142 IN BIRD LAND. 



on the preceding day. They had, as is their wont, 

 come by night from some more southern rendezvous. 

 Among them was the oven-bird or accentor, an- 

 nouncing his presence with his startling song, which 

 at first seemed to come from a distance, but 

 gradually drew nearer, like a voice walking toward 

 me as it grew louder and more accelerated. On 

 account of this quaint ventriloquial quality of voice, 

 the little vocalist is often very difficult to find, and 

 you are sure to look in a dozen places before you 

 at last descry him. What a sedate genius he is, 

 as he sits atilt on a twig, or walks in his leisurely 

 fashion on the leaf-carpeted ground, looking up at 

 you at intervals out of his sage, beady eyes. 



I have hinted that the oven-bird was first seen 

 and then heard. In this respect the habits of 

 different species of birds differ widely. The ac- 

 centors, meadow-larks, orioles, bobolinks, Bewick's 

 wrens, summer warblers, white-crowned sparrows, 

 and some other species usually begin at once to 

 celebrate with paeans their return to their old haunts ; 

 whereas the wood-thrushes, brown thrashers, and 

 white-throated sparrows seem to wait several days 

 after their arrival before they tune their harps, — a 

 diversity of behavior difficult to explain. Scarcely 

 less inexplicable is the fact that some species arrive 

 in scattered flocks, others in battalions and armies, 

 and others still, one by one. My notes made on 

 this day contain this statement : " Yesterday I heard 

 a single call of the red- headed woodpecker ; to-day 

 the woods are full of these birds.'' 



