IN THE HEMLOCKS. 53 



bird throws a mystery about him which neither his 

 good looks nor his petty larcenies in cherry time can 

 dispel. A bird's .song contains a clew to its life, and 

 establishes a sympathy, an understanding, between 

 itself and the listener. 



I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks 

 through a large sugar-bush. When twenty rods dis- 

 tant, I hear all along the line of the forest the inces- 

 sant warble of the red-eyed fly-catcher ( Vireosylvia 

 olivacea), cheerful and happy as the merry whistle of 

 a school-boy. He is one of our most common and 

 widely distributed birds. Approach any forest at 

 any hour of the day, in any kind of weather, from 

 May to August, in any of the Middle or Eastern dis- 

 tricts, and the chances are that the first note you hear 

 will be his. Rain or shine, before noon or after, in 

 the deep forest or in the village grove, when it is 

 too hot for the thrushes or too cold and windy for 

 the warblers, it is never out of time or place for 

 this little minstrel to indulge his cheerful strain. In 

 the deep wilds of the Adirondac, where few birds 

 are seen and fewer heard, his note was almost con- 

 stantly in my ear. Always busy, making it a point 

 never to suspend for one moment his occupation to in- 

 dulge his musical taste, his lay is that of industry and 

 contentment. There is nothing plaintive or especially 

 musical in his performance, but the sentiment ex 

 pressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, 

 &e songs of most birds have some human signifi- 

 tance, which, I think, is the source of the delight we 



