6 IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 
far as the bird could be distinguished at all, 
he looked exactly like our common New 
England towhee. Somewhere behind me 
was a kinefisher’s rattle, and from a savanna 
in the same direction came the songs of 
meadow larks; familiar, but with something 
unfamiliar about them at the same time, 
unless my ears deceived me. 
More interesting than any of the birds yet 
named, because more strictly characteristic 
of the place, as well as more strictly new to 
me, were the brown-headed nuthatches. I 
was on the watch for them: they were one 
of the three novelties which I knew were to 
be found in the pine lands, and nowhere else, 
—the other two being the red-cockaded 
woodpecker and the pine-wood sparrow ; and 
being thus on the lookout, I did not expect 
to be taken by surprise, if such a paradox 
(it is nothing worse) may be allowed to pass. 
But when I heard them twittering in the 
distance, as I did almost immediately, I had 
no suspicion of what they were. The voice 
had nothing of that nasal quality, that Yan- 
kee twang, as some people would call it, 
which I had always associated with the nut- 
hatch family. On the contrary, it was de- 
