398 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



normally he was friendly; but the surroundings had cur- 

 dled his temper. 



Usually birds are very regular in their habits, so that 

 not only the same species but the same individuals breed 

 in the same places year after year. In spite of their wings 

 they are almost as local as mammals and the same pair 

 will usually keep to the same immediate neighborhood, 

 where they can always be looked for in their season. 

 There are wooded or brush-grown swampy places not far 

 from the White House where in the spring or summer I 

 can count with certainty upon seeing wrens, chats, and 

 the ground-loving Kentucky warbler, an attractive little 

 bird, which, by the way, itself looks much like a miniature 

 chat. There are other places, in the neighborhood of 

 Rock Creek, where I can be almost certain of finding 

 the blue-gray gnatcatcher, which ranks just next to the 

 humming-bird itself in exquisite daintiness and delicacy. 

 The few pairs of mocking-birds around Washington have 

 just as sharply defined haunts. 



Nevertheless it is never possible to tell when one may 

 run across a rare bird; and even birds that are not rare 

 now and then show marked individual idiosyncrasy in 

 turning up, or even breeding, in unexpected places. At 

 Sagamore Hill, for instance, I never knew a purple finch 

 to breed until the summer of 1906. Then two pairs 

 nested with us, one right by the house and the other near 

 the stable. My attention was drawn to them by the bold, 

 cheerful singing of the males, who were spurred to rivalry 

 by one another's voices. In September of the same year, 

 while sitting in a rocking-chair on the broad veranda 



