BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS. 229 



tones as I entered their secluded haunts, but I had 

 not the good fortune to find a nest. Indeed, it 

 was too late to discover any nests at all, except such 

 as had been deserted. But, to my great delight, I 

 found that the jolly juncos breed on the mountain, 

 for there they were carrying food to their little ones, 

 which had left the nursery and were ensconced in 

 the thick foliage. These birds are winter residents 

 in my own neighborhood, but in the spring they hie 

 to this and other localities of the same and higher 

 latitudes to spend the summer. It was refreshing 

 to meet my little winter intimates. They were quite 

 lyrical, but their little trills did not seem any more 

 tuneful here in their breeding-haunts than in their 

 winter residences, especially when Spring pours her 

 subtle essence into their veins. 



Nothing surprised me more than to find song- 

 sparrows on the top of the mountain, whereas they 

 are usually the tenants of the swamps and other low- 

 lands in my neighborhood. Here they were rearing 

 families on the mountain's crest as well as along the 

 streams that laved the mountain's base. They also 

 sang their tinkling roundels in both places, some- 

 times ringing them out so loudly that they could be 

 distinctly heard above the clatter of the street cars. 



At one place, in a cluster of half-dead trees and 

 saplings, a colony of warblers were tilting about ; 

 all of them only migrants about my home in Ohio, 

 but breeding here. There were old and young 

 creeping warblers, the elders singing their trills in 

 lively fashion, and the young ones twittering coax- 



