AT NATURAL BRIDGE 267 



cerulean warblers in full song. I had begun 

 by this time to believe that this rare Vir- 

 ginia species would turn out to be pretty 

 common hereabout in appropriate places. 



Partly to test the truth of this opinion I 

 planned an afternoon trip to a more distant 

 eminence, which, like Buck Hill and Lin- 

 coln Heights, was covered with a deciduous 

 forest. In the valley woods a grouse was 

 drumming — a pretty frequent sound here 

 — and Swainson thrushes were singing. 

 These "New Hampshire thrushes," by the 

 bye, are singers of the most generous sort, 

 not only at home, but on their travels, all 

 statements to the contrary notwithstanding. 

 From May 5 to May 12 — including the 

 latter half of my stay at Natural Bridge, 

 two days at Afton, and one day in the cem- 

 etery woods at Arlington — I have them 

 marked as singing daily, and one day at the 

 Bridge they were heard in four widely sepa- 

 rate places. 



The hill for which I had set out lay on 

 the left of the road, and between me and it 

 stood a row of negro cabins. As I came 

 opposite them I suddenly caught from the 

 hillsides the notes of a Nashville warbler. 



