SMALL BIRD TALK 525 



The autumn song is as quick and nervous almost 

 as that of a red-start and does not, as a rule, re- 

 semble in the least the canary-like notes I have 

 heard from the same birds in the springtime, but 

 the other day, September loth, at Rowland Station 

 1 heard one singing in great form and much better 

 than the canary. 



Up to the middle of August the robins, 

 catbirds, and indigo-finches have been singing, 

 and along the lake edge in the evening dozens 

 of invisible birds sang an indescribably sweet, 

 plaintive melody, but I was unable to see the little 

 musicians. 



Last July Mr. Elmer Greger and Harold Wil- 

 liams from Forest Lake Club came over and Mr. 

 Fred Vreeland went with us in canoes' to the 

 outlet of Big Tink. We forced our way along the 

 outlet until we became so hopelessly entangled in 

 the jungle that we left the canoes in the top of a 

 fallen tree and made our way through the bog 

 among high ferns, tussocks of grass, alders, yel- 

 low birch trees and thickets of briars, until we 

 found the trail to the cranberry "mash," where 

 the wild calla grow in patches and in the path on 

 the floating mass of entwined roots of cranberry, 

 sphagnum moss and tamarack, the tall green and 

 red woody blossom of the pitcher-plants rear their 

 heads, while here and there are the beautiful rare 

 orchids, the purple-pink long-leaf, and the more 

 delicate but scarcely more beautiful salmon pink- 



