May 
the past, as also the snow-birds; the hermit 
thrush, too, had gone north, but in a sense the 
wood thrush took its place, and has now begun to 
sing—the queen of song for the remainder of the 
season. The superabundant yellow-rumps have 
slipped away until hardly one is left. For the 
past week there has been hardly anything but 
females to be seen of this species, and they suf- 
fer as painfully as any of their kind from the 
general law compelling the gentler sex to be the 
dull and bleached-out specimens that they are. 
In favor of this ruling of Providence it must be 
confessed that their more neutral tints, in mak- 
ing them less conspicuous, are a safeguard from 
many dangers ; and this, especially in the nesting 
season, conduces materially to the perpetuation 
of the class. But the arrangement reverses 
some of the notions of propriety that obtain in 
the human race, and makes perfect dudes of 
some of the males. 
Lest any reader should weary of the repeated 
allusions to the warblers, it is well for him to 
be, assured that there is no such monotony in 
discovering them. With all their resemblances 
to each other they are in so many ways distinct, 
that each new discovery in this family is as pleas- 
urable a surprise as if it belonged to some other 
159 
