the field a few notes that brought all four of us to an instant
standstill. What warbler could that be? Nobody could tell. In fact,
nobody could guess. But, before the youngest of us could surmount the
wall, the singer took wing, flew over our heads far into the woods, and
all was silent. It was too bad; but there would be another day
to-morrow. Meantime, we kept on up the hill, and soon were in the old
forest, listening to bay-breasted warblers, Blackburnians, black-polls,
and so on, while the noise of the mountain brook on our right, a better
singer than any of them, was never out of our ears. "You are going up,"
it said. "I wish you joy. But you see how it is; you will soon have to
come down again."

I took leave of my companions at Profile Lake, they having planned an
all-day excursion beyond, and started homeward by myself. Slowly, and
with many stops, I sauntered down the long hill, through the forest (the
stops, I need not say, are commonly the major part of a naturalist's
ramble,--the golden beads, as it were, the walk itself being only the
string), till I reached the spot where we had been serenaded in the
morning by our mysterious stranger. Yes, he was again singing, this time
not far from the road, in a moderately thick growth of small trees,
under which the ground was carpeted with club-mosses, dog-tooth
violets, clintonia, linnaea, and similar plants. He continued to sing,
and I continued to edge my way nearer and nearer, till finally I was
near enough, and went down on my knees. Then I saw him, facing me,
showing white under parts. A Tennessee warbler! Here was good luck
indeed. I ogled him for a long time ("Shoot it," says Mr. Burroughs,
authoritatively, "not ogle it with a glass;" but a man must follow his
own method), impatient to see his back, and especially the top of his
head. What a precious frenzy we fall into at such moments! My knees were
fairly upon nettles. He flew, and I followed. Once more he was under the
glass, but still facing me. How like a vireo he looked! For one instant
I thought, Can it be the Philadelphia vireo? But, though I had never
seen that bird, I knew its song to be as different as possible from the
notes to which I was listening. After a long time the fellow turned to
feeding, and now I obtained a look at his upper parts,--the back olive,
the head ashy, like the Nashville warbler. That was enough. It was
indeed the Tennessee (_Helminthophila peregrina_), a bird for which I
ha