the little minstrel, that
I came twice to the woods before I was sure to whom I was listening. In
summer, he is one of those birds of the deep Northern forests, that,
like the Speckled Canada Warbler and the Hermit-Thrush, only the
privileged ones hear.

The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and
defined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and he will
tell you where to look for the Lady's-Slipper, the Columbine, or the
Harebell. On the same principles the ornithologist will direct you where
to look for the Hooded Warbler, the Wood-Sparrow, or the Chewink. In
adjoining counties, in the same latitude, and equally inland, but
possessing a different geological formation and different forest-timber,
you will observe quite a different class of birds. In a country of the
Beech and Maple I do not find the same songsters that I know where
thrive the Oak, Chestnut, and Laurel. In going from a district of the
Old Red Sandstone to where I walk upon the old Plutonic Rock, not fifty
miles distant, I miss in the woods the Veery, the Hermit-Thrush, the
Chestnut-Sided Warbler, the Blue-Backed Warbler, the Green-Backed
Warbler, the Black and Yellow Warbler, and many others,--and find in
their stead the Wood-Thrush, the Chewink, the Redstart, the
Yellow-Throat, the Yellow-Breasted Flycatcher, the White-Eyed
Flycatcher, the Quail, and the Turtle-Dove.

In my neighborhood here in the Highlands the distribution is very
marked. South of the village I invariably find one species of
birds,--north of it, another. In only one locality, full of Azalea and
Swamp-Huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the Hooded Warbler. In a
dense undergrowth of Spice-Bush, Witch-Hazel, and Alder, I meet the
Worm-Eating Warbler. In a remote clearing, covered with Heath and Fern,
with here and there a Chestnut and an Oak, I go to hear in July the
Wood-Sparrow, and returning by a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sure to find
the Water-Thrush.

Only one locality within my range seems to possess attractions for all
comers. Here one may study almost the entire ornithology of the State.
It is a rocky piece of ground, long ago cleared, but now fast relapsing
into the wildness and freedom of Nature, and marked by those
half-cultivated, half-wild features which birds and boys love. It is
bounded on two sides by the village and highway, crossed at various
points by carriage-roads, and threaded in all directions by paths and
by-way