278 VIRGINIA 



swallows, as might have been foreseen, but 

 the most careful scrutiny revealed nothing 

 beyond the two species already catalogued, 

 — the barn swaUow and the rough-wing. 

 Here, too, in an apple orchard, were a Balti- 

 more oriole gathering straws, a phoebe, a 

 golden warbler, and several warbling vireos, 

 the only ones so far noticed with the excep- 

 tion of a single bird at Pulaski. About the 

 border of the pond were spotted sandpipers 

 (no solitaries, to my disappointment) and 

 two male song sparrows. This last species I 

 saw but twice in Virginia, — along the bushy 

 shore of the creek at Pulaski, and here be- 

 side this millpond. Wherever the song spar- 

 row is scarce, it is likely to be restricted to 

 the immediate neighborhood of water. Even 

 in Massachusetts it is pretty evident that 

 such places are its first choice. As I some- 

 times say, the song sparrow likes a swamp 

 as well as the swamp sparrow; but the 

 species being so exceedingly abundant, there 

 are not swampy spots enough to go round, 

 and the majority of the birds have to shift 

 as they can, along bushy fence-rows and in 

 pastures and scrub-lands. 



The building interested me almost as much 



