102 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



amid the green foliage like a living coal of fire. 

 The black poll warbler is an easy bird to identify; 

 but do not expect to recognise it when it returns 

 from the North in the fall. Its black crown has 

 disappeared, and in general it looks like a dif- 

 ferent bird. 



At the present time when the dogwood blossoms 

 are in their full perfection, and the branches and 

 twigs of the trees are not yet hidden, but their 

 outlines only softened by the light, feathery foli- 

 age, the tanagers and orioles have their day. 

 Nesting cares have not yet made them fearful of 

 showing their bright plumage, and scores of the 

 scarlet and orange forms play among the 

 branches. 



The flycatchers and vireos now appear in force 

 — ^little hunters of insects clad in leafy greens and 

 browns, with now and then a touch of brightness 

 — as in the yellow-throated vireo or in the crest 

 of the kingbird. 



The lesser sandpipers, both the spotted and the 

 solitary, teeter along the brooks and ponds, and 

 probe the shallows for tiny worms. Near the 

 woody streams the so-called water thrushes 

 spring up before us. Strange birds these, in ap- 

 pearance like thrushes, in their haimts and in 

 their teetering motion like sandpipers, but ini 

 reality belonging to the same family as the tree- 

 loving wood warblers. A problem not yet ^i.olved 

 by ornithologists is : what was the mode of life of 



