AT NATURAL BRIDGE 231 



the matter of birds. There I registered 

 six new arrivals in half an hour Wednesday- 

 morning ; here I have made but six additions 

 to my list in two full days. There is scarcely 

 a sign of warbler migration. Was it that in 

 Pulaski the woods were comparatively small, 

 and the birds had to congregate in them ? 

 Or does Pulaski lie in a route of migration ? " 

 Wild surmises, both of them ; but wisdom 

 is not to be looked for in a fever patient. 



" Six additions in two full days," I wrote ; 

 but the second day was not yet full. As 

 evening: came on I went out to stand awhile 

 upon the bridge ; and while I listened to the 

 brawling: of the creek and admired the 

 beautiful scene below me, the moon shining 

 straight down upon it, a nighthawk called 

 from the sky, and afterward — not from the 

 sky — a whippoorwill. Here, then, were two 

 more names for my catalogue ; but even so, 

 — six or eight, — it was a beggarly rate of 

 increase in such a favored spot and in the 

 very nick of the season. The " six addi- 

 tions," it may ease the reader's curiosity to 

 know, were the Carolina wren, the summer 

 tanager, the purple finch, the indigo bunting, 

 the blue-gray gnatcatcher, and the phoebe. 



