178 VIRGINIA 



bunch of the barren strawberry, with hepat- 

 ica, fringed polygala, mitrewort, bloodroot, 

 and a pretty show of a remarkably large 

 and handsome chickweed, of which I had 

 seen much also in other places, — Stellaria 

 puhera^ or " great chickweed," as I made it 

 out. 



I was admiring these lowly beauties as I 

 idled along (there was little else to admire 

 just then, the wood being scrubby and the 

 ground lately burned over), when I came to 

 a standstill at the sound of a strange song 

 from the bushy hillside a few paces behind 

 me. The bird, whatever it was, had let me 

 go by, — as birds so often do, — and then 

 had broken out into music. I turned back 

 at once, and made short work of the mys- 

 tery, — a worm-eating warbler. Thanks to 

 the fire, there was no cover for it, had it de- 

 sired any. I had seen a bird of the same 

 species a few days previously on the oppo- 

 site side of the town, — looking like a red- 

 eyed vireo rigged out with a fanciful striped 

 head-dress, — and sixteen years before I had 

 fallen in with a few specimens in the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, but this was my first 

 hearing of the song. The queer little crea- 



