Vit 
THE INVITATION 
you ago, when quite a youth, I was ram- 
bling in the woods one Sunday, with my 
brothers, gathering black birch, wintergreens, etc., 
when, as we reclined upon the ground, gazing 
vaguely up into the trees, I caught sight of a bird, 
that paused a moment on a branch above me, the 
like of which I had never before seen or heard of. 
It was probably the blue yellow-backed warbler, as 
I have since found this to be a common bird in 
those woods; but to my young fancy it seemed like 
some fairy bird, so curiously marked was it, and so 
new and unexpected. I saw it a moment as the 
flickering leaves parted, noted the white spot on its 
wing, and it was gone. How the thought of it 
clung to me afterward! It was a revelation. It 
was the first intimation I had had that the woods 
we knew so well held birds that we knew not at all. 
Were our eyes and ears so dull, then? There was 
the robin, the blue jay, the bluebird, the yellow- 
bird, the cherry-bird, the catbird, the chipping- 
bird, the woodpecker, the high-hole, an occasional 
redbird, and a few others, in the woods or along 
their borders, but who ever dreamed that there were 
