24 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
attack. I had climbed upon the shoulders of 
the mountain, but its proud head, held high, 
was still out of reach. 
The thrush was one which is common upon 
the upper slopes of the mountains, wholly re¬ 
placing the veery there and probably outnum¬ 
bering the hermit. Its song, while pleasing, is 
not as musically beautiful as that of the hermit, 
nor yet as unique as the veery’s. The hermit 
has three distinct phrases, the veery one, and 
Swainson’s several which are not distinct, but 
rather jumbling reproductions of the same notes. 
If this bird had learned his song for himself, I 
should surmise that he had listened closely to a 
veery and a thrasher, and then tried to model a 
combination of their notes upon the lines of the 
hermit’s exquisite song. Perhaps it was the 
heat and the glare of light on the ledges, or 
perhaps it was a certain dullness in the Swain¬ 
son’s song, at all events I wearied of it and 
sought a higher ledge beyond the pool. 
On this higher ledge, lambkill (Kalmia an - 
gustifolia ) was blooming in great abundance. 
It is a handsome flower, and it goes a little way 
to console us for not having mountain laurel. 
Between two great patches of lambkill and 
flowering diervilla was a level strip of gravel. 
It bore printed on its face an interesting his¬ 
tory. Beginning near the edge of a thicket 
