READING A CHECK-LIST 



of that name for three years, but if it were ten 

 times as long, you could still see it plainly. Well 

 as you know it, however, you had forgotten what 

 a traveler it has been found to be. A bird of the 

 Eastern States, you would have said; but the 

 Check- List tells you that it breeds as far west as 

 Minnesota, and has been known to wander to 

 " Arizona, Greenland, and Europe " : and you re- 

 call (an event too recent for record in the Check- 

 List) that a friend has told you of having taken 

 one within a few months on the Farallon Islands ! 

 Think of that for a bird so small, and, as you would 

 have thought, from all you have seen of it, so little 

 enterprising. 



The frail thing must have strayed far out 

 of its course while migrating, and then been 

 caught in a gale, you suppose, and swept out on 

 the Pacific. There, hard beset and ready to per- 

 ish, it descried a rock jutting up out of the wil- 

 derness of water, and with a grateful heart dropped 

 down upon it, safe at last — only to have its life 

 blown out by this devotee of science. 



The Farallon Islands, Greenland, and Europe ! 

 Strange over-sea and cross-country journeyings, 

 surely, for our little four- or five- inch warbler. As 

 you think of it, you can see its black throat and 

 golden cheeks, and hear again that most musi- 

 cally hoarse, drowsy voice repeating, out of the 

 i6s 



