost directly under 

 the mocking-bird, were two or three white- 

 crowned sparrows, the only ones found in 

 Tennessee. On an earlier visit (April 29) 

 I saw here my only Tennessee robins — 

 five birds ; and most welcome they were. 

 Months afterward, a resident of Missionary 

 Ridge wrote to me that a pair had nested in 

 the cemetery that year, though to his great 

 regret he did not know of it till too late. 

 He had never seen a robin's nest, he added, 

 and was acquainted with the bird only as a 

 migrant. Such are some of the deprivations 

 of life in eastern Tennessee. May and June 

 without robins or song sparrows ! 



On the last of my three visits, a small 

 flock of black-poll warblers were in the trees, 

 and two of them gave me a pleasant little 

 surprise by dropping to the ground, and 

 feeding for a long time upon the lawn. 

 That was something new for black-polls, so 

 far as my observation had gone, and an en- 

 couraging thing to look at: another sign, 

 where all signs are welcome, that the life of 

 birds is less strictly instinctive — less a mat- 



