OVENBIRD. 
Seiurus aurocapillus SwAINson. 
Pate XIV. Fic. 6. 
In the swamp in secluded recesses, 
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. 
Sing on! sing on, you gtay-brown bird! 
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour 
Your chant from the bushes. 
O liquid and free and tender! 
O wild and loose to my soul! 
O wondrous singer! 
WaLT WHITMAN. 
ZISHE HEMLOCK, white pine, and spruce woods of central and northern Wisconsin 
q a were in pioneer days much more interesting than they are now. The giants of 
the forest vanished with the Indian and the larger mammals. The change which took 
place within the last thirty-five years is very great. Extensive forests, through which the 
Indian chased the deer and the bear, are now grainfields and meadows. Brooks have 
disappeared, smaller rivers simmered down into brooks. Little has been left of the once 
charming forest flora, and even where the woods were not touched by the axe the 
famous trailing arbutus, winter-green, and ground pine are almost entirely destroyed. 
In many localities of the state where these plants are still common, large quantities 
are collected every year for the market. In my native county where IJ culled these and 
many other delicate flowers in the days of my boyhood, they are rarely met with 
to-day. Ferns grew almost waist high, and the beautiful ground pine! covered the rich 
mould in dense masses. With what ravishment did I follow in those by-gone days the 
cow path or the overgrown wood road in search for the cattle! The bell of the 
leader I could ‘hear plainly not far away, but other things, birds and flowers, always 
attracted my attention more. What a new interest the woods always had and how I 
longed for the months of May and June! Secrets lurked on all sides, mysteries in every 
bush. Expectation was ever on “tip toe.” And this interest for the woods never left 
me. One must taste it to understand its fascination.—I often clamber over soft and 
decayed logs overgrown with ferns and mosses. I force my way through a net-work 
of huckleberry bushes and briers. Leaving the higher coniferous woods I enter a perfect 
bower of June-berry, shad bush, wild crab trees, moosewood, beech, and maple. The 
search for birds, instead for cows, is now my main obje&t. Every new sound is a revelation 
to me. Hark! there, on yonder spring, the liquid song of the Veery sounds through the 
woods. The notes of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Towhee, Wood Thrush, Red-eyed 
Vireo, and the characteristic drumming of the Ruffed Grouse also fall on my ear. What 
an exquisite concert these woodland minstrels offer to the invader of their secret 
recesses! I penetrate a locality where dense masses of underwood and ferns grow. 
1 Lycopodium dendroideum. 
