66 NORTH CAROLINA 



own time, making the trip as natural-histor- 

 ical as I pleased. " It fares better with 

 sentiments not to be in a hurry with them," 

 says Sterne, and the same is true of sciences 

 and other pleasures. Again and again I 

 ordered the horses stopped as we came to 

 some likely piece of cover, but little or no- 

 thing resulted. There were singers in plenty, 

 but no new voices. After all, I said to my- 

 self, one does not study ornithology to any 

 great advantage from a wagon-seat. Yet I 

 remember one lesson — an old one rehearsed 

 — that the morning brought me. 



Soon after getting out of the village we 

 passed Stewart's Pond. This had been one 

 of my most frequent resorts. A considera- 

 ble part of several half-days had been idled 

 away beside it, and more than once I had 

 commented upon the singular fact that its 

 shores, birdy as they were, harbored no 

 water thrushes, while in several similar places 

 I had heard them singing for more than a 

 fortnight. There was something really mys- 

 terious about it, I was inclined to think. 

 The place seemed made for them, unless, 

 perhaps, the damming of the stream had 

 rendered the current too sluggish to suit 



