AT NATURAL BRIDGE 261 



discussion or argument. I must go again to 

 Lincoln Heights. The thought of the female 

 cerulean warbler and her nest would not 

 suffer me to do anything else. But for that 

 matter, I should probably have taken the 

 same path had I never seen her. The trees, 

 the prospects, and the general birdiness of 

 the place were of themselves an irresistible 

 attraction. On the way I skirted a grove of 

 small pines, standing between the road and 

 the edge of Cedar Creek ravine : dull, scrubby 

 trees, like pitch-pines, but less bright in color ; 

 of the same kind as those amid which, on 

 Cameron Hill and Lookout Mountain, in 

 Tennessee, there had been so notable a gath- 

 ering of warblers the year before. Pinus 

 pungens^ Table Mountain pine, I suppose 

 they were, though it must be acknowledged 

 that I was never at the pains to settle the 

 point. Here at Natural Bridge I had found 

 all such woods deserted day after day, till I 

 had ceased to think them worth looking" into. 

 Now, however, as I idled past, I caught the 

 faint sibilant notes of a bird-song, and 

 stopped to listen. Not a blackpoll's, I said 

 to myself, but wonderfully near it. And 

 then it flashed into my mind what a friend 



