BIRCH BROWSINGS. 181 



When we lay down, there was apparently not a mos- 

 quito in the woods ; but the " no-see-ems," as Tho- 

 reau's Indian aptly named the midges, soon found us 

 out, and after the fire had gone down annoyed us 

 much. My hands and wrists suddenly began to smart 

 and itch in a most unaccountable manner. My first 

 thought was that they had been poisoned in some way. 

 Then the smarting extended to my neck and face, even 

 to my scalp, when I began to suspect what was the 

 matter. So wrapping myself up more thoroughly, and 

 stowing my hands away as best I could, I tried to 

 sleep, being some time behind my companions, who 

 appeared not to mind the " no-see-ems." I was fur- 

 ther annoyed by some little irregularity on my side of 

 the couch. The chambermaid had not beaten it up 

 well. One huge lump refused to be mollified, and 

 each attempt to adapt it to some natural hollow in my 

 own body brought only a moment's relief. But at last 

 I got the better of this also and slept. Late in the 

 night I woke up, just in time to hear a golden-crowned 

 thrush sing in a tree near by. It sang as loud and 

 cheerily as at midday, and I thought myself, after all, 

 quite in luck. Birds occasionally sing at night, just 

 as the cock crows. I have heard the hair-bird, and 

 the note of the king-bird ; and the ruffed grouse fre- 

 quently drums at night. 



At the first faint signs of day, a wood-thrush sang 

 a few rods below us. Then after a little delay, as the 

 gray light began to grow around, thrushes broke out 



