SWAMP WHITE-OAK BEND. 97 



passing breeze to a lively flame, and my efforts to dis- 

 lodge it proved unavailing. The wren's home, so long 

 a landmark, soon disappeared, and with it the hermit of 

 the hollow oak. 



Again standing upon the creek's bank, I was glad to 

 push my little boat from its moorings, and once more 

 float with the tide, or leisurely pull against it, as the case 

 might be. This morning I could have dropped anchor 

 in mid-stream, so attractive was every feature of my sur- 

 roundings ; and what music is sweeter than the lapping 

 of waves under the boat's bow ? I divided my attention 

 between this and the far-off whistling of a curdinal-red- 

 bird, the flrst I had heard for several weeks. It sang 

 but its own song now, though I have recently learned 

 that this beautiful songster may, after all, be called a 

 "mocking-bird." Early one morning, not long ago, I 

 heard one distinctly and exactly repeat the trisyllabic 

 cry of the whippoorwill, and then conclude the utter- 

 ance, each time, with its own well-known whistling. 

 To most people it would have appeared that a wdiip- 

 poorwill and cardinal were singing at nearly the same 

 time, the latter commencing before the other had fln- 

 ished. The question arises, why should this one cardi- 

 nal imitate another bird, when others quite near by did 

 not do so ? My investigation of this rather forbidding 

 problem proved successful. The rcdbird's home was 

 in a vine-clad birch, and directly beneath lay a mossy, 

 prostrate log, whereon a whippoorwill sat, both day and 

 night, and during the latter season, of course, serenaded 

 the cardinal with a monotonous repetition of the com- 



5 



