A NOOK IN THE ALLEGHANIES 193 



what lively interest in another bird, one so 

 much an old story to me for many years 

 that of itself its presence or absence here 

 would scarcely have received a second 

 thought. I speak of the blue golden-winged 

 warbler. It is common in Massachusetts, 

 — in that part of it, at least, where I happen 

 to live, — and I have found it abundant in 

 eastern Tennessee. That it should be at 

 home here in southwestern Virginia, so near 

 the Tennessee line and in a country so well 

 adapted to its tastes, would have appeared 

 to me the most natural thing in the world. 

 But when I had noted my first specimens — 

 on this same Sunday afternoon — and was 

 back at the hotel, I took up the catalogue to 

 check the name ; and there I found the bird 

 entered as a rare migrant, with only one 

 record of its capture in Virginia proper, and 

 that near Washington. Dr. Rives had never 

 met with it ! 



This was on the 28th of April. Two days 

 later I noticed one or two more, — probably 

 two, but there was no certainty that I had 

 not run upon the same bird twice ; and on 

 the morning of May 1, in a last hurried visit 

 to the woods, I saw two together. All were 



