JULY. 171 



tumn, when the trees are bare, I shall find it and wonder 

 how it was possible that it escaped detection before. The 

 warbling vireos carry worms to a certain tree, and then 

 like lightning-flashes disappear. It is provoking, but at 

 ninety degrees in the shade, what can I do ? I can sit in 

 the beeches and wonder, but never a day's nesting for me 

 in the middle of July. 



Another pair kept closely to the corner of the house, 

 but I found them out at last. Search for a long time had 

 proved futile, but, as has so often happened, what I had 

 in vain hunted for was discovered by accident. A large 

 nocturnal moth, such as one seldom sees during the day, 

 was flying about the upper branches of a tall old locust 

 tree, and had attracted the attention of a cat-bird. I saw 

 them both, the moment the latter made an attack, and 

 was watching the absurd antics of the cat-bird, bewildered 

 as it was by the flapping of the moth's huge wings. The 

 commotion was all too near the vireo's young for that 

 bird's fancy, and its distress led to the discovery of the 

 nest a pretty structure, leaf-hidden and far out of reach. 



Another bird that visits me while in the beeches is 

 the less well known black and white tree-creeping warbler. 

 A long name for a little bird, but nothing else has ever 

 been suggested. It is a warbler, but can scarcely be said 

 to warble ; it creeps all day long among the trees, but in 

 one sense is not a creeper. A nice muddle in the matter 

 of names, but unavoidable. This bird contents itself with 

 a monotonous tzeez tzeez tsis, uttered at irregular inter- 

 vals, and all the while it is intent upon insect hunting. 

 Recently I saw one with a worm wriggling in its beak. It 

 seemed somewhat ill at ease the bird no less than the 

 worm and chirped in a peculiar manner. I happened to 

 be seated upon the ground at the time, and remained 

 motionless, to see what direction the bird would go, for 

 I knew it had a nest. But it would not go, and it dawned 



