m QUEST OF RAVENS 41 



Yankee, as was also the brown creeper that 

 dwelt near by. This same row of hemlocks 



— beside a brook, as Southern hemlocks al- 

 ways are, with a thicket of laurel and rho- 

 dodendron underneath — was also one of the 

 haunts of the olive-sided flycatcher, another 

 Northerner, who chooses the loftiest perch 

 he can find from which to deliver his wild 

 quit-quequeeo. Should this Carolinian re- 

 presentative of a boreal species ever be pro- 

 moted to the dignity of sub-specific rank, 

 as has happened to some of his neighbors, 

 I should bid for the honor of naming him, 



— the hemlock flycatcher. 



By the time I reached this point, on a sul- 

 try morning, I was commonly ready for a 

 breathing-spell, and by good luck here was a 

 most convenient log, on which I used to sit, 

 listening to the bird chorus, and waylaying 

 any socially disposed mountaineer who might 

 chance to come along on his way to the 

 town ; for Highlands, whatever an outsider 

 may think of it, is in its own measure and 

 degree a veritable metropolis.^ The only 

 man who ever failed to halt in response to 



^ All things g-o by comparison. " I always lived in the 

 country till I came here," said my driver to me one day. 



