496 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



along the borders of the stream. In these branches 

 some birds had' built their nests, composed entirely 

 of gray lichens, but although we passed a number 

 of newly built nests of this description, we did not 

 get a glimpse of the birds to whom they belonged. 

 In the black spruce forest there was a bird which 

 from the under side appeared to be very similar to 

 our greenlet, but apparently much larger and it 

 had a most remarkable song which began in a 

 very high key with a fine note at 



TSEE EP TEE SEEPE 



then with a full round note chur chur chur 

 chur followed by a rollicking laugh 



HE HE HE HE 



ending up with a 



WEE CHEETA! WEE CHEETA! WEE CHEETA! 

 WEE CHEETA ! 



Each one of the changes in this song sounds like 

 the note of a different bird. There was an in- 

 conspicuous dark-brown sparrow in the trees 

 around the hotel at Roberval which had a sur- 

 prisingly loud, pleasant and altogether an un- 

 familiar song, but even at this place in the com- 

 paratively open country I was unable to get a 

 good enough view of this bird for certain identi- 

 fication, although it was probably a Lincoln spar- 

 row. The field-glass naturalist's place is not in 

 the raw wilderness of the north woods. 



