48 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
arrayed in white, and contrasted pleasantly with the 
moose-wood and spice bushes, with their jackets of yel- 
low. As the cars went by the patches of woods, the 
trilliums showed their white cups, and the erythroniums 
nodded gracefully amid their spotted leaves. Thrifty 
bunches of cowslips, or marsh marigolds, in the wet 
meadows were crowned with shining yellow blossoms, 
and women were picking the bitter but palatable leaves 
for greens. Nearing Portage, one could readily see the 
effects of the greater altitude in the more backward 
foliage, especially that of the oaks. The cars had 
hardly left the station at Portage, when a pair of blue 
birds on the telegraph . wires caroled a pleasant song. 
A Hudsonian sparrow in a lilac bush tinkled his silvery 
bell, while the mate sharply chirped her dissatisfaction 
at something going on wrong about them. The chirp- 
ing of these birds is quite different from that of other 
sparrows, and reveals their presence oftener than their 
songs. I have found several of their nests in this 
neighborhood. The English sparrows have taken pos- 
session of the evergreens in front of the hotel, and 
driven out the purple finches that for several years past 
have nested in the balsams. The finches, however, are 
_in the groves back of the house, and were merrily sing- 
ing during most of the day. The red-eyed vireos, 
cheerful and loud, were talking to one another in the 
tree-tops, and one listening to their half questioning, 
half expostulatory musical discourse, could readily 
understand why Wilson Flagg called them the “ Little 
Preachers.” The softer, sweeter voices of the warbling 
