Til 
THE ADIRONDACKS 
HEN I went to the Adirondacks, which was 
in the summer of 1863, I was in the first 
flush of my ornithological studies, and was curious, 
above all else, to know what birds I should find in 
these solitudes, — what new ones, and what ones 
already known to me. 
In visiting vast, primitive, far-off woods one 
naturally expects to find something rare and pre- 
cious, or something entirely new, but it commonly 
happens that one is disappointed. Thoreau made 
three excursions into the Maine woods, and, though 
he started the moose and caribou, had nothing more 
novel to report by way of bird notes than the songs 
of the wood thrush and the pewee. This was about 
my own experience in the Adirondacks. The birds 
for the most part prefer the vicinity of settlements 
and clearings, and it was at such places that I saw 
the greatest number and variety. 
At the clearing of an old hunter and pioneer by 
the name of Hewett, where we paused a couple of 
days on first entering the woods, I saw many old 
friends and made some new acquaintances. The 
snowbird was very abundant here, as it had been 
