ite in luck.
Birds occasionally sing at night, just as the cock crows. I have heard
the hairbird, and the note of the kingbird; and the ruffed grouse
frequently drums at night.

[Illustration: A BIRD SONG]

At the first faint signs of day a wood-thrush sang, a few rods below
us. Then after a little delay, as the gray light began to grow around,
thrushes broke out in full song in all parts of the woods. I thought I
had never before heard them sing so sweetly. Such a leisurely, golden
chant!--it consoled us for all we had undergone. It was the first
thing in order,--the worms were safe till after this morning chorus. I
judged that the birds roosted but a few feet from the ground. In fact,
a bird in all cases roosts where it builds, and the wood thrush
occupies, as it were, the first story of the woods.

There is something singular about the distribution of the wood
thrushes. At an earlier stage of my observations I should have been
much surprised at finding it in these woods. Indeed, I had stated in
print on two occasions that the wood thrush was not found in the
higher lands of the Catskills, but that the hermit thrush and the
veery, or Wilson's thrush, were common. It turns out that this
statement is only half true. The wood thrush is found also, but is
much more rare and secluded in its habits than either of the others,
being seen only during the breeding season on remote mountains, and
then only on their eastern and southern slopes. I have never yet in
this region found the bird spending the season in the near and
familiar woods, which is directly contrary to observations I have made
in other parts of the State. So different are the habits of birds in
different localities.

As soon as it was fairly light we were up and ready to resume our
march. A small bit of bread-and-butter and a swallow or two of whiskey
was all we had for breakfast that morning. Our supply of each was very
limited, and we were anxious to save a little of both, to relieve the
diet of trout to which we looked forward.

At an early hour we reached the rock where we had parted with the
guide, and looked around us into the dense, trackless woods with many
misgivings. To strike out now on our own hook, where the way was so
blind and after the experience we had just had, was a step not to be
carelessly taken. The tops of these mountains are so broad, and a
short distance in the woods seems so far, that one is by no means
master of the situati