WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. I I9 



and the sentiment expressed is eminently that of 

 cheerfulness." 



His brother, the warbling vireo, much resembles 

 him in color, oftener frequenting the orchards and 

 cultivated lands, and has a note almost exactly 

 like the purple finch, perhaps not so clear and 

 loud, but with the same religious intonations. 



As this boggy tract becomes narrower, the land 

 is made higher by the gradual and continual de- 

 posit of silt from the stream above, and so the cat- 

 tails are replaced by patches of sweet flag and 

 flower-de-luce, until finally, as you proceed, the 

 sedges grow, and the army of elders, viburnums, 

 cornels, alders and swamp roses have thrown out 

 their skirmish lines, and planted their standards at 

 the heels of the retreating columns of the aquatic 

 herbs, which wave their swords and pikes over their 

 shoulders as they slowly retire from the on-coming 

 foe. 



Probably in this swamp, there are more long- 

 billed marsh wrens than can be found in any other 

 particular locality within a radius of thirty miles, 

 and as you walk along the shore, you scare up, at 

 almost every rod, a pair or two of these singular 

 birds, that show their rusty brown backs and 

 wings, as they flutter above the reeds for half a 



