rs, of whom I had before had only casual
glimpses,--the mourning warbler and the bay-breasted. The former was
singing his loud but commonplace ditty within a few rods of the piazza
on one side of the house, while his congener, the Maryland
yellow-throat, was to be heard on the other side, along with the
black-cap (_Dendroeca striata_), the black-and-yellow, and the
Canadian flycatcher. The mourning warbler's song, as I heard it, was
like this: _Whit whit whit_, _wit wit_. The first three notes were
deliberate and loud, on one key, and without accent. The last two were
pitched a little lower, and were shorter, with the accent on the first
of the pair; they were thinner in tone than the opening triplet, as is
meant to be indicated by the difference of spelling.[8] Others of the
family were the golden-crowned thrush, the small-billed water-thrush,
the yellow-rumped, the Blackburnian (with his characteristic _zillup_,
_zillup_, _zillup_), the black-throated green, the black-throated blue
(the last with his loud, coarse _kree_, _kree_, _kree_), the redstart,
and the elegant blue yellow-back. Altogether, they were a gorgeous
company.

But the chief singers were the olive-backed thrushes and the winter
wrens. I should be glad to know on just what principle the olive-backs
and their near relatives, the hermits, distribute themselves throughout
the mountain region. Each species seems to have its own sections, to
which it returns year after year, and the olive-backed, being, as is
well known, the more northern species of the two, naturally prefers the
more elevated situations. I have found the latter abundant near the
Profile House, and for three seasons it has had exclusive possession of
the White Mountain Notch,--so far, at least, as I have been able to
discover.[9] The hermits, on the other hand, frequent such places as
North Conway, Gorham, Jefferson, Bethlehem, and the vicinity of the
Flume. Only once have I found the two species in the same neighborhood.
That was near the Breezy Point House, on the side of Mount Moosilauke;
but this place is so peculiarly romantic, with its noble amphitheatre of
hills, that I could not wonder neither species was willing to yield the
ground entirely to the other; and even here it was to be noticed that
the hermits were in or near the sugar-grove, while the Swainsons were in
the forest, far off in an opposite direction.[10]

It is these birds, if any, whose music reaches the ears of the ordi