CANADIAN WARBLER. 
Sylvania canadensis RIDGWAY. 
PLaTE XIII. Fic. 8. 
aay, E ARE sometimes told ‘that nature hides her choicest treasures from all but 
Co those who are willing to search for them in the more secret recesses of her 
great laboratory of beauty—that she spreads the indifferent things before the indifferent 
world—and reserves her loveliest for her true lovers.”* With many things this is true, 
but generally speaking, the most beautiful plants and birds are not the rarest. It is 
truer to say that to many eyes the rarest will always seem most beautiful, simply 
because of its rarity. Greater charm than in the single bird and flower lies in the 
arrangements, the compositions, the pictures into which nature weaves them. I do not 
know a bird unless I am acquainted with its haunts, with the flowers, trees, and shrubs 
that grow in the same locality. If we add to this the beauty of a May or June day, 
the mild, balmy air, the fragrance of the flowers, and the song of the many birds, we 
have at once a picture full of enchanting beauty and poetry. There is no greater 
pleasure for the friend of nature than to ramble about in field and forest during the 
greater part of the year. If on a fine June day we pass through masses of gigantic 
ferns, almost coming to our shoulders with their feathery tufts, through patches of 
swamp honey-suckles! red with blossoms, if we listen to the golden e-olie of the 
Wood Thrush, the metallic che-wink of the Towhee, the mellow strain of the Hooded 
Warbler, and the songs of many other birds, we feel at once nature’s powers and her 
poetry. No one understands this poetry who is not familiar with the meadow enlivened 
by rollicking Bobolinks; with the clover fields and pastures from which sounds the 
joyful lay of the Vesper Sparrow; with the secluded corners of the old rail fence, 
well-nigh hidden by poison ivy, blackberry briers, and straggling grape-vines; with the 
trodden paths of the woods, crossed by the Ruffed Grouse, the Towhee, and Ovenbird. 
In the heart of the forest, or the depth of the swamp, or by the tangled margin of the 
lowly rivulet, we also must search amid nature’s little things to find the truly beautiful. 
This is especially true-in regard to plants, but many of our most charming birds must 
be searched for in the same way. 
Many years ago, when rambling about on a bright June morning on our little 
lake near Howard’s Grove, Sheboygan County, Wis., I found in the low woods bordering 
a tamarack and Sphagnum swamp, flowers which I had seldom seen before. My eyes 
met the beautiful and bright forms of the smaller and the larger yellow lady’s slipper’. 
Ferns and other plants, especially huckle and cranberry bushes, grew here in great 
profusion. The peaty soil was everywhere adorned with flowers and ferns, and bird-life 
was abundant. The Swamp Sparrow’s lay was frequently heard, and thunder-like the 
* Compare ‘Garden and Forest.” Vol. I, p- 303, 
1 Azalea, 2 Cypripedium parviforum and C. pubescens. 
