5 6 IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



step toward them, when, quick as thought, their eyes 

 fly wide open, their attitude is changed, they bend, 

 some this way, some that, and, instinct with life and 

 motion, stare wildly around them. Another step, and 

 they all take flight but one, which stoops low on the 

 branch, and with the look of a frightened cat regards 

 me for a few seconds over its shoulder. They fly 

 swiftly and softly, and disperse through the trees. I 

 shoot one, which is of a tawny red tint, like that figured 

 by Wilson, who mistook a young bird for an old one. 

 The old birds are a beautiful ashen gray mottled with 

 black. In the present instance, they were sitting on 

 the branch with the young. 



Coming to a drier and less mossy place in the 

 woods, I am amused with the golden-crowned thrush, — 

 which, however, is no thrush at all, but a warbler, the 

 Sciurus aurocapillus. He walks on the ground ahead 

 of me with such an easy gliding motion, and with such 

 an unconscious, preoccupied air, jerking his head like 

 a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, now slackening his 

 pace, that I pause to observe him. If I sit down, he 

 pauses to observe me, and extends his pretty ram- 

 blings on all sides, apparently very much engrossed 

 with his own affairs, but never losing sight of me. But 

 few of the birds are walkers, most being hoppers, like 

 the robin. 



Satisfied that I have no hostile intentions, the pretty 

 pedestrian mounts a limb a few feet from the ground, 

 and gives me the benefit of one of his musical perform- 



