180 WAKE-—ROBIN 
flight. But as I was at that moment gunless and 
remained stationary, he presently jumped down and 
walked away. 
A seeker of birds, and ever on the alert for 
some new acquaintance, my attention was arrested, 
on first entering the swamp, by a bright, lively 
song, or warble, that issued from the branches over- 
head, and that was entirely new to me, though 
there was something in the tone of it that told me 
the bird was related to the wood-wagtail and to the 
water-wagtail or thrush. The strain was emphatic 
and quite loud, like the canary’s, but very brief. 
The bird kept itself well secreted in the upper 
branches of the trees, and for a long time eluded my 
eye. I passed to and fro several times, and it 
seemed to break out afresh as I approached a cer- 
tain little bend in the creek, and to cease after I 
had got beyond it; no doubt its nest was somewhere 
in the vicinity. After some delay the bird was 
sighted and brought down. It proved to be the 
small, or northern, water-thrush (called also the New 
York water-thrush), —a new bird to me. In size it 
was noticeably smaller than the large, or Louisiana, 
water-thrush, as described by Audubon, but in other 
respects its general appearance was the same. It 
was a great treat to me, and again I felt myself in 
luck. 
This bird was unknown to the older ornitholo- 
gists, and is but poorly described by the new. It 
builds a mossy nest on the ground, or under the 
edge of a decayed log. A correspondent writes me 
