AT NATURAL BRIDGE 263 



creature — olive and bright yellow, boldly 

 marked with black and white — remained 

 the whole time in one tree, traveling over 

 the limbs in a rather listless fashion, and 

 singing almost incessantly. He was my 

 hundredth Virginia bird, — as my list then 

 stood, question marks included, — and the 

 second one whose song I had heard for the 

 first time on this vacation trip. The day 

 had begun prosperously. 



After such a stirring up, a man's ears are 

 apt to be abnormally sensitive, not to say 

 imaginative ; then, if ever, he will hear won- 

 ders : for which reason, it may be, I had 

 turned but a corner or two before I was 

 stopped by another set of notes, a strain 

 that I knew, or felt that I ought to know, 

 but could not place a name upon at the mo- 

 ment. This bird, too, was run down with- 

 out difficulty, and proved to be a magnolia 

 warbler, — another yellow - rump, like the 

 Cape May and the myrtle-bird. The song, 

 unlike its owner, is but slightly marked, and 

 to make matters worse, is heard by me only 

 in the season of the bird's spring passage ; 

 but I laughed at myself for not recognizing 

 it. I was still in a mood for discoveries, 



