94 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



most part sitting still (which is pretty good 

 after-dinner ornithology), and had just taken 

 the road again when a bevy of talkative 

 chickadees came straggling down the rim of 

 the swamp, flitting from one tree to another, 

 — a morsel here and a morsel there, — after 

 their usual manner while on the march. 

 Now, then, for a few migratory warblers, 

 which always may be looked for in such com- 

 pany. 



True to the word, my glass was hardly in 

 play before a bay-breast showed himself, in 

 magnificent plumage ; then came a Black- 

 burnian, also in high feather, handsomer 

 even than the bay-breast, but less of a rar- 

 ity; and then, all in a flash, I caught a 

 glimpse of some bright-colored, black-and- 

 yellow bird that, almost certainly, from an 

 indefinable something half seen about the 

 head, could not be a magnolia. " That 

 should be a Cape May ! " I said aloud to 

 myself. Even as I spoke, however, he was 

 out of sight. Down the road I went, trying 

 to keep abreast of the flock, which moved 

 much too rapidly for my comfort. Again I 

 saw what might have been the Cape May, but 



