NATURE LEAVES 



dropped down quickly to the ground in pursuit of 

 an insect, and sat a moment upon the brown surface, 

 giving us a vivid sense of its bright new plumage. 



When the leaves of the trees are just unfolding, 

 or, as Tennyson says, 



" When all the woods stand in a mist of green. 

 And nothing perfect," 



the tide of migrating warblers is at its height. They 

 come in the night, and in the morning the trees are 

 alive with them. The apple-trees are just showing 

 the pink, and how closely the birds inspect them in 

 their eager quest for insect food! One cold, rainy 

 day at this season Wilson's black-cap — a bird that 

 is said to go north nearly to the Arctic Circle — 

 explored an apple-tree in front of my window. It 

 came down within two feet of my face, as I stood by 

 the pane, and paused a moment in its hurry and 

 peered in at me, giving me an admirable view of its 

 form and markings. It was wet and hungry, and it 

 had a long journey before it. What a small body to 

 cover such a distance! 



The black-poll warbler, which one may see about 

 the same time, is a much larger bird and of slower 

 movement, and is colored much like the black and 

 white creeping warbler with a black cap on its head. 

 The song of this bird is the finest in volume and most 

 insectlike of that of any warbler known to me. It 

 is the song of the black and white creeper reduced, 

 high and swelling in the middle and low and faint 



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