grateful bird students would b9 If tho colo¬ 
nies had only been moved to declare their in¬ 
dependence a month and a half earlier, and 
the 4th of July came on May 22! 
I did hear one bird that morning on my 
way to the train, with which I hope to con¬ 
found more fortunate observers when they 
attempt to irritate me by an account of their 
successes. 
Parulas, of course, were everywhere, 
and in my neighbor’s evergreen's I heard 
the cheerful Interrogative of a black and 
yellow warbler. Then came a little splut¬ 
tering performance which at first puzzled 
me, but in a moment I remembered the 
song of the Wilson’s blackcap. His 
cousin, the Canada warbler, was in the 
same tree, a sycamore maple, which, by 
the way, I can recommend to all bird 
lovers, for its leaves are inhabited by 
multitudes of aphides which are extreme¬ 
ly attractive to migrating warblers. An 
olive-backed thrush and a water-thrush 
were singing in the next yard, their songs 
seeming strangely out of place where 
there were neither dark spruces nor 
swampy lowland. All these birds, how¬ 
ever, though charming, would, I knew, 
be of no avail against the person who, 
after a whole morning’s search, would 
attack me with one prize after another. 
Ju-st then a song, beginning like a black 
poll’s, but changing quickly to a higher 
key and increasing In rapidity, brought 
me hurriedly to a line of larches, from 
which the sound came. One glance at 
the whitish underparts, the olive-green 
back and the sharp, slender bill identified 
the singer as the Tennessee warbler, one 
of the four so-called rare warblers,—rare, 
that is, in eastern Massachusetts. The 
other three are the bay-breasted, the 
Cape May and the Mourning. The black- 
burnian, though always a prize, is to be 
expected in greater or less numbers 
every year by anyone who is out a great 
deal in a country where migrants 
abound. 
A lover of birds is on the watch for 
them at all times. He notes some inter¬ 
esting song, even when apparently ab¬ 
sorbed in a friend’s conversation; in the 
agony of a dentist’s chair, I have known 
a migrating hawk to bring solace and re¬ 
lief. In the last fortnight I have experi¬ 
mented with the automobile as an observa¬ 
tory for birds, and I have come to the 
conclusion that I prefer an ox cart. When 
the automobile stops for half an hour, to 
replace a punctured tire, if a wise choice 
is made as to the kind of country where 
the puncture occurs, a good deal can be 
heard, but at the ordinary rate of speed, 
which is easily found by multiplying the 
speed limit of any town by two, the list 
of hirds is confined to those who feed in 
or near the road, and are startled by the 
approaching machine, and to those who 
Inhabit open fields and are conspicuous at 
a distance. Bay-winged buntings fly from 
the dust to the trees at the roadside, 
thrasners and chewinks hurry across apd 
into cover, while bobolinks and kingbirds 
show black and white over the grass. A 
few high-pitched notes may be heard over 
the rumble of the car Just as they pene¬ 
trate in summer through the open win¬ 
dows of a train. Red starts, yellow war¬ 
blers and yellow-throated vireos have 
I voices that carry well, and my only prairie 
I warbler this spring delivered his rasping 
I crescendo from a scrub oak wilderness 
through which an automobile was hurry¬ 
ing me. 
A long trip in a motor-car carries one 
past many a dignified old farmhouse, its 
doorstep shaded by tall, drooping elms, 
over bridges under which some modest 
stream suggests a long course of swamp 
and meadow tor a canoeist’s holiday. It 
takes one, too, past many a village green, 
where the old civilization is fighting a 
losing battle with the new. In the centre 
of every common stands a soldiers’ and 
sailors’ monument each more hideous than 
the last, and after seeing so many in one 
day, one realizes more than ever what a 
misfortune our Civil War has been. 
The eye, in a long ride, enjoys a succes¬ 
sion of the most varied beauties, but we 
are hurried past without a chance to distil 
from the contemplation of each lovely 
scene its true measure of delight. It is 
only the distant prospect as a rapidly 1 
changing panorama that we can take in 
the tender green of the birches relieving 
the dark masses of some cedar-covered 
hillside, or a distant drumlin over whose 
slopes highbush blueberries have spread 
a dozen nameless shades of pink. 
Each tree on a distant hillside is dis¬ 
tinguished now from its neighbor by some 
delicate diversity of tint. “Verweile doch, 
du hist so schon,” must have been in 
many minds during this past week. Every¬ 
thing has an air of freshness, and inno¬ 
cence and hopefu.ness. Nature’s mood at 
this season is like our own at the begin¬ 
ning of a new day. All former failures 
and defeats are forgotten; droughts and 
floods, the ravages of insects and of time, 
though hitherto the common heritage of 
successive years, seem in the flush and con¬ 
fidence of spring, less inevitable. Who 
knows whether the golden age may not 
at last be about to return? 
/ V a ture Abo ut Boston 
XI. 
BT RALPH HOFFMANN 
A little uncertainty sometimes adds 
zest to an expedition. It is often pleas¬ 
ant to start off undecided as to one’s 
goal, ignorant of the route and care- 
l&s.» of the means of transportation A 
canoe trip which I had planned for 
May 30 began with enough vagueness 
as to certain important details to prom¬ 
ise well. The canoe, according to the 
freight receipt, in my pocket, was in 
i at h! ln h gt T T hich 1 had been *>!<* 
, 11® head of navigation on the 
Ipswich River. The map of the Geologi- 
W ln?tn r «r? y ’ hOW0Ver ’ sIl0 'ved a North 
ilmington, not on the Ipswich River but 
tKV Br °0k, on another division 
of the Boston & Maine. Railroad officials 
of the lmt this North Wilmington 
of the Government maps was in point of 
