218 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



ing, I forgot that I was wet and tired and hungry 

 and bitten and stung. For the first time I listened 

 to the song of the winter wren. For years I had met 

 this little bird along the sides of brooks in the winter 

 and running in and out of holes and under stones 

 like a mouse; but to-day to me it was no longer a 

 tiny bird. It was the voice of the untamed, unknown 

 northern woods. It is hard to make any notation of 

 the song. It flowed like some ethereal stream filled 

 with little bubbles of music which broke in glassy 

 tinkling sprays of sound over the under-current of 

 the high vibrating melody itself. The song seemed 

 to have two parts. The first ended in a contralto 

 phrase, while the second soared like a fountain into 

 a spray of tinkling trills. Through it all ran a strange 

 unearthly dancing lilt, such as the fairy songs must 

 have had, heard by wandering shepherds at the 

 edge of the green fairy hills. At its very height the 

 melody suddenly ceased, and once again I dropped 

 back into a workaday, mosquito-ridden world, with 

 ten miles between me and my camp. 



On that day I found two of the almost unknown, 

 feather-lined nests of the yellow palm warbler, and 

 climbed up to the jewel-casket of a bay-breasted 

 warbler, and was shown the cherished secret of a 

 Nashville warbler's nest deep hidden in the sphag- 

 num moss of a little tussock in the middle of a path- 

 less morass. Yet my great adventure was the song of 

 the winter wren. 



It was under quite different circumstances that I 

 last heard the best winter singer of all. Never was 



