302 RIVERBY 



tain notes by the words, "Sweetheart, sweetheart, 

 sweet. " 



Day after day and week after week, till the frosts 

 of the late October came, the bird tarried in that 

 spot, confining his wanderings to a very small area 

 and calling and warbling at all hours. From my 

 summer-house I could often hear his voice rise up 

 from under the hill, seeming to fill all the space 

 down there with sound. What brought this soli- 

 tary bird there, so far from the haunts of his kind, 

 I know not. Maybe he was simply spying out the 

 land, and will next season return with his mate. 

 Mockingbirds have wandered north as far as Con- 

 necticut, and were found breeding there by a collec- 

 tor, who robbed them of their eggs. The mocking 

 wren would be a great acquisition to our northern 

 river banks and bushy streams. It is the largest 

 of our wrens, and in the volume and variety of its 

 notes and the length of its song season surpasses all 

 others. 



A lover of nature never takes a walk without 

 perceiving something new and interesting. All life 

 in the winter woods or fields as revealed upon the 

 snow, how interesting it is. I recently met a busi- 

 ness man who regularly goes camping to the Maine 

 woods every winter from the delight he has in vari- 

 ous signs of wild life written upon the snow. His 

 morning paper, he says, is the sheet of snow which 

 he reads in his walk. Every event is chronicled, 

 every new arrival registers his name, if you have 

 eyes to read it! 



