SOME TENNESSEE BIBB NOTES. 197 



against me, but I bethought myself of Mr. 

 Brewster's " Ornithological Reconnaissance 

 in Western North Carolina," and there I 

 read,^ " The open oak woodlands, so preva- 

 lent in this region, are in every way adapted 

 to the requirements of the oven-bird, and 

 throughout them it is one of the common- 

 est and most characteristic summer birds." 

 " Open oak woodlands " is exactly descrip- 

 tive of the Walden's Ridge forest ; and east- 

 ern Tennessee and western North Carolina 

 being practically one, I resume my assured 

 belief (personal and of no authority) that 

 the birds I saw and heard were, as I first 

 thought, natives of the mountain. Birds 

 which are at home have, as a rule, an air 

 of being at home ; a certain manner hard 

 to define, but felt, nevertheless, as a pretty 

 strong kind of evidence — not proof — by a 

 practiced observer. 



Several of the more northern species of 

 the warbler family manifested an almost ex- 

 clusive preference for patches of evergreens. 

 I have elsewhere detailed my experience in 

 a grove of stunted pines on Lookout Moun- 

 tain. A similar growth is found on Cam- 

 ^ The Auk, vol. iii. p. 175. 



