128 NORTH CAROLINA 



the 7th) , and a crowd of rose-breasted gros- 

 beaks and Blackburnian warblers (on the 

 8th and 9th, especially) being almost the 

 only ones to fall under my notice. After 

 all, one of the best birds I saw, not for- 

 getting the Wilson's phalarope, — my ad- 

 venture with which has been detailed in a 

 previous chapter, — was a song sparrow 

 singing from a dense swampy thicket on the 

 25th of May. So far as I am aware, no 

 bird of his kind has ever before been re- 

 ported in summer from a point so far south. 

 He looked natural, but not in the least com- 

 monplace, as, after a long wait on my part, 

 — for absolute certainty's sake, — he hopped 

 out into sight. I was proud to have made 

 one discovery ! 



In such a place, so limited in the range 

 of its physical conditions, — a village sur- 

 rounded by forest, — the birds, however 

 numerous they might be, counted as indi- 

 viduals, were sure to be of comparatively 

 few species. Omitting such as were cer- 

 tainly, or almost certainly, migrants or 

 strays, — the blackpoll, the myrtle-bird, the 

 barn swallow, the king-bird, the solitary 

 sandpiper, and the phalarope, — and such 



