to find many nests. A long list of nests found in a season gives
me no pleasure; how many birds belong to a certain district does not
concern me in the least. But if I have really studied one or two nests,
and made acquaintance with the tricks and manners of the small dwellers
therein, I am satisfied and happy.

While we lingered in the little hemlock grove, enraptured with the
white-throat, and feeling that

"Here were the place to lie alone all day
On shadowed grass, beneath the blessed trees,"

a distant note reached our ever-listening ears. It was the voice of a
warbler, and a most alluring song. Such indeed we found it, for on the
instant the Enthusiast sprang to her feet, alert to her finger-tips,
crying, "That's the bird we're after!" adding as usual, as she started
across the field, "You sit still! I won't go far," while as usual, also,
I snatched my things and followed.

The song was in the tone of one of the most bewitching as well as the
most elusive of warblers, the black-throated green; a bird not so big as
one's thumb, with a provoking fondness for the tops of the tallest
trees, where foliage is thickest, and for keeping in constant motion,
flitting from twig to twig, and from tree to tree, throwing out as he
goes

"The sweetest sound that ever stirred
A warbler's throat."

This one was tireless, as are all of his tribe, and led us a weary dance
over big, steep-sided rocks, through more and more bogs, over a fence,
and out of our open fields into deep woods.

[Sidenote: "_YOU SIT STILL._"]

Now, my companion in these tramps has a rooted opinion that she is
easily fatigued, and must rest frequently; and I have no doubt it is
true, when she has no strong interest to urge her on. So she used to
burden herself with a clumsy waterproof, to throw on the ground to sit
upon; and in compliance with this notion (which was most amusing to
those whom she tired out in her tramps), whenever she thought of
it--that is, when the bird voice was still for a moment--she would seek
a sloping bank, or a place beside a tree where she could lean, and then
throw herself down, determined to rest. But always in one minute or
less, the warbler would be sure to begin again, when away went good
resolutions and fatigue, and she sprang up like a Jack-in-the-box,
saying, of course, "You sit still; I'll just go on a little," and off we
went over brake and brier.

While pursuing this vocal _ignis fatuus_ I made a charmi