A NOOK IN THE ALLEGHANIES 189 



made out, the vivid yellow of the inner bark 

 furnishing a clue which spared me the labor 

 of a formal " analysis." It was Xanthoi^- 

 rhiza ajn {folia, shrub yellow-root, — a name 

 long familiar to my eye from having been 

 read so many times in turning the leaves of 

 the Manual, on one hunt and another. With 

 a new song and a new flowering plant, the 

 mountain road had used me pretty well, after 

 all my neglect of it. 



My one new bird at Pulaski — and the 

 only one seen in Virginia — was stumbled 

 upon in a grassy field on the farther border 

 of the town. I had set out to spend an hour 

 or two in a small wood beyond the brickyard, 

 and was cutting the corner of a field by a 

 footpath, still feeling myself in the city, and 

 not yet on the alert, when a bird flew up 

 before me, crossed the street, and dropped 

 on the other side of the wall. Half seen as 

 it was, its appearance suggested nothing in 

 particular ; but it seemed not to be an Eng- 

 lish sparrow, — too common here, as it is 

 getting to be everywhere, — and of course it 

 might be worth attention. It is one capital 

 advantage of being away from home that we 

 take additional encouragement to investigate 



