BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND PEOPLE 127 



tage of new local conditions — an increase 

 of shrubby clearings, in the present case — 

 within the last ten years. Here, as every- 

 where, the presence of some birds and the 

 absence of others were provocative of ques- 

 tions. Why should the Kentucky warbler 

 sing from rhododendron thickets halfway 

 up the slope at the head of Horse Cove, and 

 never be tempted into other thickets, in all 

 respects like them, just over the brow of 

 the cliff, 500 feet higher? Why should the 

 summer yellow-bird, which pushes its hardy 

 spring flight beyond the Arctic circle, re- 

 strict itself here in the Carolinas to the low 

 valley lands (I saw it at Walhalla and in 

 the Cullowhee Valley), and never once 

 choose a nesting -site in appropriate sur- 

 roundings at a little higher level? Why 

 should the chat and the blue golden-wing 

 find life agreeable at Highlands, and their 

 regular neighbors, the prairie warbler and 

 the white-eyed vireo, so persistently refuse 

 to follow them ? And why, in the first half 

 of May, was there so strange a dearth 

 of migrants in these attractive mountain 

 woods ? — a few blackpoll warblers (last 

 seen on the 18th), a single myrtle-bird (on 



