A BIRD-GAZER AT THE CANON 



Thoreau tells us — to call the chickadee Kcecun- 

 nilessu. 



The gray titmouse is gray throughout, eschew- 

 ing all ornament except a smart little backward- 

 pointing crest of gray feathers. In general shape, 

 and especially in something about the setting 

 of the eye, it suggests that monotonous and per- 

 sistent whistler, the tufted tit of the Southeast- 

 ern States. Both these novelties, as well as 

 the slender-billed nuthatch (the common white- 

 breasted nuthatch, with variations, especially of 

 a vocal sort), which seemed to be traveling with 

 them, were to prove regular, every-day birds in 

 the forest hereabout. 



All in all, whatever he might yet think of the 

 Canon, our rambler's first day on its rim could 

 be accepted as fairly successful, with five new 

 species added to his slender stock of ornitho- 

 logical knowledge. 



The next morning, bright and early (or rather 

 dark and early, for he had breakfasted and was in 

 the woods long before sunrise), he took the road 

 in the opposite direction. He would go to Rowe's 

 Point, — another natural observatory to which 

 all guests of the hotel are presumed to drive, 

 — partly to see the Canon, and partly to see 

 the forest and its inhabitants. The trees, as 

 has been said, are mostly — almost entirely — 

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