Add 45708 from ibiblio

8 files changed, 11400 insertions, 17092 deletions

diff --git a/45708/45708.txt b/45708-0.txt
index 4da0aa5..00205f9 100644
--- a/45708/45708.txt
+++ b/45708-0.txt
@@ -1,4884 +1,4493 @@
-Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

-

-

-Title: Spring notes from Tennessee

-

-Author: Bradford Torrey

-

-Release Date: May 21, 2014 [EBook #45708]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: ASCII

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by JoAnn Greenwood, and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-        Books by Mr. Torrey.

-

-    BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.

-    A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.

-    THE FOOT-PATH WAY. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25.

-    A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK. 16mo, $1.25.

-    SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE. 16mo, $1.25.

-

-        HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

-         BOSTON AND NEW YORK.

-

-

-

-

-        SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE

-

-                     BY

-

-               BRADFORD TORREY

-

-

-    We travelled in the print of olden wars;

-        Yet all the land was green.

-

-                           ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

-

-               [Illustration]

-

-            BOSTON AND NEW YORK

-       HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

-       The Riverside Press, Cambridge

-                    1896

-

-

-

-

-              Copyright, 1896,

-             BY BRADFORD TORREY.

-

-            _All rights reserved._

-

-

-_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._

-

- Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

-

-

-

-

-CONTENTS.

-

-

-                                               PAGE

-

-    AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE                  1

-

-    LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN                             28

-

-    CHICKAMAUGA                                  57

-

-    ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL CEMETERY       89

-

-    AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER                   102

-

-    A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS                113

-

-    A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE                    124

-

-    SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES                   183

-

-    A LIST OF BIRDS                             213

-

-    INDEX                                       221

-

-

-

-

-SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.

-

-

-

-

-AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE.

-

-

-I reached Chattanooga on the evening of April 26th, in the midst of

-a rattling thunder-shower,--which, to look back upon it, seems to

-have been prophetic,--and the next morning, after an early breakfast,

-took an electric car for Missionary Ridge. Among my fellow-passengers

-were four Louisiana veterans fresh from their annual reunion at

-Birmingham, where, doubtless, their hearts had been kindled by much

-fervent oratory, as well as by much private talk of those bygone days

-when they did everything but die for the cause they loved. As the

-car mounted the Ridge, one of them called his companions' attention

-to a place down the valley where "the Rebels and the Yankees" (his

-own words) used to meet to play cards. "A regular gambling-hole,"

-he called it. Their boys brought back lots of coffee. In another

-direction was a spot where the Rebels once "had a regular picnic,"

-killing some extraordinary number of Yankees in some incredibly

-brief time. I interrupted the conversation, and at the same time

-made myself known as a stranger and a Northerner, by inquiring after

-the whereabouts of Orchard Knob, General Grant's headquarters; and

-the same man, who seemed to be the spokesman of the party, after

-pointing out the place, a savin-sprinkled knoll between us and the

-city, kindly invited me to go with him and his comrades up to the

-tower,--on the site of General Bragg's headquarters,--where he would

-show me the whole battlefield and tell me about the fight.

-

-We left the car together for that purpose, and walked up the slope to

-the foot of the observatory,--an open structure of iron, erected by

-the national government; but just then my ear caught somewhere beyond

-us the song of a Bachman's finch,--a song I had heard a year before

-in the pine woods of Florida, and, in my ignorance, was unprepared

-for here. I must see the bird and make sure of its identity. It led

-me a little chase, and when I had seen it I must look also at a

-summer tanager, a chat, and so on, one thing leading to another; and

-by the time I returned to the observatory the veterans had come down

-and were under some apple-trees, from one of which the spokesman was

-cutting a big walking-stick. He had stood under those trees--which

-were now in bloom--thirty years before, he said, with General Bragg

-himself.

-

-I was sorry to have missed his story of the battle, and ashamed to

-have seemed ungrateful and rude, but I forget what apology I offered.

-At this distance it is hard to see how I could have got out of the

-affair with much dignity. I might have heard all about the battle

-from a man who was there, and instead I went off to listen to a

-sparrow singing in a bush. I thought, to be sure, that the men would

-be longer upon the observatory, and that I should still be in season.

-Probably that was my excuse, if I made one; and in all likelihood

-the veteran was too completely taken up with his own concerns to

-think twice about the vagaries of a stray Yankee, who seemed to be

-an odd stick, to say nothing worse of him. Well, the loss, such

-as it was, was mine, not his; and I have lost too much time in the

-way of business to fret over a little lost (or saved) in the way of

-pleasure. As for any apparent lack of patriotic feeling, I suppose

-that the noblest patriot in the world, if he chanced to be also an

-ornithologist, would notice a bird even amid the smoke of battle; and

-why should not I do as much on a field from which the battle smoke

-had vanished thirty years before?

-

-So I reason now; at the time I had no leisure for such sophistries.

-Every moment brought some fresh distraction. The long hill--woodland,

-brambly pasture, and shrubby dooryard--was a nest of singing birds;

-and when at last I climbed the tower, I came down again almost as

-suddenly as my Louisiana friends had done. The landscape,--the city

-and its suburbs, the river, the mountains,--all this would be here

-to-morrow; just now there were other things to look at. Here in the

-grass, almost under my nose, were a pair of Bewick wrens, hopping

-and walking by turns, as song sparrows may sometimes be found doing;

-conscious through and through of my presence, yet affecting to

-ignore it; carrying themselves with an indescribable and pretty

-demureness, as if a nest were something never dreamed of by birds

-of their kind; the female, nevertheless, having at that moment her

-beak bristling with straws, while the male, a proud young husband,

-hovered officiously about her with a continual sweetly possessive

-manner and an occasional burst of song. Till yesterday Bewick's wren

-had been nothing but a name to me. Then, somewhere after crossing the

-state line, the train stopped at a station, and suddenly through the

-open window came a song. "That's a Bewick wren," I said to myself,

-as I stepped across the aisle to look out; and there he stood, on

-the fence beside the track, his long tail striking the eye on the

-instant. He sang again, and once again, before the train started.

-Tennessee was beginning well with a visiting bird-gazer.

-

-There must be some wrennish quality about the Bewick's song, it would

-seem: else how did I recognize it so promptly? And yet, so far as I

-am able to give an account of my own impressions, it had in my ears

-no resemblance to any wren song I had ever heard. I think it never

-suggested to me any music except the song sparrow's. The truth is, I

-suppose, that we _feel_ resemblances and relationships of which the

-mind takes no cognizance.

-

-I wandered at a venture down the further slope, turning this way and

-that as a song invited me. Here were Southerners and Northerners

-fraternally commingled: summer tanagers, Carolina wrens, blue-gray

-gnatcatchers, cardinal grosbeaks, chats, Bachman finches, field

-sparrows, chippers, white-throated sparrows, chewinks, indigo

-buntings, black-poll warblers, myrtle-birds, prairie warblers, a

-Maryland yellow-throat, a bay-breasted warbler, a black-and-white

-creeper, a redstart, brown thrushes, catbirds, a single mocking-bird,

-wood thrushes, red-eyed vireos, white-eyed vireos, wood pewees, a

-quail, and, in the air, purple martins and turkey buzzards. On the

-Ridge, as well as near the foot on our way up, a mocking-bird and a

-wood thrush sang within hearing of each other. Comparison as between

-birds so dissimilar is useless and out of place; but how shall a man

-avoid it? The mocking-bird is a great vocalist,--yes, and a great

-singer; but to my Northern ears the wood thrush carried the day with

-his _voice_.

-

-Having climbed the Ridge again,--though climbing might be thought

-rather too laborious a word for so gradual a slope,--and started

-down on the side toward the city, I came to a patch of blackberry

-vines, in the midst of which sat a thrasher on her nest, all a

-mother's anxiety in her staring yellow eyes. Close by her stood

-an olive-backed thrush. There, too, was my first hooded warbler,

-a female. She escaped me the next instant, though I made an eager

-chase, not knowing yet how common birds of her sort were to prove in

-that Chattanooga country.

-

-In my delight at finding Missionary Ridge so happy a hunting-ground

-for an opera-glass naturalist, I went thither again the very

-next morning. This time some Virginia veterans were in the car

-(they all wore badges), and when we had left it, and were about

-separating,--after a bit of talk about the battle, of course,--one

-of them, with almost painful scrupulosity, insisted upon assuring me

-that if the thing were all to be done over again, he should do just

-as before. One of his comrades, seeing me a Northerner, interrupted

-him more than once in a vain attempt to smooth matters over. They had

-buried the hatchet, he said; let bygones be bygones. But the first

-man was not to be cajoled with a phrase. He spoke without passion,

-with no raising of the voice, quite simply and amicably: he too

-accepted the result; the thing never _would_ be done over again; only

-let his position be understood,--he had nothing to take back. It was

-impossible not to respect such conscientiousness. For my own part, at

-any rate, I felt no prompting to argue against it, being sufficiently

-"opinionated" to appreciate a difficulty which some obstinate people

-experience in altering their convictions as circumstances change,

-or accepting the failure of a cause as proof of its injustice. If

-a man is not _too_ obstinate, to be sure, time and the course of

-events may bring him new light; but that is another matter. Once,

-when the men were talking among themselves, I overheard one say, as

-he pointed down the hill, "The Rebels were there, and the Union men

-yonder." That careless recurrence of the word "Rebel" came to me as a

-surprise.

-

-The principal excitement of the morning was a glimpse of a Kentucky

-warbler, a bird most peculiarly desired. I had finished my jaunt,

-and was standing beside the bramble patch not far from the railway,

-where I had seen the hooded warbler the day before, when the splendid

-creature flashed into sight, saw me, uttered a volley of quick, clear

-notes, and vanished up the hillside. I ran after him, but might as

-well have remained where I was. "He _is_ a beauty!" I find written

-in my notebook. And so he is, clothed in lustrous olive and the

-most gorgeous of yellows with trimmings of black, all in the best

-of taste, with nothing patchy, nothing fantastic or even fanciful.

-I was again impressed with the abundance of chats, indigo-birds,

-and white-eyed vireos. Bachman sparrows were numerous, also, in

-appropriate localities,--dry and bushy,--and I noted a bluebird, a

-yellow-throated vireo, and, shouting from a dead treetop, a great

-crested flycatcher.

-

-My most vivid recollection of this second visit, however, is of the

-power of the sun, an old enemy of mine, by whom, in my ignorance

-of spring weather in Tennessee, I allowed myself to be taken at a

-cruel noonday disadvantage. Even now, in the deep frigidity of a

-Massachusetts winter, I cannot think of Missionary Ridge without

-seeing again those long stretches of burning sunshine, wherein the

-least spot of shade was like a palm in the desert. In every such

-shelter I used to stand awhile, bareheaded; then, marking the next

-similar haven, so many rods ahead, I would hoist my umbrella and

-push forward, cringing at every step as if I were crossing a field

-under fire. Possibly I exaggerate, but, if I do, it is very little;

-and though it be an abuse of an exquisite poem, I say over to myself

-again and again a couplet of Miss Guiney's:--

-

-    "Weather on a sunny ridge,

-    Showery weather, far from here."

-

-In truth, early as the season was, the excessive heat, combined with

-a trying dog-day humidity, sadly circumscribed all my Tennessee

-rambles. As for my umbrella, my obligations to it were such that

-nothing but a dread of plagiarism has restrained me from entitling

-this sketch "An Umbrella on Missionary Ridge." Nature never intended

-me for a tropical explorer. Often I did nothing more than seek a

-shady retreat and stay there, letting the birds come to me, if they

-would.

-

-Improved after this indolent fashion, one of the hottest of my

-forenoons became also one of the most enjoyable. I left the car

-midway up the Ridge,--at the angle of the Y,--and, passing my

-thrasher's blackberry tangle and descending a wooded slope, found

-myself unexpectedly in a pleasant place, half wood, half grassy

-field, through which ran a tiny streamlet, the first one I had seen

-in this dry and thirsty land. Near the streamlet, on the edge of the

-wood, quite by itself, stood a cabin of most forlorn appearance, with

-a garden patch under the window,--if there _was_ a window, as to

-which I do not remember, and the chances seem against it,--the whole

-closely and meanly surrounded by a fence. In the door stood an aged

-white woman, looking every whit as old and forlorn as the cabin, with

-a tall mastiff on one side of her and a black cat on the other.

-

-"Your dog and cat are good friends," I remarked, feeling it polite to

-speak even to a stranger in so lonesome a spot.

-

-"Yes," she answered gruffly, "they're good friends, only once in a

-while he wants to kill her."

-

-She said nothing more, and her manner did not encourage further

-attempts at neighborly intercourse; but as I passed the cabin now and

-then during the forenoon, the birds leading me about, I heard her

-muttering often and at considerable length to her hens and ducks.

-Evidently she enjoyed conversation as well as most people, only

-she liked to pick her own company. She was "Aunt Tilly," I learned

-afterwards, and had lived there by herself for many years; one of the

-characters of the city, a fortune-teller, whose professional services

-were in frequent request.

-

-In this favored nook, especially along the watercourse, were many

-birds, some of them at home for the summer, but the greater part,

-no doubt, lying over for a day or two on their long northward

-journey. Not one of them but was interesting to me here in a new

-country, however familiar it might have become in New England. Here

-were at least eleven kinds of warblers: black-polls of both sexes,

-black-throated blues, chestnut-sides, myrtle-birds, golden warblers,

-black-and-white creepers, redstarts (have we anything handsomer?),

-Maryland yellow-throats, blue golden-wings, chats, and Kentuckies.

-Here were blue-gray gnatcatchers, bluebirds, wood thrushes, veeries,

-an olive-backed thrush, catbirds, thrashers, Carolina wrens, tufted

-titmice, a Carolina chickadee, summer tanagers uncounted, orchard

-orioles, field sparrows, chippers, a Bachman sparrow (unseen), a

-cardinal, a chewink, flocks of indigo-birds and goldfinches, red-eyed

-vireos, white-eyed vireos, a yellow-throated vireo, kingbirds, and a

-crested flycatcher.

-

-In an oak at the corner of Aunt Tilly's cabin a pair of gnatcatchers

-had built a nest; an exquisite piece of work, large and curiously

-cylindrical,--not tapering at the base,--set off with a profusion of

-gray lichens, and saddled upon one limb directly under another, as

-if for shelter. If the gnatcatcher is not a great singer (his voice

-is slender, like himself), he is near the head of his profession as

-an architect and a builder. Twice, in the most senseless manner, one

-of the birds--the female, I had no doubt, in spite of the adjective

-just applied to her conduct--stood beside the nest and scolded at

-me; then, having freed her mind and attracted my attention, she got

-inside and began pecking here and there at the rim, apparently giving

-it the final touches. The tufted tits whistled unseen with all their

-characteristic monotony. The veeries and the olive-back kept silence,

-but the wood thrushes, as was their daily habit, made the woods ring.

-One of them was building a nest.

-

-Most admired of all were the Kentucky warblers, of which there were

-at least five. It was my first real sight of them, and, fortunately,

-they were not in the least bashful. They spent the time mostly on

-the ground, in open, grassy places, especially about the roots of

-trees and thorn-bushes,--the latter now snowy with bloom,--once in a

-while hopping a few inches up the bole, as if to pick off insects.

-In movement and attitude they made me think often of the Connecticut

-warbler, although when startled they took a higher perch. Once I

-saw one of them under a pretty tuft of the showy blue baptisia (_B.

-australis_),--a new bird in the shadow of a new flower! Who says that

-life is an old story? From the general manner of the birds,--more

-easily felt than defined,--as well as from their presence in a group

-and their silence, I inferred, rightly or wrongly, that they had

-but recently arrived. For aught I yet knew, they might be nothing

-but wayfarers,--a happy uncertainty which made them only the more

-interesting. Of their beauty I have already spoken. It would be

-impossible to speak of it too highly.

-

-As I took the car at noon, I caught sight of a wonderfully bright

-blood-red flower on the bank above the track, and, as I was the only

-passenger, the conductor kindly waited for me to run up and pluck it.

-It turned out to be a catchfly, and, like the Kentucky warbler, it

-became common a little later. "Indian pink," one of my Walden's Ridge

-friends said it was called; a pretty name, but to me "battlefield

-pink" or "carnage pink" would have seemed more appropriate.

-

-I had found an aviary, I thought, this open grove of Aunt Tilly's,

-with its treasure of a brook, and at the earliest opportunity I went

-that way again. Indeed, I went more than once. But the birds were no

-longer there. What I had seen was mainly a flock of "transients,"

-a migratory "wave." On the farther side of the Ridge, however, I

-by and by discovered a spot more permanently attractive,--a little

-valley in the hillside. Here was a spring, and from it, nearly dry

-as it was, there still oozed a slender rill, which trickled halfway

-down the slope before losing itself in the sand, and here and there

-dribbled into a basin commodious enough for a small bird's bath.

-Several times I idled away an hour or two in this retreat, under the

-shadow of red maples, sweet-gums, sycamores, and tupelos, making an

-occasional sortie into the sun as an adventurous mood came over me or

-a distant bird-call proved an irresistible attraction.

-

-They were pleasant hours, but I recall them with a sense of waste and

-discomfort. In familiar surroundings, such waitings upon Nature's

-mood are profitable, wholesome for body and soul; but in vacation

-time, and away from home, with new paths beckoning a man this way and

-that, and a new bird, for aught he can tell, singing beyond the next

-hill,--at such a time, I think, sitting still becomes a burden, and

-the cheerful practice of "a wise passiveness" a virtue beyond the

-comfortable reach of ordinary flesh and blood. Along the upper edge

-of the glen a road ran downward into the valley east of the Ridge,

-and now and then a carriage or a horseman passed. It would have been

-good to follow them. All that valley country, as I surveyed it from

-the railway and the tower, had an air of invitingness: beautiful

-woods, with footpaths and unfrequented roads. In them I must have

-found birds, flowers, and many a delightful nook. If the Fates could

-have sent me one cool day!

-

-Yet for all my complaining, I have lived few more enjoyable Sunday

-forenoons than one that I passed most inactively in this same

-hillside hollow. As I descended the bank to the spring, two or three

-goldfinches were singing (goldfinch voices go uncommonly well in

-chorus, and the birds seem to know it); a female tanager sat before

-me calling _clippity_, _clippity_; a field sparrow, a mocking wren,

-and a catbird sang in as many different directions; and a pair of

-thrashers--whose nest could not be far away--flitted nervously about,

-uttering characteristic moaning whistles. If they felt half as badly

-as their behavior indicated, their case was tragical indeed; but at

-the moment, instead of pitying them, I fell to wondering just when it

-is that the thrasher _smacks_ (all friends of his are familiar with

-his resounding imitation of a kiss), and when it is that he whistles.

-I have never made out, although I believe I know pretty well the

-states of mind thus expressed. The thrasher is to a peculiar degree

-a bird of passion; ecstatic in song, furious in anger, irresistibly

-pitiful in lamentation. How any man can rob a thrasher's nest with

-that heartbroken whistle in his ears is more than I can imagine.

-

-Indigo-birds are here, of course. Their number is one of the marvels

-of this country,--though indeed the country seems made for them, as

-it is also for chats and white-eyed vireos. A bit farther down the

-valley, as I come to the maples and tupelos, with their grateful

-density of shade, a wood pewee sings, and then a wood thrush. At the

-same moment, an Acadian flycatcher, who is always here (his nest

-is building overhead, as, after a while, I discover), salutes me

-with a quick, spiteful note. "No trespassing," he says. Landowners

-are pretty much alike. I pass on, but not far, and beside a little

-thicket I take up my stand, and wait. It is pleasant here, and

-patience will be rewarded. Yes, there is a magnolia warbler, my

-second Tennessee specimen; a great beauty, but without that final

-perfection of good taste (simplicity) which distinguishes the

-Kentucky. I see him, and he is gone, and I am not to be drawn into

-a chase. Now I have a glimpse of a thrush; an olive-back, from what

-I can see, but I cannot be sure. Still I keep my place. A blue-gray

-gnatcatcher is drawling somewhere in the leafy treetops. Thence, too,

-a cuckoo fires off a lively fusillade of _kuks_,--a yellow-bill,

-by that token. Next a black-poll warbler shows himself, still far

-from home, though he has already traveled a long way northward;

-and then, in one of the basins of the stream (if we may call it a

-stream, in which there is no semblance of a current), a chat comes

-to wash himself. Now I see the thrush again; or rather, I hear him

-whistle, and by moving a step or two I get him with my eye. He _is_

-an olive-back, as his whistle of itself would prove; and presently

-he begins to sing, to my intense delight. Soon two others are in

-voice with him. Am I on Missionary Ridge or in the Crawford Notch?

-I stand motionless, and listen and listen, but my enjoyment is

-interrupted by a new pleasure. A warbler, evidently a female, from

-a certain quietness and plainness, and, as I take it, a blue-winged

-yellow, though I have never seen a female of that species (and only

-once a male--three days ago at Chickamauga), comes to the edge of

-the pool, and in another minute her mate is beside her. Him there is

-no mistaking. They fly away in a bit of lovers' quarrel, a favorite

-pastime with mated birds. And look! there is a scarlet tanager; the

-same gorgeous fellow, I suppose, that was here two days ago, and the

-only one I have seen in this lower country. What a beauty he is! One

-of the finest; handsomer, so I think, than the handsomest of his

-all-red cousins. Now he calls _chip-cherr_, and now he breaks into

-song. There he falls behind; his cousin's voice is less hoarse, and

-his style less labored and jerky.

-

-Now straight before me, up a woody aisle, an olive-backed thrush

-stands in full view and a perfect light, facing me and singing,

-a lovely chorister. Looking at him, I catch a flutter of yellow

-and black among the leaves by the streamlet; a Kentucky warbler, I

-suspect, but I dare not go forward to see, for now the thrushes are

-in chorus again. By and by he comes up from his bath, and falls to

-dressing his feathers: not a Kentucky, after all, but a Canadian

-flycatcher, my first one here. He, too, is an exquisite, with fine

-colors finely laid on, and a most becoming jet necklace. While I am

-admiring him, a blue yellow-back begins to practice his scales--still

-a little blurred, and needing practice, a critic might say--somewhere

-at my right among the hillside oaks; another exquisite, a beauty

-among beauties. I see him, though he is out of sight. And what seems

-odd, at this very moment his rival as a singer of the scale, the

-prairie warbler, breaks out on the other side of me. Like the chat

-and the indigo-bird, he is abundantly at home hereabout.

-

-All this woodland music is set off by spaces of silence, sweeter

-almost than the music itself. Here is peace unbroken; here is a

-delicious coolness, while the sun blazes upon the dusty road above

-me. How amiable a power is contrast--on its softer side! I think of

-the eager, bloody, sweaty, raging men, who once stormed up these

-slopes, killing and being killed. The birds know nothing of all

-that. It might have been thousands of years ago. The very trees have

-forgotten it. Two or three cows come feeding down the glade, with

-the lazy tinkle of a bell. And now my new friend, the blue-winged

-yellow warbler, sings across the path (across the aisle, I was going

-to say), but only two or three times, and with only two insignificant

-lisping syllables. The chary soul! He sings to the eye, I suppose. I

-go over to look at him, and my sudden movement startles the thrushes,

-who, finding themselves again in the singers' gallery, cannot

-refrain from another chorus. At the same moment the Canadian warbler

-comes into sight again, this time in a tupelo. The blue-wings are

-found without difficulty; they have a call like the black-and-white

-creeper's. A single rough-winged swallow skims above the treetops. I

-have seen him here before, and one or two others like him.

-

-As I return to the bed of the valley, a female cardinal grosbeak

-flutters suspiciously about a thicket of tall blackberry vines. Her

-nest should be there, I think, but a hasty look reveals nothing.

-Again I come upon the Canadian warbler. If there is only one

-here, he is often in my way. I sit down upon the leaning, almost

-horizontal, bole of a large tupelo,--a new tree to me, but common

-in this country. The thick dark-colored bark is broken deeply into

-innumerable geometrical figures, giving the tree a noticeable,

-venerable appearance, as wrinkles lend distinction and character to

-an old man's face. Another species, which, as far as I can tell,

-should be our familiar tupelo of Massachusetts, is equally common,--a

-smaller tree, with larger leaves. The moisture here, slight as it

-now is, gives the place a vegetation of its own and a peculiar

-density of leafage. From one of the smaller tupelos (I repeat that

-word as often as I can, for the music of it) cross-vine streamers

-are swinging, full of red-and-yellow bells. Scattered thinly over

-the ground are yellow starflowers, the common houstonia, a pink

-phlox, and some unknown dark yellow blossom a little like the fall

-dandelion,--Cynthia, I guess.

-

-My thoughts are recalled by a strong, sharp _chip_ in a voice I do

-not recognize,--a Kentucky warbler's, as presently turns out. He

-walks about the ground amid the short, thin grass, seemingly in the

-most placid of moods; but at every few steps, for some inscrutable

-reason, he comes out with that quick, peremptory call. And all the

-while I keep saying to myself, "What a beauty!" But my forenoon is

-past. I rise to go, and at the motion he takes flight. Near the

-spring the goldfinches are still in full chorus, and just beyond them

-in the path is a mourning dove.

-

-That was a good season: hymns without words, "a sermon not made

-with hands," and the world shut out. Three days afterward, fast

-as my vacation was running away, I went to the same place again.

-The olive-backed thrushes were still singing, to my surprise, and

-the Kentucky warblers were still feeding in the grass. The scarlet

-tanager sang (it is curious how much oftener I mention him than the

-comparatively unfamiliar, but here extremely common summer tanager),

-the cuckoo called, the Acadian flycatcher was building her nest,--on

-a horizontal limb of a maple,--and a goldfinch warbled as if he

-could never cease. A veery sang, also (I heard but one other in

-Tennessee), with a chestnut-sided warbler, two redstarts (one of them

-in the modest garb of his mother), a Carolina chickadee, a mocking

-wren, a pine warbler, a prairie warbler, and a catbird. In time,

-probably, all the birds for a mile around might have been heard or

-seen beside that scanty rill.

-

-To-day, however, my mood was less Sundayish than before, and in spite

-of the heat I ventured across an open pasture,--where a Bachman's

-finch was singing an ingenious set of variations, and a rabbit

-stamped with a sudden loudness that made me jump,--and then through

-a piece of wood, till I came to another hollow like the one I had

-left, but without water, and therefore less thickly shaded. Here was

-the inevitable thicket of brambles (since I speak so much of chats

-and indigo-birds, the presence of a sufficiency of blackberry bushes

-may be taken for granted), and I waited to see what it would bring

-forth. A field sparrow sang from the hillside,--a sweet and modest

-tune that went straight to the heart, and had nothing to fear from

-a comparison with Bachman's finch or any other. What a contrast in

-this respect between him and his gentle-seeming but belligerent

-and tuneless cousin whom we call "chippy."[1] Here, likewise, were

-a pair of complaining Carolina wrens and an Acadian flycatcher. A

-thrush excited my curiosity, having the look of a gray-cheek, but

-showing a buff eye-ring; and while I was coaxing him to whistle,

-and so declare himself,--often a ready means of identification,

-and preferable on all accounts to shooting the bird,--there came a

-furious outburst from the depths of the brier patch, with a grand

-flurry of wings: a large bird and two smaller ones engaged in sudden

-battle, as well as I could make out. At the close of the _melee_,

-which ended as abruptly as it had begun, the thicket showed two

-wrens, a white-throated sparrow, and a female cardinal. The cardinal

-flew away; the affair was no business of hers, apparently; but in a

-minute she was back again, scolding. Then, while my back was turned,

-everything became quiet; and on my stepping up to reconnoitre, there

-she sat in her nest with four eggs under her. At that moment a chat's

-loud voice was heard, and, turning quickly, I caught the fellow in

-the midst of a brilliant display of his clownish tricks, ridiculous,

-indescribable. At a little distance, it is hard to believe that it

-can be a bird, that dancing, shapeless thing, balancing itself in the

-air with dangling legs and prancing, swaying motions. Well, that is

-the chat's way. What more need be said? Every creature must express

-himself, and birds no less than other poets are entitled to an

-occasional "fine frenzy."

-

-My little excursion had brought me nothing new, and, like all my

-similar ventures on Missionary Ridge, it ended in defeat. The sun was

-too much for me; to use a word suggested by the place, it carried too

-many guns. I took a long and comfortable siesta under a magnificent

-chestnut oak. Then it was near noon, and, with my umbrella spread, I

-mounted the hill to the railway, and waited for a car.

-

-FOOTNOTE:

-

-[1] If I could have my way, he should be known as the doorstep

-sparrow. The name would fit him to a nicety.

-

-

-

-

-LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

-

-

-Lookout Mountain was at first a disappointment. I went home

-discouraged. The place was spoiled, I thought. About the fine inn

-were cheap cottages,--as if one had come to a second-class summer

-resort; while the lower slopes of the mountain, directly under

-Lookout Point on the side toward the city, were given up to a squalid

-negro settlement, and, of all things, a patent-medicine factory,--a

-shameful desecration, it seemed to me. I was half ready to say I

-would go there no more. The prospect was beautiful,--so much there

-was no denying; but the air was thick with smoke, and, what counted

-for ten times more, the eye itself was overclouded. A few northern

-warblers were chirping in the evergreens along the edge of the

-summit, between the inn and the Point,--black-polls and bay-breasts,

-with black-throated greens and Carolina wrens; and near them I saw

-with pleasure my first Tennessee phoebes. In the street car, on the

-way back to Chattanooga, I had for my fellow-passengers a group of

-Confederate veterans from different parts of the South, one of whom,

-a man with an empty sleeve, was showing his comrades an interesting

-war-time relic,--a bit of stone bearing his own initials. He had cut

-them in the rock while on duty at the Point thirty years before, I

-heard him say, and now, remembering the spot, and finding them still

-there, he had chipped them off to carry home. These are all the

-memories I retain of my first visit to a famous and romantic place

-that I had long desired to see.

-

-My second visit was little more remunerative, and came to an untimely

-and inglorious conclusion. Not far from the inn I noticed what seemed

-to be the beginning of an old mountain road. It would bring me to St.

-Elmo, a passing cottager told me; and I somehow had it fast in my

-mind that St. Elmo was a particularly wild and attractive woodland

-retreat somewhere in the valley,--a place where a pleasure-seeking

-naturalist would find himself happy for at least an hour or two, if

-the mountain side should insufficiently detain him. The road itself

-looked uncommonly inviting, rough and deserted, with wild crags

-above and old forest below; and without a second thought I took it,

-idling downward as slowly as possible, minding the birds and plants,

-or sitting for a while, as one shady stone after another offered

-coolness and a seat, to enjoy the silence and the prospect. Be as

-lazy as I could, however, the road soon gave signs of coming to an

-end; for Lookout Mountain, although it covers much territory and

-presents a mountainous front, is of a very modest elevation. And at

-the end of the way there was no sylvan retreat, but a village; yes,

-the same dusty little suburb that I had passed, and looked away from,

-on my way up. _That_ was St. Elmo!--and, with my luncheon still in

-my pocket, I boarded the first car for the city. One consolation

-remained: I had lived a pleasant hour, and the mountain road had

-made three additions to my local ornithology,--a magnolia warbler, a

-Blackburnian warbler, and a hairy woodpecker.

-

-There was nothing for it but to laugh at myself, and try again; but

-it was almost a week before I found the opportunity. Then (May

-7) I made a day of it on the mountain, mostly in the woods along

-the western bluffs. An oven-bird's song drew me in that direction,

-to begin with; and just as the singer had shown himself, and been

-rewarded with an entry as "No. 79" in my Tennessee catalogue, a

-cuckoo, farther away, broke into a shuffling introductory measure

-that marked him at once as a black-bill. Till now I had seen

-yellow-bills only, and though the voice was perhaps a sufficient

-identification, a double certainty would be better, especially in the

-retrospect. Luckily it was a short chase, and there sat the bird, his

-snowy throat swelling as he cooed, while his red eye-ring and his

-abbreviated tail-spots gave him a clear title to count as "No. 80."

-

-As I approached the precipitous western edge of the mountain, I

-heard, just below, the sharp, wiry voice of a Blackburnian warbler;

-a most splendid specimen, for in a moment more his orange-red

-throat shone like fire among the leaves. From farther down rose

-the hoarse notes of a black-throated blue warbler and two or three

-black-throated greens.

-

-Here were comfortable, well-shaded boulders and delightful

-prospects,--a place to stay in; but behind me stood a grove of small

-pine-trees, out of which came now and then a warbler's _chip_;

-and in May, with everything on the move, and anything possible,

-invitations of that kind are not to be refused. Warbler species

-are many, and there is always another to hope for. I turned to the

-pines, therefore, as a matter of course, and was soon deeply engaged

-with a charming bevy of northward-bound passengers,--myrtle-birds,

-palm warblers, black-throated blues (of both sexes), a female Cape

-May warbler (the first of her sex that I had seen) magnolias,

-bay-breasts, and many black-polls. It makes a short story in the

-telling; but it was long in the doing, and yielded more excitement

-than I dare try to describe. To and fro I went among the low trees

-(their lowness a most fortunate circumstance), slowly and with all

-quietness, putting my glass upon one bird after another as something

-stirred among the needles, and hoping every moment for some glorious

-surprise. In particular, I hoped for a cerulean warbler; but this was

-not the cerulean's day, and, if I had but known it, these were not

-the cerulean's trees. None but enthusiasts in the same line will be

-able to appreciate the delight of such innocent "collecting,"--birds

-in the memory instead of specimens in a bag. Even on one's home beat

-it quickens the blood; how much more, then, in a new field, where a

-man is almost a stranger to himself, and rarities and novelties seem

-but the order of the day. Again and again, morning and afternoon, I

-traversed the little wood, leaving it between whiles for a rest under

-the big oaks on the edge of the cliffs, whence, through green vistas,

-I gazed upon the farms of Lookout Valley and the mountains beyond. A

-scarlet tanager called,--my second one here,--wood thrush voices rang

-through the mountain side forest, a single thrasher was doing his

-bravest from the tip of a pine (our "brown mocking-bird" is anything

-but a skulker when the lyrical mood is on him), while wood pewees,

-red-eyed vireos, yellow-throated vireos, black-and-white creepers,

-and I do not remember what else, joined in the chorus. Just after

-noon an oven-bird gave out his famous aerial warble. To an aspiring

-soul even a mountain top is but a perch, a place from which to take

-wing.

-

-All these birds, it will be noticed, were such as I might have seen

-in Massachusetts; and indeed, the general appearance of things about

-me was pleasantly homelike. Here was much of the pretty striped

-wintergreen, a special favorite of mine, with bird-foot violets,

-the common white saxifrage (dear to memory as the "Mayflower" of

-my childhood), the common wild geranium (cranesbill, which we were

-told was "good for canker"), and maple-leaved viburnum. One of the

-loveliest flowers was the pink oxalis, and one of the commonest

-was a pink phlox; but I was most pleased, perhaps, with the white

-stonecrop (_Sedum ternatum_), patches of which matted the ground, and

-just now were in full bloom. The familiar look of this plant was a

-puzzle to me. I cannot remember to have seen it often in gardens, and

-I am confident that I never found it before in a wild state except

-once, fifteen years ago, at the Great Falls of the Potomac. Yet here

-on Lookout Mountain it seemed almost as much an old friend as the

-saxifrage or the cranesbill.

-

-I ate my luncheon on Sunset Rock, which literally overhangs the

-mountain side, and commands the finest of valley prospects; and

-then, after another turn through the pines, where the warblers

-were still busy with their all-day meal,--but not the new warbler,

-for which I was still looking,--I crossed the summit and made the

-descent by the St. Elmo road, as before. How long I was on the way

-I am unable to tell; I had learned the brevity of the road, and,

-like a schoolboy with his tart, I made the most of it. Midway down I

-caught sudden sight of an olive bird in the upper branch of a tree,

-with something black about the crown and the cheek. "What's that?" I

-exclaimed; and on the instant the stranger flew across the road and

-up the steep mountain side. I pushed after him in hot haste, over the

-huge boulders, and there he stood on the ground, singing,--a Kentucky

-warbler. Seeing him so hastily, and on so high a perch, and missing

-his yellow under-parts, I had failed to recognize him. As it was, I

-now heard his song for the first time, and rejoiced to find it worthy

-of its beautiful author: _klurwee_, _klurwee_, _klurwee_, _klurwee_,

-_klurwee_; a succession of clear, sonorous dis-syllables, in a fuller

-voice than most warblers possess, and with no flourish before or

-after. Like the bird's dress, it was perfect in its simplicity. I

-felt thankful, too, that I had waited till now to hear it. Things

-should be desired before they are enjoyed. It was another case of

-the schoolboy and his tart; and I went home good-humored. Lookout

-Mountain was not wholly ruined, after all.

-

-The next day found me there again, to my own surprise, for I had

-promised myself a trip down the river to Shellmound. In all the

-street cars, as well as in the city newspapers, this excursion was

-set forth as supremely enjoyable, a luxury on no account to be

-missed,--a fine commodious steamer, and all the usual concomitants.

-The kind people with whom I was sojourning, on Cameron Hill, hastened

-the family breakfast that I might be in season; but on arriving at

-the wharf I found no sign of the steamer, and, after sundry attempts

-to ascertain the condition of affairs, I learned that the steamer did

-not run now. The river was no longer high enough, it was explained;

-a smaller boat would go, or might be expected to go, some hours

-later. Little disposed to hang about the landing for several hours,

-and feeling no assurance that so doing would bring me any nearer to

-Shellmound, I made my way back to the Read House, and took a car for

-Lookout Mountain. In it I sat face to face with the same conspicuous

-placard, announcing an excursion for that day by the large and

-commodious steamer So-and-So, from such a wharf, at eight o'clock.

-But I then noticed that intending passengers were invited, in smaller

-type, to call at the office of the company, where doubtless it would

-be politely confided to them that the advertisement was a "back

-number." So the mistake was my own, after all, and, as the American

-habit is, I had been blaming the servants of the public unjustly.

-

-I was no sooner on the summit than I hastened to the pine wood. At

-first it seemed to be empty, but after a little, hearing the drawling

-_kree_, _kree_, _kree_, of a black-throated blue, I followed it,

-and found the bird. Next a magnolia dropped into sight, and then a

-red-cheeked Cape May, the second one I had ever seen, after fifteen

-or twenty years of expectancy. He threaded a leafless branch back and

-forth on a level with my eyes. I was glad I had come. Soon another

-showed himself, and presently it appeared that the wood, as men speak

-of such things, was full of them. There were black-polls, also, with

-a Blackburnian, a bay-breast, and a good number of palm warblers,

-(typical _palmarum_, to judge from the pale tints); but especially

-there were Cape Mays, including at least two females. As to the

-number of males it is impossible to speak; I never had more than

-two under my eye at once, but I came upon them continually,--they

-were always in motion, of course, being warblers,--till finally, as

-I put my glass on another one, I caught myself saying, in a tone of

-disappointment, "Only a Cape May." But yesterday I might as well have

-spoken of a million dollars as "only a million." So soon does novelty

-wear off. The magnolia and the Blackburnian were in high feather, and

-made a gorgeous pair as chance brought them side by side in the same

-tree. They sang with much freedom; but the Cape Mays kept silence,

-to my deep regret, notwithstanding the philosophical remarks just

-now volunteered about the advantages derivable from a bird's gradual

-disclosure of himself. Such pieces of wisdom, I have noticed, when

-by chance they do not fall into the second or third person, are

-commonly applied to the past rather than the present; a man's past

-being, in effect, not himself, but another. In morals, as in archery,

-the target should be set at a fair distance. The Cape May's song is

-next to nothing,--suggestive of the black-poll's, I am told,--but I

-would gladly have bought a ticket to hear it.

-

-The place might have been made on purpose for the use to which it

-was now put. The pinery, surrounded by hard-wood forest, was like

-an island; and the warblers, for the most part, had no thought of

-leaving it. Had they been feeding in the hard wood,--miles of tall

-trees,--I should have lost them in short order. At the same time, the

-absence of undergrowth enabled me to move about with all quietness,

-so that none of them took the least alarm. Not a black-throated green

-was seen or heard, though yesterday they had been in force both among

-the pines and along the cliffs. A flock of myrtle warblers were

-surprisingly late, it seemed to me; but it was my last sight of them.

-

-The reader will perceive that I was not exploring Lookout Mountain,

-and am in no position to set forth its beauties. It is eighty odd

-miles long, we are told, and in some places more than a dozen miles

-wide. I visited nothing but the northern point, the Tennessee end,

-the larger part of the mountain being in Georgia; and even while

-there I looked twice at the birds, and once at the mountain itself.

-

-At noon, I lay for a long time upon a flat boulder under the tall

-oaks of the western bluff, looking down upon the lower woods, now in

-tender new leaf and most exquisitely colored. There are few fairer

-sights than a wooded mountain side seen from above; only one must

-not be too far above, and the forest should be mainly deciduous.

-The very thought brings before my eyes the long, green slopes of

-Mount Mansfield as they show from the road near the summit,--beauty

-inexpressible and never to be forgotten; and miles of autumn color

-on the sides of Kinsman, Cannon, and Lafayette, as I have enjoyed

-it by the hour, stretched in the September sunshine on the rocks of

-Bald Mountain. Perhaps the earth itself will never be fully enjoyed

-till we are somewhere above it. The Lookout woods, as I now saw

-them, were less magnificent in sweep, but hardly less beautiful. And

-below them was the valley bottom,--Lookout Valley, once the field of

-armies, now the abode of peaceful industry: acres of brown earth,

-newly sown, with no trace of greenness except the hedgerows along the

-brooks and on the banks of Lookout Creek. And beyond the valley was

-Raccoon Mountain, wooded throughout; and behind that, far away, the

-Cumberland range, blue with distance.

-

-A phoebe came and perched at my elbow, dropping a curtsey with

-old-fashioned politeness by way of "How are you, sir?" and a little

-afterward was calling earnestly from below. This is one of the

-characteristic birds of the mountain, and marks well the difference

-in latitude which even a slight elevation produces. I found it

-nowhere in the valley country, but it was common on Lookout and on

-Walden's Ridge. Then, behind me on the summit, another northern

-bird, the scarlet tanager, struck up a labored, rasping, breathless

-tune, hearty, but broken and forced. I say labored and breathless;

-but, happily, the singer was unaware of his infirmity (or can it

-be I was wrong?), and continued without interruption for at least

-half an hour. If he was uncomfortably short-breathed, he was very

-agreeably long-winded. Oven-birds sang at intervals throughout the

-day, and once I heard again the black-billed cuckoo. Yes, Hooker was

-right: Lookout Mountain is Northern, not Southern. But then, as if to

-show that it is not exactly Yankee land, in spite of oven-bird and

-black-bill, and notwithstanding all that Hooker and his men may have

-done, a cardinal took a long turn at whistling, and a Carolina wren

-came to his support with a _cheery_, _cheery_. A far-away crow was

-cawing somewhere down the valley, no very common sound hereabout; a

-red-eye, our great American missionary, was exhorting, of course; a

-black-poll, on his way to British America, whispered something, it

-was impossible to say what; and a squirrel barked. I lay so still

-that a black-and-white creeper took me for a part of the boulder,

-and alighted on the nearest tree-trunk. He goes round a bole just

-as he sings, in corkscrew fashion. Now and then I caught some of

-the louder phrases of a distant brown thrush, and once, when every

-one else fell silent, a catbird burst out spasmodically with a few

-halting, disjointed eccentricities, highly characteristic of a bird

-who can sing like a master when he will, but who seems oftener to

-enjoy talking to himself. Lizards rustled into sight with startling

-suddenness; and one big fellow disappeared so instantaneously--in

-"less than no time," as the Yankee phrase is--that I thought "quick

-as a lizard" might well enough become an adage. Here and there I

-remarked a chestnut-tree, the burs of last year still hanging;

-and chestnut oaks were among the largest and handsomest trees of

-the wood, as they were among the commonest. The temperature was

-perfect,--so says my penciled note. Let the confession not be

-overlooked, after all my railing at the fierce Tennessee sun. It made

-all the pleasure of the hour, too, that there were no troublesome

-insects. I had been in that country for ten days, the mercury had

-been much of the time above 90 deg., and I had not seen ten mosquitoes.

-

-I left my boulder at last, though it would have been good to remain

-there till night, and wandered along the bluffs to the Point. Here it

-was apparent at once that the wind had shifted. For the first time I

-caught sight of lofty mountains in the northeast; the Great Smokies,

-I was told, and could well believe it. I sat down straightway and

-looked at them, and had I known how things would turn, I would

-have looked at them longer; for in all my three weeks' sojourn in

-Chattanooga, that was the only half-day in which the atmosphere was

-even approximately clear. It was unfortunate, but I consoled myself

-with the charm of the foreground,--a charm at once softened and

-heightened, with something of the magic of distance, by the very

-conditions that veiled the horizon and drew it closer about us.

-

-It is truly a beautiful world that we see from Lookout Point:

-the city and its suburbs; the river with its broad meanderings,

-and, directly at our feet, its great Moccasin Bend; the near

-mountains,--Raccoon and Sand mountains beyond Lookout Valley, and

-Walden's Ridge across the river; and everywhere in the distance

-hills and high mountains, range beyond range, culminating in the

-Cumberland Mountains in one direction, and the Great Smokies in

-another. And as we look at the fair picture we think of what was

-done here,--of historic persons and historic deeds. At the foot of

-the cliffs on which we stand is White House plateau, the battlefield

-of Lookout Mountain. Chattanooga itself is spread out before us,

-with Orchard Knob, Cameron Hill, and the national cemetery. Yonder

-stretches the long line of Missionary Ridge, and farther south,

-recognizable by at least one of the government towers, is the

-battlefield of Chickamauga. Here, if anywhere, we may see places that

-war has made sacred.

-

-The feeling of all this is better enjoyed after one has grown

-oblivious to the things which at first do so much to cheapen the

-mountain,--the hotels, the photographers' shanties, the placards,

-the hurrying tourists, and the general air of a place given over

-to showmen. Much of this seeming desecration is unavoidable,

-perhaps; at all events, it is the part of wisdom to overlook it, as,

-fortunately, by the time of my third visit I was pretty well able to

-do. If that proves impossible, if the visitor is of too sensitive

-a temperament,--to call his weakness by no worse a name,--he can at

-least betake himself to the woods, and out of them see enough, as I

-did from my boulder, to repay him for all his trouble.

-

-The battlefield, as has been said, lies at the base of the

-perpendicular cliffs which make the bold northern tip of the

-mountain,--Lookout Point. I must walk over it, though there is

-little to see, and after a final look at the magnificent panorama I

-descended the steps to the head of the "incline," or, as I should

-say, the cable road. The car dropped me at a sentry-box marked

-"Columbus" (it was easy to guess in what year it had been named), and

-thence I strolled across the plateau,--so called in the narratives of

-the battle, though it is far from level,--past the Craven house and

-Cloud Fort, to the western slope looking down into Lookout Valley,

-out of which the Union forces marched to the assault. The place was

-peaceful enough on that pleasant May afternoon. The air was full

-of music, and just below me were apple and peach orchards and a

-vineyard.

-

-In such surroundings, half wild, half tame, I had hope of finding

-some strange bird; it would be pleasant to associate him with a

-spot so famous. But the voices were all familiar: wood thrushes,

-Carolina wrens, bluebirds, summer tanagers, catbirds, a Maryland

-yellow-throat, vireos (red-eyes and white-eyes), goldfinches, a field

-sparrow (the dead could want no sweeter requiem than he was chanting,

-but the wood pewee should have been here also), indigo-birds, and

-chats. In one of the wildest and roughest places a Kentucky warbler

-started to sing, and I plunged downward among the rocks and bushes

-(here was maiden-hair fern, I remember), hoping to see him. It was

-only my second hearing of the song, and it would be prudent to verify

-my recollection; but the music ceased, and I saw nothing. At the

-turn, where the land begins to decline westward, I came to a low,

-semicircular wall of earth. Here, doubtless, on that fateful November

-morning, when clouds covered the mountain sides, the Confederate

-troops meant to make a stand against the invader. Now a wilderness of

-young blue-green persimmon-trees had sprung up about it, as about

-the Craven house was a similar growth of sassafras. I had already

-noticed the extreme abundance of sassafras (shrubs rather than trees)

-in all this country, and especially on Missionary Ridge.

-

-With my thoughts full of the past, while my senses kept watch of the

-present, I returned slowly to the "incline," where I had five minutes

-to wait for a downward car. It had been a good day, a day worth

-remembering; and just then there came to my ear the new voice for

-which I had been on the alert: a warbler's song, past all mistake,

-sharp, thin, vivacious, in perhaps eight syllables,--a song more like

-the redstart's than anything else I could think of. The singer was in

-a tall tree, but by the best of luck, seeing how short my time was,

-the opera-glass fell upon him almost of itself,--a hooded warbler;

-my first sight of him in full dress (he might have been rigged out

-for a masquerade, I thought), as it was my first hearing of his song.

-If it had been also my last hearing of it, I might have written that

-the hooded warbler, though a frequenter of low thickets, chooses a

-lofty perch to sing from. So easy is it to generalize; that is, to

-tell more than we know. The fellow sang again and again, and, to my

-great satisfaction, a Kentucky joined him,--a much better singer in

-all respects, and much more becomingly dressed; but I gave thanks for

-both. Then the car stopped for me, and we coasted to the base, where

-the customary gang of negroes, heavily chained, were repairing the

-highway, while the guard, a white man, stood over them with a rifle.

-It was a strange spectacle to my eyes, and suggested a considerable

-postponement of the millennium; but I was glad to see the men at work.

-

-Two days afterward (May 10), in spite of "thunder in the morning"

-and one of the safest of weather saws, I made my final excursion

-to Lookout, going at once to the warblers' pines. There were few

-birds in them. At all events, I found few; but there is no telling

-what might have happened, if the third specimen that came under my

-glass--after a black-poll and a bay-breast--had not monopolized my

-attention till I was driven to seek shelter. That was the day when

-I needed a gun; for I suppose it must be confessed that even an

-opera-glass observer, no matter how much in love he may be with his

-particular method of study, and no matter how determined he may be

-to stick to it, sees a time once in a great while when a bird in the

-hand would be so much better than two in the bush that his fingers

-fairly itch for something to shoot with. From what I know of one such

-man, I am sure it would be exaggerating their tenderness of heart

-to imagine observers of this kind incapable of taking a bird's life

-under any circumstances. In fact, it may be partly a distrust of

-their own self-restraint, under the provocations of curiosity, that

-makes them eschew the use of firearms altogether.

-

-My mystery on the present occasion was a female warbler,--of so

-much I felt reasonably assured; but by what name to call her, that

-was a riddle. Her upper parts were "not olive, but of a neutral

-bluish gray," with light wing-bars, "not conspicuous, but distinct,"

-while her lower parts were "dirty, but unstreaked." What at once

-impressed me was her "bareheaded appearance" (I am quoting my

-penciled memorandum), with a big eye and a light eye-ring,--like a

-ruby-crowned kinglet, for which, at the first glance, I mistook her.

-If my notes made mention of any dark streaks or spots underneath, I

-would pluck up courage and hazard a glorious guess, to be taken for

-what it might be worth. As it is, I leave guessing to men better

-qualified, for whose possible edification or amusement I have set

-down these particulars.

-

-While I was pursuing the stranger, but not till I had seen her

-again and again, and secured as many "points" as a longer ogling

-seemed likely to afford me, it began thundering ominously out of

-ugly clouds, and I edged toward some woodland cottages not far

-distant. Then the big drops fell, and I took to my heels, reaching

-a piazza just in time to escape a torrent against which pine-trees

-and umbrella combined would have been as nothing. The lady of the

-house and her three dogs received me most hospitably, and as the rain

-lasted for some time we had a pleasant conversation (I can speak

-for one, at least) about dogs in general and particular (a common

-interest is the soul of talk); in illustration and furtherance of

-which the spaniel of the party, somewhat against his will, was

-induced to "sit up like a gentleman," while I boasted modestly of

-another spaniel, Antony by name, who could do that and plenty of

-tricks beside,--a perfect wonder of a dog, in short. Thus happily

-launched, we went on to discuss the climate of Tennessee (whatever

-may be the soul of talk, the weather supplies it with members and

-a bodily substance) and the charms of Lookout Mountain. She lived

-there the year round, she said (most of the cottagers make the place

-a summer resort only), and always found it pleasant. In winter it

-wasn't so cold there as down below; at any rate, it didn't feel so

-cold,--which is the main thing, of course. Sometimes when she went

-to the city, it seemed as if she should freeze, although she hadn't

-thought of its being cold before she left home. It is one form of

-patriotism, I suppose,--parochial patriotism, perhaps we may call

-it,--that makes us stand up pretty stoutly for our own dwelling-place

-before strangers, however we may grumble against it among ourselves.

-In the present instance, however, no such qualifying explanation

-seemed necessary. In general, I was quite prepared to believe that

-life on a mountain top, in a cottage in a grove, would be found every

-whit as agreeable as my hostess pictured it.

-

-The rain slackened after a while, though it was long in ceasing

-altogether, and I went to the nearest railway station (Sunset

-Station, I believe) and waited half an hour for a train to the Point,

-chatting meanwhile with the young man in charge of the relic-counter.

-Then, at the Point, I waited again--this time to enjoy the prospect

-and see how the weather would turn--till a train passed on "the broad

-gauge" below. Just beyond Fort Cloud it ran into a fine old forest,

-and a sudden notion took me to go straight down through the woods and

-spend the rest of the day rambling in that direction. The weather had

-still a dubious aspect, but, with motive enough, some things can be

-trusted to Providence, and, the steepness of the descent accelerating

-my pace, I was soon on the sleepers, after which it was but a little

-way into the woods. Once there, I quickly forgot everything else at

-the sound of a new song. But _was_ it new? It bore some resemblance

-to the ascending scale of the blue yellow-back, and might be the

-freak of some individual of that species. I stood still, and in

-another minute the singer came near and sang under my eye; the very

-bird I had been hoping for,--a cerulean warbler in full dress; as

-Dr. Coues says, "a perfect little beauty." He continued in sight,

-feeding in rather low branches,--an exception to his usual habit, I

-have since found,--and sang many times over. His complaisance was a

-piece of high good fortune, for I saw no second specimen. The strain

-opens with two pairs of notes on the same pitch, and concludes with

-an upward run much like the blue yellow-back's, or perhaps midway

-between that and the prairie warbler's. So I heard it, I mean to

-say. But everything depends upon the ear. Audubon speaks of it as

-"extremely sweet and mellow" (the last a surprising word), while Mr.

-Ridgway is quoted as saying that the bird possesses "only the most

-feeble notes."

-

-The woods of themselves were well worth a visit: extremely open, with

-broad barren spaces; the trees tall, largely oak,--chestnut oak,

-especially,--but with chestnut, hickory, tupelo, and other trees

-intermingled. Here, as afterward on Walden's Ridge, I was struck

-with the almost total absence of mosses, and the dry, stony character

-of the soil,--a novel and not altogether pleasing feature in the eyes

-of a man accustomed to the mountain forests of New England, where

-mosses cover every boulder, stump, and fallen log, while the feet

-sink into sphagnum as into the softest of carpets.

-

-Comfortable lounging-places continually invited me to linger, and at

-last I sat down under a chestnut oak, with a big broken-barked tupelo

-directly before me. Over the top of a neighboring boulder a lizard

-leaned in a praying attitude and gazed upon the intruder. Once in a

-while some loud-voiced tree-frog, as I suppose, uttered a grating

-cry. A blue-gray gnatcatcher was complaining,--snarling, I might have

-said; a red-eye, an indigo-bird, a field sparrow, and a Carolina wren

-took turns in singing; and a sudden chat threw himself into the air,

-quite unannounced, and, with ludicrous teetering motions, flew into

-the tupelo and eyed me saucily. A few minutes later, a single cicada

-(seventeen-year locust) followed him. With my glass I could see its

-monstrous red eyes and the orange edge of its wing. It kept silence;

-but without a moment's cessation the musical hum of distant millions

-like it filled the air,--a noise inconceivable.

-

-I would gladly have sat longer, as I would gladly have gone much

-farther into the woods, for I had seen none more attractive;

-but a rumbling of thunder, a rapid blackening of the sky, and a

-recollection of the forenoon's deluge warned me to turn back. And

-now, for the first time, although I had been living within sound of

-locusts for a week or more, I suddenly came to trees in which they

-were congregated. The branches were full of them. Heard thus near,

-the sound was no longer melodious, but harsh and shrill.

-

-It seemed cruel that my last day on Lookout Mountain should be so

-broken up, and so abruptly and unseasonably concluded, but so the

-Fates willed it. My retreat became a rout, and of the remainder of

-the road I remember only the hurry and the warmth, and two pleasant

-things,--a few wild roses, and the scent of a grapevine in bloom; two

-things so sweet and homelike that they could be caught and retained

-by a man on the run.

-

-

-

-

-CHICKAMAUGA.

-

-

-The field of Chickamauga--a worthily resounding name for one of

-the great battlefields of the world--lies a few miles south of the

-Tennessee and Georgia boundary, and is distant about an hour's ride

-by rail from Chattanooga. A single morning train outward, and a

-single evening train inward, made an all-day excursion necessary, and

-the time proved to be none too long. Unhappily, as I then thought,

-the sun was implacable, with the mercury in the nineties, though

-it was only the 3d of May; and as I was on foot, and the national

-reservation covers nine or ten square miles, I saw hardly more

-than a corner of the field. This would have been a more serious

-disappointment had my errand been of a topographical or historical

-nature. As the case was, being only a sentimental pilgrim, I ought

-perhaps to have welcomed the burning heat as a circumstance all in

-my favor; suiting the spirit of the place, and constraining me to a

-needful moderation. When a man goes in search of a mood, he must

-go neither too fast nor too far. As the Scripture saith, "Bodily

-exercise profiteth little." So much may readily be confessed now; for

-wisdom comes with reflection, and it is no great matter to bear a

-last year's toothache.

-

-From the railway station I followed, at a venture, a road that soon

-brought me to a comfortable, homelike house, with fine shade trees

-and an orchard. This was the Dyer estate,--so a tablet informed all

-comers. Here, in September, 1863, lived John Dyer, who suddenly

-found his few peaceful acres surrounded and overrun by a hundred

-thousand armed men, and himself drafted into service--if he needed

-drafting--as guide to the Confederate commander. Since then strange

-things had happened to the little farmhouse, which now was nothing

-less than a sort of government headquarters, as I rightly inferred

-from the general aspect of things round about, and the American flag

-flying above the roof. I passed the place without entering, halting

-only to smile at the antics of a white-breasted nuthatch,--my first

-Tennessee specimen,--which was hopping awkwardly about the yard.

-It was a question of something to eat, I suppose, or perhaps of a

-feather for the family nest, and precedents and appearances went for

-nothing. Two or three minutes afterward I came face to face with

-another apparition, a horseman as graceful and dignified, not to say

-majestic, as the nuthatch had been lumbering and ungainly; a man in

-civilian's dress, but visibly a soldier, with a pose and carriage

-that made shoulder-straps superfluous; a man to look at; every inch

-a major-general, at the very least; of whom, nevertheless,--the heat

-or something else giving me courage,--I ventured to inquire, from

-under my umbrella, if there were any way of seeing some of the more

-interesting portions of the battlefield without too much exposure

-to the sun. He showed a little surprise (military gentlemen always

-do, so far as I have observed, when strangers address them), but

-recovered himself, and answered almost with affability. Yes, he said,

-if I would take the first turn to the left, I should pass the spot

-over which Longstreet made the charge that decided the fate of the

-contest, and as he spoke he pointed out the field, which appeared to

-be part of the Dyer farm; then I should presently come within sight

-of the Kelly house, about which the fighting was of the hottest; and

-from there I should do well to go to the Snodgrass Hill tower and the

-Snodgrass house. To do as much as that would require little walking,

-and at the same time I should have seen a good share of what was best

-worth a visitor's notice. I thanked him, and followed his advice.

-

-The left-hand road, of which my informant had spoken, ran between

-the forest--mostly of tall oaks and long-leaved pines--and the

-grassy Dyer field. Here it was possible to keep in the shade, and

-life was comparatively easy; so that I felt no stirrings of envious

-desire when two gentlemen, whom I recognized as having been among my

-fellow-passengers from Chattanooga, came up behind me in a carriage

-with a pair of horses and a driver. As they overtook me, and while

-I was wondering where they could have procured so luxurious a

-turnout, since I had discovered no sign of a public conveyance or a

-livery stable, the driver reined in his horses, and the older of the

-gentlemen put out his head to ask, "Were you in the battle, sir?" I

-answered in the negative; and he added, half apologetically, that he

-and his companion wished to get as many points as possible about the

-field. In the kindness of my heart, I told him that I was a stranger,

-like himself, but that the gentleman yonder, on horseback, seemed

-to be well acquainted with the place, and would no doubt answer all

-inquiries. With a queer look in his face, and some remark that I

-failed to catch, my interlocutor dropped back into his seat, and the

-carriage drove on. It was only afterward that I learned--on meeting

-him again--that he was no other than General Boynton, the man who is

-at the head of all things pertaining to Chickamauga and its history.

-

-In the open field several Bachman finches were singing, while the

-woods were noisier, but less musical, with Maryland yellow-throats,

-black-poll warblers, tufted titmice, and two sorts of vireos.

-Sprinkled over the ground were the lovely spring beauty and the

-violet wood sorrel, with pentstemon, houstonia, and a cheerful pink

-phlox. Here I soon heard a second nuthatch, and fell into a kind of

-fever about its notes, which were clearer, less nasal, than those of

-our New England birds, it seemed to me, and differently phrased.

-Such peculiarities might indicate a local race, I said to myself,

-with that predisposition to surprise which is one of the chief

-compensations of life away from home. As I went on, a wood pewee and

-a field sparrow began singing,--two birds whose voices might have

-been tuned on purpose for such a place. Of the petulant, snappish cry

-of an Acadian flycatcher not quite the same could be said. One of the

-"unreconstructed," I was tempted to call him.

-

-The Kelly house, on the way to which through the woods my Yankee

-eyes were delighted with the sight of loose patches of rue anemones,

-was duly marked with a tablet, and proved to be a cabin of the

-most primitive type, standing in the usual bit of fenced land (the

-smallness of the houseyards, as contrasted with the miles of open

-country round about, is a noticeable feature of Southern landscapes),

-with a corn-house near by, and a tumble-down barn across the way.

-For some time I sat beside the road, under an oak; then, seeing two

-women, older and younger, inside the house, I asked leave to enter,

-the doors being open, and was made welcome with apparent heartiness.

-The elderly woman soon confided to me that she was seventy-six years

-old,--a marvelous figure she seemed to consider it; and when I

-tried to say something about her comparative youthfulness, and the

-much greater age of some ladies of my acquaintance (no names being

-mentioned, of course), she would only repeat that she was awful

-old, and shouldn't live much longer. She meant to improve the time,

-however,--and the unusual fortune of a visitor,--and fairly ran over

-with talk. She didn't belong about here. Oh no; she came from "'way

-up in Tennessee, a hundred and sixty miles!" "'Pears like I'm a long

-way from home," she said,--"a hundred and sixty miles!" Again I

-sought to comfort her. That wasn't so very far. What did she think

-of me, who had come all the way from Massachusetts? She threw up her

-hands, and ejaculated, "Oh, Lor'!" with a fervor to which a regiment

-of exclamation points would scarcely do justice. Yet she had but a

-vague idea of where Massachusetts was, I fancy; for pretty soon she

-asked, "Where did you say you was from? Pennsylvany?" And when I

-said, "Oh no, Massachusetts, twice as far as that," she could only

-repeat, "Oh, Lor'!" Her grandson was at work in the park, and she had

-come down to live with him and his wife. But she shouldn't live long.

-

-The wonder of this new world was still strong upon her. "Them

-moniment things they've put up," she said, "have you seen 'em? Men

-cut in a rock!--three of 'em? Have you seen 'em? Ain't they a sight

-to see?" She referred to the granite monuments of the regulars, on

-which are life-size figures in high relief. And had I seen the tower

-on the hill, she proceeded to ask,--an open iron structure,--and

-what did I think of _that_? She wouldn't go up in it for a bushel

-of money. "Oh yes, you would," I told her. "You would like it, I'm

-sure." But she stuck to her story. She wouldn't do it for a bushel of

-money. She should be dizzy; and she threw up her hands, literally, at

-the very thought, while her granddaughter sat and smiled at my waste

-of breath. I asked if many visitors came here. "Oh, Lor', yes!" the

-old lady answered. "More'n two dozen have been here from 'way up in

-Chicago."

-

-The mention of visitors led the younger woman to produce a box of

-relics, and I paid her a dime for three minie-balls. "I always get

-a nickel," she said, when I inquired the price; but when I selected

-two, and handed her a ten-cent piece, she insisted upon my taking

-another. Wholesale customers deserved handsome treatment. She had

-picked up such things herself before now, but her husband found most

-of them while grubbing in the woods.

-

-The cabin was a one-room affair, of a sort common in that country

-("cracker-boxes," one might call them, if punning were not so

-frowned upon), with a big fireplace, two opposite doors, two beds

-in diagonally opposite corners, and, I think, no window. Here

-was domestic life in something like its pristine simplicity, a

-philosopher might have said: the house still subordinate to the man,

-and the housekeeper not yet a slave to furniture and bric-a-brac. But

-even a philosopher would perhaps have tolerated a second room and a

-light of glass. As for myself, I remembered that I used to read of

-"poor white trash" in anti-slavery novels.

-

-By this time the sun had so doubled its fury that I would not cross

-the bare Kelly field, and therefore did not go down to look at the

-"men cut in a rock;" but after visiting a shell pyramid which marks

-the spot where Colonel King fell,--and near which I saw my first

-Tennessee flicker,--I turned back toward Snodgrass Hill, keeping to

-the woods as jealously as any soldier can have done on the days of

-the battle. At the foot of the hill was a well, with a rude bucket

-and a rope to draw with. Here I drank,--having to stand in the sun,

-I remember,--and then sat down in the shelter of large trees near

-by, with guideboards and index-fingers all about me, while a Bachman

-finch, who occupied a small brush-heap just beyond the well (_he_ had

-no fear of sunshine), entertained me with music. He was a master. I

-had never heard his equal of his own kind, and seldom a bird of any

-kind, that seemed so much at home with his instrument. He sang "like

-half a dozen birds," to quote my own pencil; now giving out a brief

-and simple strain, now running into protracted and intricate warbles;

-and all with the most bewitching ardor and sweetness, and without

-the slightest suggestion of attempting to make a show. A field

-sparrow sang from the border of the grass land at the same moment. I

-wished he could have refrained. Nothing shall induce me to say a word

-against him; but there are times when one would rather be spared even

-the opportunity for a comparison.

-

-As I went up the hill under the tall trees, largely yellow pines, a

-crested flycatcher stood at the tip of one of the tallest of them,

-screaming like a bird of war; and further on was a red-cockaded

-woodpecker, flitting restlessly from trunk to trunk, its flight

-marked with a musical woodpeckerish wing-beat,--like the downy's

-purr, but louder. I had never seen the bird before except in the

-pine-lands of Florida, nor did I see it afterward except on this same

-hill, at a second visit. It is a congener of the downy and the hairy,

-ranking between them in size, and by way of distinction wears a big

-white patch, an ear-muff, one might say, on the side of its head. Its

-habitat is strictly southern, so that its name, _Dryobates borealis_,

-though easily rememberable, seems but moderately felicitous.

-

-Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the day--the most comfortable,

-certainly, but the words are not synonymous--was a two-hour siesta on

-the Snodgrass Hill tower, above the tops of the highest trees. The

-only two landmarks of which I knew the names were Missionary Ridge

-and Lookout Mountain; the latter running back for many miles into

-Georgia, like a long wooded plateau, till it rises into High Point at

-its southern end, and breaks off precipitously.

-

-Farther to the south were low hills followed by a long mountain

-of beautiful shape,--Pigeon Mountain, I heard it called,--with

-elevations at each end and in the middle. And so my eye made the

-round of the horizon, hill after hill in picturesque confusion, till

-it returned to Missionary Ridge, with Walden's Ridge rising beyond,

-and Lookout Point on the left: a charming prospect, especially for

-its atmosphere and color. The hard woods, with dark pines everywhere

-among them to set them off, were just coming into leaf, with all

-those numberless, nameless, delicate shades of green that make

-the glory of the springtime. The open fields were not yet clear

-green,--if they ever would be,--but green and brown intermixed,

-while the cultivated hillsides, especially on Missionary Ridge, were

-of a deep rich reddish-brown. The air was full of beautifying haze,

-and cumulus clouds in the south and west threw motionless shadows

-upon the mountain woods.

-

-Around me, in different parts of the battlefield, were eight or ten

-houses and cabins, the nearest of them, almost at my feet, being the

-Snodgrass house, famous as the headquarters of General Thomas, the

-hero of the fight,--the "Rock of Chickamauga,"--who saved the Union

-army after the field was lost. All was peaceful enough there now,

-with the lines full of the week's washing, which a woman under a

-voluminous sunbonnet was at that moment taking in (in that sun things

-would dry almost before the clothes-pins could be put on them, I

-thought), while a red-gowned child, and a hen with a brood of young

-chickens, kept close about her feet. Her husband, like the occupant

-of the Kelly house, was no doubt one of the government laborers, who

-to-day were burning refuse in the woods,--invisible fires, from each

-of which a thin cloud of blue smoke rose among the trees. The Dyer

-house, in a direction nearly opposite the Snodgrass house, stood

-broadly in the open, with an orchard behind it, and dark savins

-posted here and there over the outlying pasture.

-

-Even at noonday the air was full of music: first an incessant tinkle

-of cow-bells rising from all sides, wondrously sweet and soothing;

-then a continuous, far-away hum, like a sawmill just audible in

-the extreme distance, or the vibration of innumerable wires, miles

-remote, perhaps,--a noise which I knew neither how to describe nor

-how to guess the origin of, the work of seventeen-year locusts, I

-afterward learned; and then, sung to this invariable instrumental

-accompaniment,--this natural pedal point, if I may call it so,--the

-songs of birds.

-

-The singers were of a quiet and unpretentious sort, as befitted

-the hour: a summer tanager; a red-eyed vireo; a tufted titmouse;

-a Maryland yellow-throat, who cried, "What a pity! What a pity!

-What a pity!" but not as if he felt in the least distressed about

-it; a yellow-throated vireo, full-voiced and passionless; a field

-sparrow, pretty far off; a wood pewee; a yellow-billed cuckoo; a

-quail; a Carolina wren, with his "Cherry, cherry, cherry!" and a

-Carolina chickadee,--a modest woodland chorus, interrupted now by the

-jubilant cackling of a hen at the Snodgrass house (if a man's daily

-achievements only gave him equal satisfaction!) and now by the scream

-of a crested flycatcher.

-

-The most interesting member of the choir, though one of the

-poorest of them all as a singer, is not included in the foregoing

-enumeration. While I lay dreaming on the iron floor of the tower,

-enjoying the breeze, the landscape, the music, and, more than all,

-the place, I was suddenly brought wide awake by a hoarse drawling

-note out of the upper branches of a tall oak a little below my level.

-I caught a glimpse of the bird, having run down to a lower story of

-the tower for that purpose. Then he disappeared, but after a while,

-from the same tree, he called again; and again I saw him, but not

-well. Another long absence, and once more, still in the same tree, he

-sang and showed himself: a blue-winged yellow warbler, an exquisite

-bunch of feathers, but with a song of the oddest and meanest,--two

-syllables, the first a mere nothing, and the second a husky drawl,

-in a voice like the blue golden-wing's. Insignificant and almost

-contemptible as it was, a shabby expression of connubial felicity, to

-say the least, I counted myself happy to have heard it, for novelty

-covers a multitude of sins.

-

-The yellow-throated warblers were hardly less interesting than the

-blue-wing, though they threw me into less excitement. For a long

-time I heard them without heeding them. From the day of my arrival

-in Chattanooga I had been surrounded by indigo-birds in numbers

-beyond anything that a New England mind ever dreams of. As a matter

-of course they were singing here on Snodgrass Hill, or so I thought.

-But by and by, as the lazy notes were once more repeated, there came

-over me a sudden sense of difference. "_Was_ that an indigo-bird?" I

-said to myself. "Wasn't it a yellow-throated warbler?" I was sitting

-among the tops of the pine-trees; the birds had been droning almost

-in my very ears, and without a thought I had listened to them as

-indigo-birds. It confirmed what I had written in Florida, that the

-two songs are much alike; but it was a sharp lesson in caution. When

-a prudent man finds himself thus befooled, he begins to wonder how it

-may be with the remainder of that precious body of notions, inherited

-and acquired, to which, in all but his least complacent moods, he has

-been accustomed to give the name of knowledge.

-

-Here was a lesson, also, in the close relation that everywhere

-subsists between the distribution of plants and the distribution of

-animals. These were the only yellow pines noticed in the neighborhood

-of Chattanooga; and in them, and nowhere else, I found two birds

-of the Southern pine-barrens, the red-cockaded woodpecker and the

-yellow-throated warbler.

-

-At the base of the tower, when I finally descended, I paused a moment

-to look at a cluster of graves, eight or ten in all, unmarked save

-by a flagging of small stones; one of those family or neighborhood

-burying-grounds, the occupants of which--happier than most of us, who

-must lie in crowded cities of the dead--repose in decent privacy,

-surrounded by their own, with no ugly staring white slabs to publish

-their immemorable names to every passer-by.

-

-From the hill it was but a few steps to the Snodgrass house, where

-a woman stood in the yard with a young girl, and answered all my

-inquiries with cheerful and easy politeness. None of the Snodgrass

-family now occupied the house, she said, though one of the daughters

-still lived just outside the reservation. The woman had heard

-her describe the terrible scenes on the days of the battle. The

-operating-table stood under this tree, and just there was a trench

-into which the amputated limbs were thrown. Yonder field, now grassy,

-was then planted with corn; and when the Federal troops were driven

-through it, they trod upon their own wounded, who begged piteously

-for water and assistance. A large tree in front of the house was

-famous, the woman said; and certainly it was well hacked. A picture

-of it had been in "The Century." General Thomas was said to have

-rested under it; but an officer who had been there not long before to

-set up a granite monument near the gate told her that General Thomas

-didn't rest under that tree, nor anywhere else. Two things he did,

-past all dispute: he saved the Federal army from destruction and made

-the Snodgrass farmhouse an American shrine.

-

-When our talk was ended I returned to the hill, and thence sauntered

-through the woods--the yellow-throated warblers singing all about me

-in the pine-tops--down to the vicinity of the railroad. Here, finding

-myself in the sun again, I made toward a shop near the station,--shop

-and post-office in one,--where fortunately there were such edibles,

-semi-edibles, as are generally to be looked for in country groceries.

-Meanwhile there came on a Tennessee thunder shower, lightning of

-the closest and rain by the bucketful; and, driven before it, an

-Indiana soldier made his appearance, a wiry little man of fifty or

-more. He had been spending the day on the field, he told me. In one

-hand he carried a battered and rusty cartridge-box, and out of his

-pockets he produced and laid on the counter a collection of bullets.

-His were relics of the right stamp,--found, not purchased,--and not

-without a little shamefacedness I showed him my three minie-balls.

-"Oh, you have got all Federal bullets," he said; and on my asking

-how he could tell that, he placed a Confederate ball beside them, and

-pointed out a difference in shape. He was a cheery, communicative

-body, good-humored but not jocose, excellent company in such an

-hour, though he had small fancy for the lightning, it seemed to me.

-Perhaps he had been under fire so often as to have lost all relish

-for excitement of that kind. He was not at the battle of Chickamauga,

-he said, but at Vicksburg; and he gave me a vivid description of his

-work in the trenches, as well as of the surrender, and the happiness

-of the half-starved defenders of the city, who were at once fed by

-their captors.

-

-All his talk showed a lively sense of the horrors of war. He had

-seen enough of fighting, he confessed; but he couldn't keep away

-from a battlefield, if he came anywhere near one. He had been to the

-national cemetery in Chattanooga, and agreed with me that it was a

-beautiful place; but he had heard that Southern soldiers were lying

-in unmarked graves just outside the wall (a piece of misinformation,

-I have no doubt), and he didn't think it right or decent for the

-government to discriminate in that way. The Confederates were just as

-sincere as the Union men; and anyhow, vengeance ought not to follow a

-man after he was dead. Evidently he had fought against an army and a

-cause, not against individuals.

-

-When the rain was over, or substantially so, I proposed to improve

-an hour of coolness and freshness by paying another visit to

-headquarters; but my Indiana veteran was not to be enticed out of

-shelter. It was still rather wet, he thought. "I'm pretty careful

-of my body," he added, by way of settling the matter. It had been

-through so much, I suppose, that he esteemed it precious.

-

-I set out alone, therefore, and this time went into the Dyer house,

-after drinking from a covered spring across the way. But there was

-little to see inside, and the three or four officers and clerks

-were occupied with maps and charts,--courteous, no doubt, but with

-official and counting-house courtesy; men of whom you could well

-enough ask a definite question, but with whom it would be impossible

-to drift into random talk. There was far better company outside. Even

-while I stood in the back door, on my way thither, there suddenly

-flashed upon me from a treetop by the fence a splendid Baltimore

-oriole. He fairly "gave me a start," and I broke out to the young

-fellow beside me, "Why, there's a Baltimore oriole!" The exclamation

-was thrown away, but I did not mind.

-

-It was the birds' own hour,--late afternoon, with sunshine after

-rain. The orchard and shade-trees were alive with wings, and the air

-was loud. How brilliant a company it was a list of names will show:

-a mocking-bird, a thrasher, several catbirds, a pair of bluebirds,

-a pair of orchard orioles, a summer tanager, a wood pewee, and a

-flicker, with goldfinches and indigo-birds, and behind the orchard a

-Bachman finch. For bright colors and fine voices that was a chorus

-hard to beat. As for the Baltimore oriole, the brightest bird of the

-lot, and the only one of his race that I found in all that country,

-he looked most uncommonly at home--to me--in the John Dyer trees. I

-was never gladder to see him.

-

-A strange fate this that had befallen these Georgia farms, owned

-once by Dyer, Snodgrass, Kelly, Brotherton, and the rest: the

-plainest and most ordinary of country houses, in which lived the

-plainest of country people, with no dream of fame, or of much else,

-perhaps, beyond the day's work and the day's ration. Then comes

-Bragg retreating before Rosecrans, who is manoeuvring him out of

-Tennessee. Here the Confederate leader turns upon his pursuers. Here

-he--or rather, one of his subordinates--wins a great victory, which

-nevertheless, as a Southern historian says, "sealed the fate of the

-Southern Confederacy." Now the farmers are gone, but their names

-remain; and as long as the national government endures, pilgrims from

-far and near will come to walk over the historic acres. "This is the

-Dyer house," they will say, "and this is the Kelly house, and this

-is the Snodgrass house." So Fame catches up a chance favorite, and

-consigns the rest to oblivion.

-

-My first visit to Chickamauga left so pleasant a taste that only two

-days afterward I repeated it. In particular I remembered my midday

-rest among the treetops, and my glimpse of the blue-winged warbler.

-It would be worth a day of my vacation to idle away another noon so

-agreeably, and hear again that ridiculous makeshift of a bird-song.

-Field ornithology has this for one of its distinguishing advantages,

-that every excursion leaves something for another to verify or finish.

-

-This time I went straight to Snodgrass Hill through the woods, and

-was barely on the steps of the tower before I heard the blue-wing.

-As well as I could judge, the voice came from the same oak that the

-bird had occupied two days before. I was in luck, I thought; but the

-miserly fellow vouchsafed not another note, and I could not spend

-the forenoon hours in waiting for him. Two red-cockaded woodpeckers

-were playing among the trees, where, like the blue-wing and the

-yellow-throats, they were doubtless established in summer quarters.

-"Sap-suckers," one of the workmen called them. They were common, he

-said, but likely enough he failed to discriminate between them and

-their two black-and-white relatives. Red-headed woodpeckers were

-_not_ common here (I had seen a single bird, displaying its colors

-from a lofty dead pine), but were abundant and very destructive,

-so my informant declared, on Lookout Mountain. Turkeys were still

-numerous on the mountain, and only the Sunday before one had been

-seen within the park limits.

-

-The Bachman finch was again in tune at his brush-heap near the well,

-and between the music and a shady seat I was in no haste to go

-further. Finally, I experimented to see how near the fellow would let

-me approach, taking time enough not to startle him in the process.

-It was wonderful how he held his ground. The "Rock of Chickamauga"

-himself could not have been more obstinate. I had almost to tread on

-him before he would fly. He was a great singer, a genius, and a poet,

-

-              "with modest looks,

-    And clad in homely russet brown,"

-

-and withal a lover of the sun,--a bird never to be forgotten. I wish

-I knew how to praise him.

-

-To-day, as on my previous visit, I remarked a surprising scarcity of

-migrants. With the exception of black-poll warblers, I am not certain

-that I saw any, though I went nowhere else without finding them in

-good variety. Had my imagination been equal to such a stretch, I

-might have suspected that Northern birds did not feel at home on the

-scene of a great Southern victory. Here and there a nuthatch called,

-and again I seemed to perceive a decided strangeness in the voice.

-From the tip of a fruit-tree in the Kelly yard a thrasher or a mocker

-was singing like one possessed. It was impossible to be sure which it

-was, and the uncertainty pleased me so much, as a testimony to the

-thrasher's musical powers, that I would not go round the house in the

-sun to get a nearer observation. Instead, I went down to look at the

-monuments of the regulars, with their "men cut in a rock." Thence I

-returned to Snodgrass Hill for my noonday rest, stopping once more

-at the well, of course, and reading again some of the placards, the

-number of which just here bore impressive witness to the fierceness

-of the battle at this point. One inscription I took pains to copy:--

-

-    [Pointing hand sign] GEN. J. B. HOOD WAS WOUNDED 11.10 A. M.

-    20 SEPT. '63 IN EDGE OF TIMBER ON COVE ROAD 1/2 MILE EAST OF

-    SOUTH, LOOSING HIS LEG.

-

-It was exactly eleven o'clock as I went up the hill toward the

-tower, and the workmen were already taking down their dinner-pails.

-Standard time, so called, is an unquestioned convenience, but the

-stomach of a day-laborer has little respect for convention, and is

-not to be appeased by a setting back of the clock. For my own part,

-I was not hungry,--in that respect, as in some others, I might have

-envied the day-laborers,--but as men of a certain amusing sort are

-said to turn up their trousers in New York when it rains in London,

-so I felt it patriotic to nibble at my luncheon as best I could, now

-that the clocks were striking twelve in Boston.

-

-The hour (but it was two hours) calls for little description. The

-breeze was delicious, and the hazy landscape beautiful. The cow-bells

-and the locusts filled the air with music, the birds kept me company,

-and for half an hour or more I had human society that was even more

-agreeable. When the workmen had eaten their dinner at the foot of the

-tower, four of them climbed the stairs, and my field-glass proved so

-pleasing a novelty that they stayed till their time was up, to the

-very last minute. One after another took the glass, and no sooner

-had it gone the rounds once than it started again; for meanwhile

-every man had thought of something else that he wanted to look at.

-They were above concealing their delight, or affecting any previous

-acquaintance with such a toy, and probably I never before gave so

-much pleasure by so easy a means. I believe I was as happy as if the

-blue-wing had sung a full hour. They were rough-looking men, perhaps,

-at least they were coarsely dressed, but none of them spoke a rude

-word; and when the last moment came, one of them, in the simplest

-and gentlest manner, asked me to accept three relics (bullets) which

-he had picked up in the last day or two on the hill. It was no great

-thing, to be sure, but it was better: it was one of those little

-acts which, from their perfect and unexpected grace, can never be

-forgotten.

-

-A jaunt through the woods past the Kelly house, after luncheon,

-brought me to a superfine, spick-and-span new road,--like the new

-government "boulevard" on Missionary Ridge, of which it may be a

-continuation,--following which I came to the Brotherton house,

-another war-time landmark, weather-beaten and fast going to ruin.

-In the woods--cleared of underbrush, and with little herbage--were

-scattered ground flowers: houstonia, yellow and violet oxalis, phlox,

-cranesbill, bird-foot violets, rue anemones, and spring beauties. I

-remarked especially a bit of bright gromwell, such as I had found

-first at Orchard Knob, and a single tuft of white American cowslip

-(_Dodecatheon_), the only specimen I had ever seen growing wild. The

-flower that pleased me most, however, was the blood-red catchfly,

-which I had seen first on Missionary Ridge. Nothing could have been

-more appropriate here on the bloody field of Chickamauga. Appealing

-to fancy instead of to fact, it nevertheless spoke of the battle

-almost as plainly as the hundreds of decapitated trees, here one and

-there one, which even the most careless observer could not fail to

-notice.

-

-From the Brotherton house to the post-office was a sunny stretch, but

-under the protection of my umbrella I compassed it; and then, passing

-the Widow Glenn's (Rosecrans's headquarters), on the road to Crawfish

-Springs, I came to a diminutive body of water,--a sink-hole,--which

-I knew at once could be nothing but Bloody Pond. At the time of the

-fight it contained the only water to be had for a long distance.

-It was fiercely contended for, therefore, and men and horses drank

-from it greedily, while other men and horses lay dead in it, having

-dropped while drinking. Now a fence runs through it, leaving an outer

-segment of it open to the road for the convenience of passing teams;

-and when I came in sight of the spot, two boys were fishing round

-the further edge. Not far beyond was an unfinished granite tower, on

-which no one was at work, though a derrick still protruded from the

-top. It offered the best of shade,--the shadow of a great rock,--in

-the comfort of which I sat awhile, thinking of the past, and watching

-the peaceful labors of two or three men who were cultivating a

-broad ploughed field directly before me, crossing and recrossing

-it in the sun. Then I took the road again; but by this time I had

-relinquished all thought of walking to Crawfish Springs, and so did

-nothing but idle along. Once, I remember, I turned aside to explore

-a lane running up to a hillside cattle pasture, stopping by the way

-to admire the activities--and they _were_ activities--of a set of

-big scavenger beetles. Next, I tried for half a mile a fine new road

-leading across the park to the left, with thick, uncleared woods on

-one side; and then I went back to Bloody Pond.

-

-The place was now deserted, and I took a seat under a tree opposite.

-Prodigious bullfrogs, big enough to have been growing ever since the

-war, lay here and there upon the water; now calling in the lustiest

-bass, now falling silent again after one comical expiring gulp. It

-was getting toward the cool of the afternoon. Already the birds felt

-it. A wood thrush's voice rang out at intervals from somewhere beyond

-the ploughed land, and a field sparrow chanted nearer by. At the same

-time my eye was upon a pair of kingbirds,--wayfarers hereabout, to

-judge from their behavior; a crested flycatcher stood guard at the

-top of a lofty dead tree, and a rough-winged swallow alighted on

-the margin of the pool, and began bathing with great enjoyment. It

-made me comfortable to look at him. By and by two young fellows with

-fishing-poles came down the railroad.

-

-"Why is this called Bloody Pond?" I asked.

-

-"Why?"

-

-"Yes."

-

-"Why, there were a lot of soldiers killed here in the war, and the

-pond got bloody."

-

-The granite tower in the shadow of which I had rested awhile ago was

-General Wilder's monument, they said. His headquarters were there.

-Then they passed on down the track out of sight, and all was silent

-once more, till a chickadee gave out his sweet and quiet song just

-behind me, and a second swallow dropped upon the water's edge. The

-pond was of the smallest and meanest,--muddy shore, muddy bottom, and

-muddy water; but men fought and died for it in those awful September

-days of heat and dust and thirst. There was no better place on the

-field, perhaps, in which to realize the horrors of the battle, and I

-was glad to have the chickadee's voice the last sound in my ears as I

-turned away.

-

-

-

-

-ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL CEMETERY.

-

-

-The street cars that run through the open valley country from

-Chattanooga to Missionary Ridge, pass between two places of peculiar

-interest to Northern visitors,--Orchard Knob on the left, and the

-national cemetery on the right. Of these, the Knob remains in all

-the desolation of war-time; unfenced, and without so much as a

-tablet to inform the stranger where he is and what was done here; a

-low, round-topped hill, dry, stony, thin-soiled, with out-cropping

-ledges and a sprinkling of stunted cedars and pines. Some remains of

-rifle-pits are its only monument, unless we reckon as such a cedar

-rather larger than its fellows, which must have been of some size

-thirty years ago, and now bears the marks of abundant hard usage.

-

-The hill was taken by the Federal troops on the 23d of November,

-1863, by way of "overture to the battle of Chattanooga," Grant,

-Thomas, Hooker, Granger, Howard, and others overlooking the

-engagement from the ramparts of Fort Wood. The next day, as all

-the world knows, Hooker's men carried Lookout Mountain, while the

-multitude below, hearing the commotion, wondered what could be going

-on above them, till suddenly the clouds lifted, and behold, the

-Confederates were in full flight. Then, says an eye-witness, there

-"went up a mighty cheer from the thirty thousand in the valley,

-that was heard above the battle by their comrades on the mountain."

-On the day following, for events followed each other fast in that

-spectacular campaign, Grant and Thomas had established themselves on

-Orchard Knob, and late in the afternoon the Union army, exceeding its

-orders, stormed Missionary Ridge, put the army of Bragg to sudden

-rout, and completed one of the really decisive victories of the war.

-

-For a man who wishes to feel the memory of that stirring time there

-is no better place than Orchard Knob, where Grant stood and anxiously

-watched the course of the battle, a battle of which he declared that

-it was won "under the most trying circumstances presented during

-the war." For my own part, I can see the man himself as I read the

-words of one who was there with him. The stormers of Missionary

-Ridge, as I have said, after making the demonstration they had been

-ordered to make, kept on up the slope, thinking "the time had come

-to finish the battle of Chickamauga." "As soon as this movement was

-seen from Orchard Knob," writes General Fullerton, "Grant turned

-quickly to Thomas, who stood by his side, and I heard him say

-angrily, 'Thomas, who ordered those men up the ridge?' Thomas replied

-in his usual slow, quiet manner, 'I don't know; I did not.' Then,

-addressing General Gordon Granger, he said, 'Did you order them up,

-Granger?' 'No,' said Granger; 'they started up without orders. When

-those fellows get started all hell can't stop them.'" In the heat of

-battle a soldier may be pardoned, I suppose, if his speech smells

-of sulphur; and after the event an army is hardly to be censured

-for beating the enemy a day ahead of time. I speak as a civilian.

-Military men, no doubt, find insubordination, even on the right side,

-a less pardonable offense; a fact which may explain why General

-Grant, in his history of the battle, written many years afterward,

-makes no mention of this its most dramatic incident, so that the

-reader of his narrative would never divine but that everything had

-been done according to the plans and orders of the general in command.

-

-Orders or no orders, the fight was won. That was more than thirty

-years ago. It was now a pleasant May afternoon, the afternoon of

-May-day itself. The date, indeed, was the immediate occasion of

-my presence. I had started from Chattanooga with the intention of

-going once more to Missionary Ridge, which just now offered peculiar

-attractions to a stranger of ornithological proclivities. But the car

-was full of laughing, smartly dressed colored people; they were bound

-for the same place, it appeared, on their annual picnic; and, being

-in a quiet mood, I took the hint and dropped out by the way.

-

-There was much to feel but little to see at Orchard Knob; and yet

-I recall two plants that I found there for the first time; a low

-gromwell (_Lithospermum canescens_), with clustered bright yellow

-flowers, and an odd and homely greenish milkweed (_Asclepias

-obovata_). The yarrow-leaved ragwort was there also, and the tall

-blue baptisia; but as well as I can recollect, not one dainty and

-modest nosegay-blossom; not even the houstonia, which seemed to grow

-everywhere, though after a strangely sparse and depauperate fashion.

-As I said to begin with, the Knob is a desolate place. It made me

-think of the Scriptural phrase about "the besom of destruction." I

-can imagine that mourners of the "Lost Cause," if such there still

-be, might see upon it the signs of a place accursed.

-

-Far otherwise is it with the national cemetery. That is a spot

-of which the nation takes care. Here are shaven lawns, which,

-nevertheless, you are permitted to walk over; and shrubbery and

-trees, both in grateful profusion, but not planted so thickly as to

-make the inclosure either a wood or a garden; and where the ledge

-crops out, it is pleasingly and naturally draped with vines of the

-Virginia creeper. One thing I noticed upon the instant; there were

-no English sparrows inside the wall. The city is overrun with them

-beyond anything I have seen elsewhere; within two hundred feet of

-the cemetery gate, as I passed out, there were at least two hundred

-sparrows; but inside, on three visits, I saw not one! How this

-exemption had been brought about, I did not learn; but it makes of

-the cemetery a sort of heavenly place. I felt the silence as the

-sweetest of music (it was a Sunday afternoon), and thought instantly

-of Comus and his "prisoned soul" lapped in Elysium. If I knew whom to

-thank, I would name him.

-

-A mocking-bird, aloft upon the topmost twig of a tall willow near the

-entrance, was pouring forth a characteristic medley, in the midst

-of which he suddenly called _wick-a-wick_, _wick-a-wick_, in the

-flicker's very happiest style. "So flickers must now and then come to

-Chattanooga," I said to myself, for up to that time I had seen none.

-It was a pleasure to hear this great songster of the South singing

-above these thousands of Northern graves. It seemed _right_; for time

-and the event will prove, if, indeed, they have not proved already,

-that the South, even more than the North, has reason to be glad of

-the victory which these deaths went far to win.

-

-A tablet on one of the cannons which stand upright on the highest

-knoll informs visitors that the cemetery was "established" in 1863.

-The number of burials is given as 12,876, of which nearly five

-thousand are of bodies unidentified. A great proportion of the

-stones bear nothing but a number. On others is a name, or part of a

-name, with the name of the State underneath. One I noticed that was

-inscribed:--

-

-        JOHN

-

-        N. Y.

-

-An attendant of whom I inquired if any New England men were

-here, answered that there were a few members of the Thirty-third

-Massachusetts. I hope the New Englanders resident in Chattanooga do

-not forget them on Memorial Day.

-

-Twice in the year, at least, the place has many Northern visitors.

-They arrive on wings, mostly by night, and such of them as came under

-my eye acted as if they appreciated the quiet of the inclosure,

-a quiet which their own presence made but the more appreciable.

-Scattered over the lawns were silent groups of white-throated

-sparrows,--on their way to New Hampshire, perhaps, or it might be to

-upper Michigan; and not far from the entrance, and almost directly

-under the mocking-bird, were two or three white-crowned sparrows,

-the only ones found in Tennessee. On an earlier visit (April 29)

-I saw here my only Tennessee robins--five birds; and most welcome

-they were. Months afterward, a resident of Missionary Ridge wrote

-to me that a pair had nested in the cemetery that year, though to

-his great regret he did not know of it till too late. He had never

-seen a robin's nest, he added, and was acquainted with the bird only

-as a migrant. Such are some of the deprivations of life in eastern

-Tennessee. May and June without robins or song sparrows!

-

-On the last of my three visits, a small flock of black-poll warblers

-were in the trees, and two of them gave me a pleasant little

-surprise by dropping to the ground, and feeding for a long time

-upon the lawn. That was something new for black-polls, so far as my

-observation had gone, and an encouraging thing to look at: another

-sign, where all signs are welcome, that the life of birds is less

-strictly instinctive--less a matter of inherited habit, and more

-a matter of personal intelligence--than has commonly been assumed.

-In general, no doubt, like human beings, they do what their fathers

-did, what they themselves have done heretofore. So much is to be

-expected, since their faculties and desires remain the same, and they

-have the same world to live in; but when exceptional circumstances

-arise, their conduct becomes exceptional. In other words, they do

-as a few of the quicker-witted among men do--suit their conduct to

-altered conditions. A month ago I should have said, after years of

-acquaintance, that no birds could be more strictly arboreal than

-golden-crowned kinglets. But recently, I happened upon a little group

-of them that for a week or more fed persistently on the ground in

-a certain piece of wood. Then and there, for some reason, food was

-plentiful on the snow and among the dead leaves; and the kinglets had

-no scruples about following where duty called them.

-

-At the same time a friend of mine, a young farmer, was at his

-winter's work in the woods; and being alone, and a lover of birds,

-he had taken a fancy to experiment with a few chickadees, to see

-how tame a little encouragement would make them. A flock of five

-came about him day after day, at luncheon-time, and by dint of

-sitting motionless he soon had two of them on terms of something like

-intimacy; so that they would alight on his hand and help themselves

-to a feast. He was not long in discovering, and reporting to me, that

-they carried much of the food to the trees round about, and packed it

-into crannies of the bark.

-

-"Are you sure of that?" I asked.

-

-"Oh, yes," he answered; "I saw them do it, and then I went to the

-trees and found the crumbs."

-

-Did any one ever suspect the chickadee of such providence? If so, I

-never heard of it; and it is more likely, I think, that the birds had

-never before done anything of the sort; but now, finding suddenly a

-supply far in excess of the demand (one day they ate and carried away

-half a doughnut), they had sense enough to improve the opportunity.

-What they had done, or had not done, in times past, was nothing to

-the point, since they were creatures not of memory alone, but of

-intelligence and a measure of reason.

-

-Beside the unmistakable migrants,--white-throats, white-crowns,

-and black-polls,--there were numbers of more southern birds in the

-national cemetery. Among them I noticed a yellow-billed cuckoo, crow

-blackbirds, orchard orioles, summer tanagers, catbirds, a thrasher,

-a bluebird, wood pewees, chippers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, yellow

-warblers, wood thrushes, and chats. All these looked sufficiently at

-home except the chats; and it helps to mark the exceeding abundance

-of these last in the Chattanooga region that they should show

-themselves without reserve in a spot so frequented and so wanting in

-close cover. One of the orioles sang in the manner of a fox sparrow,

-while one that sang daily under my window, on Cameron Hill, never

-once suggested that bird, but often the purple finch. The two facts

-offer a good idea of this fine songster's quality and versatility.

-The organ tones of the yellow-throated vireo and the minor whistle of

-the wood pewee were sweetly in harmony with the spirit of the place,

-a spirit hard fully and exactly to express, a mingling of regret

-and exultation. What mattered it that all these men had perished,

-as it seemed, before their time?--that so many of them were lying

-in nameless graves? We shall all die; few of us so worthily; and

-when we are gone, of what use will be a name upon a stone, a name

-which, after a few years at the most, no passer-by will be concerned

-to read? Happy is he who dies to some purpose. It would have been

-good, I thought, to see over the cemetery gate the brave old Latin

-sentence, _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_.

-

-The human visitors, of whom one day there might have been a hundred,

-were largely people of color. All were quiet and orderly, in couples

-and family groups. Most of them, I remarked, went to look at the

-only striking monument in the grounds, a locomotive and tender (the

-"General") on a pedestal of marble--"Ohio's Tribute to the Andrews

-Raiders, 1862." On three faces of the pedestal are lists of the

-"exchanged," the "executed," and the "escaped."

-

-One thing, one only, grated upon my feelings. In a corner of

-the inclosure is the Superintendent's house, with a stable and

-out-buildings; and at the gate the visitor is suddenly struck in

-the face with this notice in flaring capitals: KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS

-YOU! That is brutality beyond excuse. But perhaps it answers its

-purpose. For my own part, I got out of the neighborhood as quickly as

-possible. I liked better the society of the graves; at such a price a

-dead soldier was better than a live superintendent; and to take the

-unpleasant taste out of my mouth I stopped to read again a stanza on

-one of the metal tablets set at intervals along the driveway:--

-

-    "On Fame's eternal camping ground

-        Their silent tents are spread,

-    And Glory guards, with solemn round,

-        The bivouac of the dead."

-

-Far be the day when these Southern fields of Northern graves shall

-fall into forgetfulness and neglect.

-

-

-

-

-AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER.

-

-

-To an idler desirous of seeing wild life on easy terms Chattanooga

-offers this advantage, that electric cars take him quickly out of the

-city in different directions, and drop him in the woods. In this way,

-on an afternoon too sultry for extended travel on foot, I visited a

-wooded hillside on the further bank of the Tennessee, a few miles

-above the town.

-

-The car was still turning street corner after street corner, making

-its zigzag course toward the bridge, when I noticed a rustic old

-gentleman at my side looking intently at the floor. Apparently he

-suspected something amiss. He was unused to the ways of electricity,

-I thought,--a verdancy by no means inexcusable. But as he leaned

-farther forward, and looked and listened with more and more

-absorption, the matter--not his ignorance, but his simple-hearted

-betrayal of it--began to seem amusing. For myself, to be sure, I knew

-nothing about electricity, but I had wit enough to sit still and

-let the car run; a degree of sophistication which passes pretty well

-as a substitute for wisdom in a world where men are distinguished

-from children not so much by more knowledge as by less curiosity.

-In the present instance, however, as the event proved, the dunce's

-cap belonged on the other head. My countryman's stare was less

-verdant than his next neighbor's smile; for in a few minutes the

-conductor was taking up a trap door at our feet, to get at the works,

-some part of which had fallen out of gear, though they were still

-running. Twice the car was stopped for a better examination into the

-difficulty, and at last a new wedge, or something else, was inserted,

-and we proceeded on our way, while the motorman who had done the job

-busied himself with removing from his coat, as best he could, the oil

-with which it had become besmeared in the course of the operation.

-It was rather hard, he thought, to have to spoil his clothes in

-repair-shop work of that kind, especially as he was paid nothing for

-it, and had to find himself. As for my rustic-looking seatmate, he

-was an old hand at the business, it appeared, and his practiced ear

-had detected a jar in the machinery.

-

-We left the car in company, he and I, at the end of the route,

-and pretty soon it transpired that he was an old Union soldier,

-of Massachusetts parentage, but born in Canada and a member of a

-Michigan regiment. Just how these autobiographical details came to

-be mentioned I fail now to remember, but in that country, where so

-much history had been made, it was hard to keep the past out of

-one's conversation. He had been in Sheridan's force when it stormed

-Missionary Ridge. As they went up the heights, he said, they were

-between two fires; as much in danger from Federal bullets as from

-Confederate; "but Sheridan kept right on." An old woman who lived on

-the Ridge told him that she asked General Bragg if the Yankees would

-take the hill. "Take the hill!" said Bragg; "they could as well fly."

-Just then she saw the blue-coats coming, and pointed them out to the

-General. He looked at them, put spurs to his horse, "and," added the

-woman, "I ain't seen him since." All of which, for aught I know, may

-be true.

-

-The talkative veteran was now on his way to find an old friend of his

-who lived somewhere around here, he didn't know just where; and as

-my course lay in the same general direction we went across lots and

-up the hill together, he rehearsing the past, and I gladly putting

-myself to school. In my time history was studied from text-books;

-but the lecture system is better. By and by we approached a solitary

-cabin, on the dilapidated piazza of which sat the very man for whom

-my companion was looking. "Very sick to-day," he said, in response

-to a greeting. His appearance harmonized with his words,--and with

-the piazza; and his manners were pitched on the same key; so that

-it was in a downright surly tone that he pointed out a gate through

-which I could make an exit toward the woods on the other side of

-the house. I had asked the way, and was glad to take it. Not that

-I was greatly offended. A sick man on one of his bad days has some

-excuse for a little impatience; a far better excuse than I should

-have for alluding to the matter at this late date, if I did not

-improve the occasion to add that this was the only bit of anything

-like incivility that I have ever received at the South, where I have

-certainly not been slow to ask questions of all sorts of people.

-

-A little jaunt along a foot-path brought me unexpectedly to a second

-cabin, uninhabited. It was built of boards, not logs, with the

-usual outside chimney at one end, a broad veranda, a door, and no

-window; a house to fill a social economist with admiration at the

-low terms to which civilized life can be reduced. Thoreau himself

-was outdone, though the veranda, it must be confessed, seemed a

-dispensable bit of fashionable conformity, with forest trees on all

-sides crowding the roof. Half the floor had fallen away; yet the

-house could not have been long unoccupied, for at one end the wall

-was hung with newspapers, among which was a Boston "weekly" less than

-two years old. From it looked the portrait of a New England college

-president, and at the head of the page stood a list of "eminent

-contributors." I ran the names over, but somehow, in these wild and

-natural surroundings, they did not seem so very impressive. I think

-it has been said before, perhaps by Thoreau, that most of what we

-call literature wears an artificial and unimportant look when taken

-out-of-doors.

-

-Near this cabin I struck a road ("a sort of road," according to

-my notebook) through the woods, following which I shortly came to

-a grave-yard, or rather to a bunch of graves, for there was no

-inclosure, nor even a clearing. One grave--or it may have been a

-tiny family lot--was surrounded by a curb of stone. The others, with

-a single exception, were marked only by low mounds of gravel. The

-one exception was a grave with a head-board,--the grave of "Little

-Theodosia," a year and some months old. "Theodosia!"--even into a

-windowless cabin a baby brings romance. Under the name and the two

-dates was this legend: "She is happy." Of ten inscriptions on marble

-monuments nine will be found less simply appropriate.

-

-By a circuitous course the wood road brought me to a larger cabin, in

-a larger clearing. Here a pleasant-spoken, neighborly woman, with a

-child in her arms, called off her dog, and pointed out a path beyond

-a pair of bars. That path, she said, would carry me to the river,--to

-the water's edge. And so it did, down a pleasant wooded hillside,

-which an unwonted profusion of bushes and ferns made exceptionally

-attractive. At the end of the path a lordly elm and a lordlier

-buttonwood, both of them loaded with lusty vines (besides clusters of

-mistletoe, I believe), gave me shelter from the sun while I sat and

-gazed at the strong eager current of the Tennessee hurrying onward

-without a ripple. As my foot touched the beach a duck--I could not

-tell of what kind--sprang out of the water and went dashing off.

-She had learned her lesson. In the duck's primer one of the first

-questions is: "What is a man?" and the answer follows: "Man is a

-gun-bearing animal." In the treetops a golden warbler and a redstart

-were singing. Then I heard a puffing of steam, and by and by a tug

-came round a turn, pushing laboriously up stream a loaded barge. It

-was the Ocoee of Chattanooga, and the two or three mariners on board

-seemed to find the sight of a stranger in that unlooked-for place a

-welcome break in the monotony of their inland voyage.

-

-On the bushy, ferny slope, as I returned, two Kentucky warblers were

-singing in opposite directions. So I called them, at all events. But

-they were too far away to be gone after, as my mood then was, and

-soon I began to wonder whether I might not be mistaken. Possibly they

-were Carolina wrens, whose _cherry_ is not altogether unlike the

-Kentucky's _klurwee_. The question will perhaps seem unreasonable to

-readers long familiar with the two birds; but let them put themselves

-in a stranger's place, remembering that this was only his third or

-fourth hearing of the Kentucky's music. As the doubt grew on me (and

-nothing grows faster than doubt) I sat down and listened. Yes, they

-were Kentuckies; but anon the uncertainty came back, and I kept my

-seat. Then a sound of humming-bird wings interrupted my cogitations,

-and in another moment the bird was before me, sipping at a scarlet

-catchfly,--battlefield pink. I caught the flash of his throat. It

-was as red as the flower--beyond which there is nothing to be said.

-Then he vanished (rather than went away), as humming-birds do; but in

-ten minutes he was there again. I was glad to see him. Birds of his

-kind were rare about Chattanooga, though afterwards, in the forests

-of Walden's Ridge, they became as common as I ever saw them anywhere.

-The two invisible Kentuckies wore out my patience, but as I came to

-the bars another sang near me. Him, by good luck, I saw in the act,

-and for the time, at least, my doubts were quieted.

-

-In the woods and thickets, as I sauntered along, I heard blue

-golden-winged warblers, two more Kentuckies, a blue-gray gnatcatcher,

-a Bachman's finch, a wood pewee, a quail, and the inevitable chats,

-indigo-birds, prairie warblers, and white-eyed vireos. Then, as

-I drew near the car track, I descended again to the river-bank

-and walked in the shade of lofty buttonwoods, willows, and white

-maples, with mistletoe perched in the upper branches, and poison ivy

-climbing far up the trunks; the whole standing in great contrast to

-the comparatively stunted growth, mainly oak,--and largely black

-jack,--on the dry soil of the hillside. Across the river were broad,

-level fields, brown with cultivation, in which men were at work, and

-from the same direction came loud rasping cries of batrachians of

-some kind. For aught that my ear could detect, they might be common

-toads uttering their mysterious, discordant midsummer screams in

-full chorus. Here were more indigo-birds, with red-eyes, white-eyes,

-lisping black-poll warblers, redstarts, a yellow-billed cuckoo

-(furtive as ever, like a bird with an evil conscience), catbirds, a

-thrasher, a veery in song (a luxury in these parts), orchard orioles,

-goldfinches, and chippers. A bluebird was gathering straws, and a

-carrion crow, one of two seen in Tennessee, was soaring high over the

-river.

-

-The "pavilion," at the terminus of the car route, was deserted, and I

-sat on the piazza enjoying the really beautiful prospect--the river,

-the woods, and the cultivated fields. The land hereabout was all in

-the market. In truth, the selling of building lots seemed to be one

-of the principal industries of Chattanooga; and I was not surprised

-to find the good-humored young fellow behind the counter--with its

-usual appetizing display of cigars, drinks, and confectionery--full

-of the glories and imminent possibilities of this particular

-"suburb." He believed in the river. Folks would come this way, where

-it was high and cool. (On that particular afternoon, to be sure, it

-was neither very high nor very cool, but of course the weather isn't

-always good anywhere.) "Lookout Mountain ain't what it used to be,"

-he said, in a burst of confidence. "It's done seen its best days.

-Yes, sir, it's done seen its best days." It was not for a stranger,

-with no investment in view, to take sides in such competitions and

-rivalries. I believed in the river and the mountain both, and hoped

-that both would survive their present exploitation. I liked his talk

-better when it turned upon himself. Nothing is more exhilarating than

-an honest bit of personal brag. He was never sick, he told me. He

-knew nothing of aches or pains. He could do anything without getting

-tired. Save for his slavery to the counter, he seemed almost as well

-off as the birds.

-

-

-

-

-A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS.

-

-

-The electric car left me near the Tennessee,--at "Riverview,"--and

-thence I walked into the woods, meaning to make a circuit among the

-hills, and at my convenience board an inward-bound car somewhere

-between that point and the city. The weather was of the kind that

-birds love: warm and still, after heavy showers, with the sun now

-and then breaking through the clouds. The country was a suburb in

-its first estate: that is to say, a land company had laid out miles

-of streets, but as yet there were no houses, and the woods remained

-unharmed. That was a very comfortable stage of the business to a man

-on my errand. The roads gave the visitor convenience of access,--a

-ready means of moving about with his eyes in the air,--and at the

-same time, by making the place more open, they made it more birdy;

-for birds, even the greater part of wood birds, like the borders of a

-forest better than its darker recesses.

-

-One thing I soon perceived: the rain had left the roads in a

-condition of unspeakable adhesiveness. The red clay balled up my

-heels as if it had been moist snow, till I pitched forward as I

-walked. I fancied that I understood pretty well the sensations of

-a young lady in high-heeled shoes. One moment, too, my feet were

-weighted with lead; then the mass fell off in a sudden big lump, and

-my next few steps were on air. A graceful, steady, self-possessed

-gait was out of the question. As for abstaining from all appearance

-of evil--well, as another and more comfortable Scripture says, "There

-is a time for everything." However, I was not disposed to complain.

-We read much about the tribulations of Northern soldiers on the march

-in Virginia,--of entire armies mud-bound and helpless. Henceforth I

-shall have some better idea of what such statements mean. In that

-part of the world, I am assured, rubber overshoes have to be tied

-on the feet with strings. Mother Earth does not believe in such

-effeminacies, and takes it upon herself to pull them off.

-

-The seventeen-year locusts made the air ring. Heard at the right

-distance, the sound has a curious resemblance, noticed again and

-again, to the far-away, barely audible buzz of an electric car. For

-a week the air of the valley woods had been full of it. I wondered

-over it for a day or two, with no suspicion of its origin. Then, as I

-waited for a car at the base of Missionary Ridge, a colored man who

-stood beside me on the platform gave me, without meaning it, a lesson

-in natural history.

-

-"The locuses are goin' it, this mornin', ain't they?" he said.

-

-"The locuses?" I answered, in a tone of inquiry.

-

-"Yes. Don't you hear 'em?"

-

-He meant my mysterious universal hum, it appeared. But even then I

-did not know that he spoke of the big, red-eyed cicada that I had

-picked off a fence a day or two before and looked at for a moment

-with ignorant curiosity. And even when, by dint of using my own eyes,

-I learned so much, I was still unaware that this cicada was the

-famous seventeen-year locust. Here in the north woods I more than

-once passed near a swarm of the insects. At short range the noise

-loses its musical character; so that it would be easy to hear it

-without divining any connection between it and the grand pervasive

-hum of the universal chorus.

-

-One of the first birds at which I stopped to look was a Kentucky

-warbler, walking about the ground and pausing now and then to sing;

-one of six or seven seen and heard during the forenoon. Few birds are

-more freely and easily observed. I mean in open woodlands with clear

-margins, such as I was now exploring. In a mountain forest, where

-they haunt brookside jungles of laurel and rhododendron, the story is

-different, as a matter of course. How it happens that the same bird

-is equally at home in surroundings so dissimilar is a question I make

-no attempt to answer.

-

-All the hill woods, mostly oak, were dry and stony; but after a

-while I came unexpectedly to a valley, a place of another sort;

-not moist, to be sure, but looking as if it had been moist at some

-time or other; and with pleasant grassy openings and another set

-of trees--red maples, persimmons, and sweet-gums. Here was a fine

-bunch of birds, including many migrants, and I went softly hither

-and thither, scanning the branches of one tree after another, as a

-note or the stirring of a leaf attracted me, ready every minute for

-the sight of something new and wonderful. I found nothing,--nothing

-new and wonderful, I mean,--but I had all the exhilaration of

-the chase. In the company, nearly all of them in song, were wood

-thrushes, a silent palm warbler (red-poll), a magnolia warbler, three

-Canadian flycatchers, many black-polls, one or two redstarts, a

-chestnut-sided warbler, a black-and-white creeper, a field sparrow,

-a yellow-throated vireo, a wood pewee, an Acadian flycatcher, and

-two or more yellow-billed cuckoos. The red-poll was of a very pale

-complexion (but I assert nothing as to its exact identity, specific

-or sub-specific), and seemed to me unreasonably late. It was the 11th

-of May, and birds of its kind had been passing through Massachusetts

-by the middle of April. Chestnut-sides were scarce enough to be

-interesting, and it was good to hear this lover of berry fields and

-the gray birch singing from a sweet-gum.

-

-When at last I turned away from the grassy glade,--where cattle were

-pasturing, as I now remember,--and went back among the dry hills

-(through the powdery soil of which the almost daily showers seemed

-to run as through a sieve), I presently caught sight of a scarlet

-tanager,--a beauty, and, except on the mountains, a rarity. Then I

-stopped--on a street corner!--to admire the singing of a Bachman's

-finch, wishing also to compare his plumage with that of a bird seen

-and greatly enjoyed a few days before at Chickamauga. To judge from

-my limited observation, this is one of the sparrows--the song sparrow

-being another--which exhibit a strange diversity of individual

-coloration; as if the fashion were not yet fully set, or perhaps

-were being outgrown. The bird here in the north woods, so far as

-color and markings went, might well enough have been of a different

-species from that of the Chickamauga singer, yet there was no reason

-to suspect the presence of more than one variety of _Peucaea_, so far

-as I knew, and the music of the two birds was precisely the same. A

-wonderfully sweet and various tune it is; with sometimes a highly

-ventriloquial effect, as if the different measures or phrases came

-from different points. It opens like the song heard in the Florida

-flat-woods, but is even more varied, both in voice and in musical

-form. So it seemed to me, I mean to say; but hearing the two a year

-apart, I cannot speak without reserve. It is pleasanter--as well as

-safer--to praise both singers than to exalt one to the pulling down

-of the other. In appearance, Bachman's finch is one of the dullest,

-dingiest, least prepossessing members of its great family; but its

-voice and musical genius make it a treasure, especially in this

-comparatively sparrowless country of eastern Tennessee.

-

-I have remarked that I found this bird upon a street corner.

-Unhappily my notes do not enable me to be more specific. It may have

-been at the corner of Court and Tremont Streets, or, possibly, at the

-junction of Tremont and Dartmouth Streets. All these names appear in

-my memoranda. Boston people should have had a hand in this business,

-I said to myself. It was on Federal Street (so much I put down) that

-I saw my only Tennessee rose-breasted grosbeak. He, or rather she,

-was the most interesting bird of the forenoon, and matched the one

-Baltimore oriole seen at Chickamauga. I heard the familiar _click_,

-as of rusty shears, and straightway took chase. For some minutes

-my search was in vain, and once I feared I had been fooled. A bird

-flew out of the right tree, as I thought, but showed yellow, and the

-next moment set up the _clippiticlip_ call of the summer tanager.

-Could that bird have also a note like the rose-breast's? It was not

-impossible, of course, for one does not exhaust the vocabulary of

-a bird in a month's acquaintance; but I could not think it likely,

-thick as tanagers had been about me; and soon the _click_ was

-repeated, and this time I put my eye on its author,--a feminine

-rose-breast. Perhaps it was nothing more than an accident that she

-was my only specimen; but so showy a bird, with so lovely a song and

-so distinctive a signal, could hardly have escaped notice had it been

-in any degree common.

-

-Wood thrushes sang on all sides. They had need to be abundant

-and free-hearted, since they stand in that region for the whole

-thrush family. Blue golden-winged warblers, too, were generously

-distributed, and, as happens to me now and then in Massachusetts,

-I found one with a song so absurdly peculiar that I spent some time

-in making sure of its author. It is to be hoped that this tendency

-to individual variation will persist and increase in the case of

-this species till something more melodious than its present sibilant

-monotony is evolved; till beauty and art are mated, as they ought

-to be. Who would not love to hear the music of all our birds a few

-millions of years hence? What a singer the hermit thrush will be,

-for example, when his tune is equal to his voice! Indigo-birds,

-white-eyed vireos and prairie warblers abounded. As for the chats,

-they saluted me on the right and on the left, till I said, "Chats,

-Chattanooga," and felt almost as if Nature had perpetrated a huge

-fantastic pun on her own account. If I could have had the ear of the

-enterprising owners of this embryo suburb,--a syndicate, I dare say

-they call themselves,--I would have suggested to them to name it

-"Chat City."

-

-I wandered carelessly about, now following a bird over a rounded

-hill (one, I remember, was covered literally from end to end with

-the common brake,--_Pteris_,--which will give the reader an idea of

-its sterility), now keeping to the road. In such a soil flowers were

-naturally scarce; but I noticed houstonia, phlox, hieracium, senecio,

-pentstemon, and specularia. Like the brake, the names are suggestive

-of barrenness. The senecio (ragwort), a species with finely cut

-leaves (_S. millefolium_), was first seen on Missionary Ridge. There,

-as here, it had a strange, misplaced appearance in my eyes, looking

-much like our familiar _S. aureus_, but growing in dry woods!

-

-So the morning passed. The hours were far too brief, and I would

-have stretched them into the afternoon, but that my trunk was packed

-for Walden's Ridge. It was necessary to think of getting back to the

-city, and I took a quicker pace. Two more Kentucky warblers detained

-me for a moment; a quail sprang up from under my feet; and on the

-other side of the way an oven-bird sang--the only one found in the

-valley. Then I came to the car-track; but somehow things wore an

-unexpected look, and a preacher, very black, solemn, and shiny, gave

-me to understand, in answer to a question, that the city lay not

-where I thought, but in an opposite direction. Instead of making a

-circuit I had cut straight across the country (an unusual form of

-bewilderment), and had come to another railway. But no harm was done.

-In that corner of the world all roads lead to Chattanooga.

-

-

-

-

-A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE.

-

-

-I.

-

-Throughout my stay in Chattanooga I looked often and with desire at

-a long, flat-topped, perpendicular-sided, densely wooded mountain,

-beyond the Tennessee River. Its name was Walden's Ridge, I was told;

-the top of it was eighty miles long and ten or twelve miles wide;

-if I wanted a bit of wild country, that was the place for me. Was

-it accessible? I asked. And was there any reasonable way of living

-there? Oh yes; carriages ran every afternoon from the city, and there

-were several small hotels on the mountain. So it happened that I

-went to Walden's Ridge for my last week in Tennessee, and have ever

-since thanked my stars--as New England Christians used to say, in my

-boyhood--for giving me the good wine at the end of the feast.

-

-The wine, it is true, was a little too freely watered. I went up the

-mountain in a rain, and came down again in a rain, and of the seven

-intervening days five were showery. The showers, mostly with thunder

-and lightning, were of the sort that make an umbrella ridiculous,

-and my jaunts, as a rule, took me far from shelter. Yet I had little

-to complain of. Now and then I was put to my trumps, as it were; my

-walk was sometimes grievously abbreviated, and my pace uncomfortably

-hurried, but by one happy accident and another I always escaped a

-drenching. Worse than the water that fell--worse, and not to be

-escaped, even by accident---was that which saturated the atmosphere,

-making every day a dog-day, and the week a seven-day sweat. And

-then, as if to even the account, on the last night of my stay I

-was kept awake for hours shivering with cold; and in the morning,

-after putting on all the clothing I could wear, and breakfasting

-in a snowstorm, I rode down the mountain in a state suggestive of

-approaching congelation. "My feet are frozen, I know they are," said

-the lady who sat beside me in the wagon; but she was mistaken.

-

-This sudden drop in the temperature seemed to be a trial even to the

-natives. As we drove into Chattanooga, it was impossible not to

-smile at the pinched and woebegone appearance of the colored people.

-What had they to do with weather that makes a man hurry? And the next

-morning, when an enterprising, bright-faced white boy ran up to me

-with a "'Times,' sir? Have a 'Times'?" I fear he quite misapprehended

-the more or less quizzical expression which I am sure came into my

-face. I was looking at his black woolen mittens, and thinking how

-well he was mothered. It was the 19th of May; for at least three

-weeks, to my own knowledge, the city had been sweltering under the

-hottest of midsummer heats,--94 deg. in the shade, for example; and now,

-mittens and overcoats!

-

-I should be sorry to exaggerate, or leave a false impression. In

-this day of literary conscientiousness, when writers of fiction

-itself are truth-tellers first, and story-tellers afterwards,--if

-at all,--it behooves mere tourists and naturalists to speak as

-under oath. Be it confessed, then, that the foregoing paragraphs,

-though true in every word, are not to be taken too seriously. If the

-weather, "the dramatic element in scenery," happened not to suit the

-convenience of a naturally selfish man, now ten times more selfish

-than usual--as is the rule--because he was on his annual vacation, it

-does not follow that it was essentially bad. The rains were needed,

-the heat was to have been expected, and the cold, unseasonable and

-exceptional, was not peculiar to Tennessee. As for the snow, it was

-no more than I have seen before now, even in Massachusetts,--a week

-or two earlier in the month; and it lent such a glory to the higher

-Alleghanies, as we passed them on our way homeward, that I might

-cheerfully have lain shivering for _two_ nights in that unplastered

-bedroom, with its window that no man could shut, rather than miss the

-spectacle. Eastern Tennessee, I have no doubt, is a most salubrious

-country; properly recommended by the medical fraternity as a refuge

-for consumptive patients. If to me its meteorological fluctuations

-seemed surprisingly wide and sudden, it was perhaps because I had

-been brought up in the equable climate of New England. It would be

-unfair to judge the world in general by that favored spot.

-

-The road up the mountain--the "new road," as it is called--is a

-notable piece of work, done, I was told, by the county chain-gangs.

-The pleasure of the ascent, which naturally would have been great,

-was badly diminished by the rain, which made it necessary to keep the

-sides of the wagon down; but I was fortunate in my driver. At first

-he seemed a stolid, uncommunicative body, and when we came to the

-river I made sure he could not read. As we drove upon the bridge,

-where straight before his eyes was a sign forbidding any one to drive

-or ride over the bridge at a pace faster than a walk, under a penalty

-of five dollars for each offense, he whipped up his horse and his

-mule (the mule the better horse of the two), and they struck into a

-trot. Halfway across we met another wagon, and its driver too had let

-his horses out. Illiteracy must be pretty common in these parts, I

-said to myself. But whatever my driver's educational deficiencies, it

-did not take long to discover that in his own line he was a master.

-He could hit the ear of his mule with the end of his whip with a

-precision that was almost startling. In fact, it _was_ startling--to

-the mule. For my own part, as often as he drew back his hand and let

-fly the lash, my eye was glued to the mule's right ear in spite of

-myself. Had my own ears been endowed with life and motion, instead

-of fastened to my head like blocks of wood, I think they too would

-have twitched. I wondered how long the man had practiced his art. He

-appeared to be not more than forty-five years old. Perhaps he came of

-a race of drivers, and so began life with some hereditary advantages.

-At all events, he was a specialist, with the specialist's motto,

-"This one thing I do."

-

-We were hardly off the bridge and in the country before I began

-plying him with questions about this and that, especially the wayside

-trees. He answered promptly and succinctly, and turned out to be

-a man who had kept his eyes open, and, better still, knew how to

-say, "No, suh," as well as, "Yes, suh." (There is no mark in the

-dictionaries to indicate the percussive brevity of the vowel sound

-in "suh" as he pronounced it.) The big tupelo he recognized as the

-"black-gum." "But isn't it ever called 'sour-gum'?" "No, suh." He

-knew but one kind of tupelo, as he knew but one kind of "ellum."

-There were many kinds of oaks, some of which he named as we passed

-them. This botanical catechism presently waked up the only other

-passenger in the wagon, a modest girl of ten or twelve years. She

-too, it appeared, had some acquaintance with trees. I had asked the

-driver if there were no long-leaved pines hereabout. "No, suh,"

-he said. "But I think I saw some at Chickamauga the other day,"

-I ventured. (It was the only place I did see them, as well as I

-remember.) "Yes, sir," put in the girl, "there are a good many

-there." "Good for you!" I was ready to say. It was a pretty rare

-schoolgirl who, after visiting a battlefield, could tell what kind of

-pines grow on it. Persimmons? Yes, indeed, the girl had eaten them.

-There was a tree by the fence. Had I never eaten them? She seemed to

-pity me when I said "No," but I fancied she would have preferred to

-see me begin with one a little short of ripe.

-

-As for the birds of Walden's Ridge, the driver said, there were

-partridges, pheasants, and turkeys. He had seen ravens, also, but

-only in winter, he thought, and never in flocks. His brother had

-once shot one. About smaller birds he could not profess to speak.

-By and by he stopped the carriage. "There's a bird now," he said,

-pointing with his whip. "What do you call that?" It was a summer

-tanager, I told him, or summer redbird. Did he know another redbird,

-with black wings and tail? Yes, he had seen it; that was the male,

-and this all-red one was the female. Oh no, I explained; the birds

-were of different species, and the females in both cases were yellow.

-He did not insist,--it was a case of a driver and his fare; but he

-had always been told so, he said, and I do not flatter myself that

-I convinced him to the contrary. It is hard to believe that one man

-can be so much wiser than everybody else. A Massachusetts farmer once

-asked me, I remember, if the night-hawk and the whippoorwill were

-male and female of the same bird. I answered, of course, that they

-were not, and gave, as I thought, abundant reason why such a thing

-could not be possible. But I spoke as a scribe. "Well," remarked the

-farmer, when I had finished my story, "some folks _say_ they be, but

-I guess they _ain't_."

-

-With such converse, then, we beguiled the climb to the "Brow,"--the

-top of the cliffs which rim the summit of the mountain, and give it

-from below a fortified look,--and at last, after an hour's further

-drive through the dripping woods, came to the hotel at which I was to

-put up--or with which I was to put up--during my stay on the Ridge.

-

-I had hardly taken the road, the next morning, impatient to see

-what this little world on a mountain top was like, before I came to

-a lovely brook making its devious course among big boulders with

-much pleasant gurgling, in the shadow of mountain laurel and white

-azalea,--a place highly characteristic of Walden's Ridge, as I was

-afterwards to learn. Just now, naturally, there was no stopping so

-near home, though a Kentucky warbler, with his cool, liquid song, did

-his best to beguile me; and I kept on my way, past a few houses, a

-tiny box of a post-office, a rude church, and a few more houses, till

-just beyond the last one the road dropped into the forest again, as

-if for good. And there, all at once I seemed to be in New Hampshire.

-The land fell away sharply, and at one particular point, through a

-vista, the forest could be seen sloping down on either side to the

-gap, beyond which, miles away, loomed a hill, and then, far, far in

-the distance, high mountains dim with haze. It was like a note of

-sublimity in a poem that till now had been only beautiful.

-

-From the bottom of the valley came a sound of running water, and

-between me and the invisible stream a chorus of olive-backed thrushes

-were singing,--the same simple and hearty strains that, in June and

-July, echo all day long through the woods of the Crawford Notch. The

-birds were on their way from the far South, and were happy to find

-themselves in so homelike a place. Then, suddenly, amid the golden

-voices of the thrushes, I caught the wiry notes of a warbler. They

-came from the treetops in the valley, and--so I prided myself upon

-guessing--belonged to a cerulean warbler, a bird of which I had seen

-my first and only specimen a week before, on Lookout Mountain. Down

-the steep hillside I scrambled,--New Hampshire clean forgotten,--and

-was just bringing my glass into play when the fellow took wing, and

-began singing at the very point I had just left. I hastened back; he

-flew again, farther up the hill, and again I put myself out of breath

-with pursuing him. Again and again he sang, now in this tree, now in

-that, but there was no getting sight of him. The trees should have

-been shorter, or the bird larger. Straight upward I gazed, till the

-muscles of my neck cried for mercy. At last I saw him, flitting amid

-the dense foliage, but so far above me, and so exactly between me and

-the sun, that I might as well not have seen him at all.

-

-It was a foolish half-hour. The bird, as I afterwards discovered, was

-nothing but a blue yellow-back, with an original twist to his song.

-In Massachusetts, I should not have listened to it twice, but on new

-hunting-grounds a man is bound to look for new game; else what would

-be the use of traveling? It was a foolish half-hour, I say; but I

-wish some moralist would explain, in a manner not inconsistent with

-the dignity of human nature, how it happens that foolish half-hours

-are commonly so much more enjoyable at the time, and so much

-pleasanter in the retrospect, than many that are more reasonably

-employed.

-

-I swallowed my disappointment, and presently forgot it, for at the

-first turn in the road I found myself following the course of a brook

-or creek, between which and myself was a dense thicket of mountain

-laurel and rhododendron, with trees and other shrubs intermingled.

-The laurel was already in full bloom, while the rhododendrons held

-aloft clusters of gorgeous rose-purple buds, a few of which, the

-middle ones of the cluster, were just bursting into flower. Here

-was beauty of a new order,--such wealth and splendor of color in

-surroundings so romantic. And the place, besides, was alive with

-singing birds: hooded warblers, Kentucky warblers, a Canadian

-warbler, a black-throated blue, a black-throated green, a blue

-yellow-back, scarlet tanagers, wood pewees, wood thrushes, a field

-sparrow (on the hillside beyond) a cardinal, a chat, a bunch of

-white-throated sparrows, and who could tell what else? It was an

-exciting moment. Luckily, a man can look and listen both at once.

-Here was a fringe-tree, a noble specimen, hung with creamy-white

-plumes; here was a magnolia, with big leaves and big flowers; and

-here was a flowering dogwood, not to be put out of countenance in

-any company; but especially, here were the rhododendrons! And all

-the while, deep in the thickest of the bushes, some unknown bird was

-singing a strange, breathless jumble of a song, note tripping over

-note,--like an eager churchman with his responses, I kept saying to

-myself, with no thought of disrespect to either party. It cost me a

-long vigil and much patient coaxing to make the fellow out, and he

-proved to be merely a Wilson's blackcap, after all; but he was the

-only bird of his kind that I saw in Tennessee.

-

-On this first visit I did not get far beyond the creek, through the

-bed of which the road runs, with a single log for foot-passengers.

-I had spent at least an hour in going a hundred rods, and it was

-already drawing near dinner time. But I returned to the spot that

-very afternoon, and half a dozen times afterward. So poor a traveler

-am I, so ill fitted to explore a new country. Whenever nothing in

-particular offered itself, why, it was always pretty down at Falling

-Water Creek. There I saw the rhododendrons come into exuberant

-bloom, and there I oftenest see them in memory, though I found them

-elsewhere in greater abundance, and in a setting even more romantic.

-

-More romantic, perhaps, but hardly more beautiful. I remember, just

-beyond the creek, a bank where sweet bush (_Calycanthus_), wild

-ginger (_Asarum_), rhododendron, laurel, and plenty of trailing

-arbutus (the last now out of flower) were growing side by side,--a

-rare combination of beauty and fragrance. And within a few rods

-of the same spot I sat down more than once to take a long look at

-a cross-vine covering a dead hemlock. The branches of the tree,

-shortening regularly to the top, were draped heavily with gray

-lichens, while the vine, keeping mostly near the trunk and climbing

-clean to the tip,--fifty feet or more, as I thought,--was hung

-throughout with large, orange-red, gold-lined bells. Their numbers

-were past guessing. Here and there a spray of them swung lightly from

-the end of a branch, as if inviting the breeze to lend them motion

-and a voice. The sight was worth going miles to see, and yet I passed

-it three times before it caught my eye, so full were the woods of

-things to look at. After all, _is_ it a poor traveler who turns again

-and again into the same path? Whether is better, to read two good

-books once, or one good book twice?

-

-A favorite shorter walk, at odd minutes,--before breakfast and

-between showers,--was through the woods for a quarter of a mile to a

-small clearing and a cabin. On a Sunday afternoon I ventured to pass

-the gate and make a call upon my neighbors. The doors of the house

-stood open, but a glance inside showed that there was no one there,

-and I walked round it, inspecting the garden,--corn, beans, and

-potatoes coming on,--till, just as I was ready to turn back into the

-woods, I descried a man and woman on the hillside not far away; the

-man leading a mule, and the woman picking strawberries. At sight of

-a stranger the woman fell behind, but the man kept on to the house,

-greeted me politely, and invited me to be seated under the hemlock,

-where two chairs were already placed. After tying the mule he took

-the other chair, and we fell into talk about the weather, the crops,

-and things in general. When the wife finally appeared, I rose, of

-course; but she went on in silence and entered the house, while the

-husband said, "Oh, keep your seat." We continued our conversation

-till the rain began to fall. Then we picked up our chairs and

-followed the woman inside. She sat in the middle of the room (young,

-pretty, newly married, and Sunday-dressed), but never once opened her

-lips. Her behavior was in strict accordance with local etiquette, I

-was afterward assured (as if _all_ etiquette were not local); but

-though I admire feminine modesty as much as any man, I cannot say

-that I found this particular manifestation of it altogether to my

-liking. Silence is golden, no doubt, and gold is more precious than

-silver, but in cases of this figurative sort I profess myself a

-bimetallist. A _little_ silver, I say; enough for small change, at

-any rate; and if we can have a pretty free coinage, why, so much the

-better, though as to that, it must be admitted, a good deal depends

-upon the "image and superscription." However, my hostess followed her

-lights, and reserved her voice--soft and musical let us hope--for

-her husband's ear.

-

-They had not lived in the house very long, he told me, and he did

-not know how many years the land had been cleared. There was a fair

-amount of game in the woods,--turkeys, squirrels, pheasants, and so

-on,--and in winter the men did considerable hunting. Formerly there

-were a good many deer, but they had been pretty well killed off.

-Turkeys still held out. They were gobbling now. His father had been

-trying for two or three weeks, off and on, to shoot a certain old

-fellow who had several hens with him down in the valley. His father

-could call with his mouth better than with any "caller," but so far

-the bird had been too sharp for him. The son laughed good-naturedly

-when I confessed to an unsportsmanlike sympathy with the gobbler.

-

-The cabin, built of hewn logs, with clay in the chinks, was neatly

-furnished, with beds in two corners of the one room, a stone chimney,

-two doors directly opposite each other, and no window. The doors,

-it is understood, are always to be open, for ventilation and light.

-Such is the custom; and custom is nowhere more powerful than in

-small rustic communities. If a native, led away by his wife, perhaps,

-puts a window into his new cabin, the neighbors say, "Oh, he is

-building a glass house, isn't he?" It must be an effeminate woman,

-they think, who cannot do her cooking and sewing by the light of

-the door. None the less, in a climate where snow is possible in the

-middle of May, such a Spartan arrangement must sometimes be found

-a bit uncomfortable by persons not to the manner born. A preacher

-confided to me that in his pastoral calls he had once or twice made

-bold to push to a door directly at his back, when the wind was cold;

-but the innovation was ill received, and the inmates of the house,

-doubtless without wishing to hurt their minister's feelings,--since

-he had meant no harm, to be sure, but was simply unused to the ways

-of the world,--speedily found some excuse for rectifying his mistake.

-Probably there is no corner of the world where the question of fresh

-air and draughts is not available for purposes of moral discipline.

-

-Beside the path to the cabin, on the 13th of May, was a gray-cheeked

-thrush, a very gray specimen, sitting motionless in the best of

-lights. "Look at me," he seemed to say. "I am no olive-back. My

-cheeks are not sallow." On the same day, here and in another place,

-I saw white-throated sparrows. Their presence at this late hour was

-a great surprise, and suggested the possibility of their breeding

-somewhere in the Carolina mountains, though I am not aware that such

-an occurrence has ever been recorded. Another recollection of this

-path is of a snow-white milkweed (_Asclepias variegata_),--white with

-the merest touch of purple to set it off,--for the downright elegance

-of which I was not in the least prepared. The queen of all milkweeds,

-surely.

-

-After nightfall the air grew loud with the cries of batrachians and

-insects, an interesting and novel chorus. On my first evening at the

-hotel I was loitering up the road, with frequent auditory pauses,

-thinking how full the world is of unseen creatures which find their

-day only after the sun goes down, when in a woody spot I heard behind

-me a sound of footsteps. A woman was close at my heels, fetching a

-pail of water from the spring. I remarked upon the many voices. She

-answered pleasantly. It was the big frogs that I heard, she reckoned.

-

-"Do you have whippoorwills here?" I asked.

-

-"Plenty of 'em," she answered, "plenty of 'em."

-

-"Do you hear them right along the road?"

-

-"Yes, sir; oh yes."

-

-We had gone hardly a rod further before we exclaimed in the same

-breath, "There is one now!"

-

-I inquired if there was another bird here, something like the

-whippoorwill, meaning the chuck-will's-widow. But she said no; she

-knew of but one.

-

-"How early does the whippoorwill get here?" said I.

-

-"Pretty early," she answered.

-

-"By the first of April, should you say?"

-

-"Yes, sir, I think about then. I know the timber is just beginning to

-put out when they begin to holler."

-

-This mannerly treatment of a stranger was more Christian-like than

-the stately silence of my lady of the cabin, it seemed to me. I

-liked it better, at all events. I had learned nothing, perhaps; but

-unless a man is far gone in philosophy he need not feel bound to

-increase in wisdom every time a neighbor speaks to him; and anyhow,

-that expression about the "putting out of the timber" had given me

-pleasure. Hearing it thus was better than finding it upon a page

-of Stevenson, or some other author whose business in life is the

-picking of right words. Let us have some silver, I repeat. I am ready

-to believe, what I have somewhere read, that men will have to give

-account not only for every idle word, but for every idle silence.

-

-The summit of the Ridge, as soon as one leaves its precipitous rocky

-edge,--the Brow, so called,--is simply an indefinite expanse of

-gently rolling country, thin-soiled, but well watered, and covered

-with fine open woods, rambling through which the visitor finds little

-to remind him of his elevation above the world. I heard a resident

-speak of going to the "top of the mountain," however, and on inquiry

-learned that a certain rocky eminence, two miles, more or less, from

-Fairmount (the little "settlement" where I was staying), went by

-that name, and was supposed to be the highest point of the Ridge.

-My informant kindly made me a rough map of the way thither, and one

-morning I set out in that direction. It would be shameful to live for

-a week on the "summit" of a mountain, and not once go to the "top."

-

-The glory of Walden's Ridge, as compared with Lookout Mountain,--so

-the dwellers there say,--is its streams and springs; and my morning

-path soon brought me to the usual rocky brook bordered with mountain

-laurel, holly, and hemlock. To my New England eyes it was an odd

-circumstance, the hemlocks growing always along the creeks in the

-valley bottoms. Beyond this point I passed an abandoned cabin,--no

-other house in sight,--and by and by a second one, near which, in the

-garden (better worth preserving than the house, it appeared), a woman

-and two children were at work. Yes, the woman said, I was on the

-right path. I had only to keep a straight course, and I should bring

-up at the "top of the mountain." A little farther, and my spirits

-rose at the sight of a circular, sedgy, woodland pond, such a place

-as I had not seen in all this Chattanooga country. It ought to yield

-something new for my local ornithological list, which up to this

-time included ninety species, and not one of them a water-bird. I did

-my best, beating round the edge and "squeaking," but startled nothing

-rarer than a hooded warbler and a cardinal grosbeak.

-

-Next I traversed a long stretch of unbroken oak woods, with single

-tall pines interspersed; and then all at once the path turned to

-the right, and ran obliquely downhill to a clearing in which stood

-a house,--not a cabin,--with a garden, orchard trees, and beehives.

-This should be the German shoemaker's, I thought, looking at my

-map. If so, I was pretty near the top, though otherwise there was

-no sign of it; and if I had made any considerable ascent, it had

-been as children increase in stature,--and as the good increase in

-goodness,--unconsciously. A woman of some years was in the garden,

-and at my approach came up to the fence,--a round-faced, motherly

-body. Yes, the top of the mountain was just beyond. I could not miss

-it.

-

-"You do not live here?" she asked.

-

-No, I explained; I was a stranger on the Ridge,--a stranger from

-Boston.

-

-"From Washington?"

-

-"No, from Boston."

-

-"Oh! from Boston!--Massachusetts!--Oh-h-h!"

-

-She would go part way with me, she said, lest I should miss the path.

-Perhaps she wished to show some special hospitality to a man from

-Massachusetts; or possibly she thought I must be more in danger of

-getting bewildered, being so far from home. But I could not think of

-troubling her. Was there a spring near by, where I could drink?

-

-"I have water in the house," she answered.

-

-"But isn't there a creek down in the valley ahead?"

-

-Oh yes, there was a creek; but had I anything to drink out of? I

-thanked her. Yes, I had a cup. "My husband will be at home by the

-time you come back," she said, as I started on, and I promised to

-call.

-

-The scene at the brook, halfway between the German's house and the

-top, would of itself have paid me for my morning's jaunt. I stood on

-a boulder in mid-current, in the shadow of overhanging trees, and

-drank it in. Such rhododendrons and laurel, now in the perfection of

-their beauty! One rhododendron bush was at least ten feet high, and

-loaded with blooms. Another lifted its crown of a dozen rose-purple

-clusters amid the dark foliage of a hemlock. A magnolia-tree

-stood near; but though it was much taller than the laurel or the

-rhododendron, and had much larger flowers, it made little show beside

-them. Birds were singing on all hands, and numbers of gay-colored

-butterflies flitted about, sipping here and there at a blossom. I

-remember especially a fine tiger swallow-tail; the only one I saw

-in Tennessee, I believe. I remember, too, how well the rhododendron

-became him. Here, as in many other places, the laurel was nearly

-white; a happy circumstance, as it and the rhododendron went the

-more harmoniously together. Even in this high company, some tufts of

-cinnamon fern were not to be overlooked; the fertile cinnamon-brown

-fronds were now at their loveliest, and showed as bravely here, I

-thought, as in the barest of Massachusetts swamp-lands.

-

-A few rods more, up a moderate slope, and I was at the top of the

-mountain,--a wall of out-cropping rocks, falling off abruptly on the

-further side, and looking almost like an artificial rampart. Beyond

-me, to my surprise, I heard the hum of cicadas,--seventeen-year

-locusts,--a sound of which the lower country had for some time been

-full, but of which, till this moment, I had heard nothing on the

-Ridge.

-

-As for the prospect, it was far reaching, but only in one direction,

-and through openings among the trees. Directly before me, some

-hundreds of feet below, was a piece of road, with a single cabin

-and a barn; and much farther away were other cabins, each with its

-private clearing. Elsewhere the foreground was an unbroken forest.

-For some time I could not distinguish the Ridge itself from the

-outlying world. Mountains and hills crowded the hazy horizon, range

-beyond range. Moving along the rocks, I found a vista through which

-Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain were visible. Another change, and

-a stretch of the Tennessee River came into sight, and, beyond it,

-Missionary Ridge with its settlements and its two observatories.

-Evidently I was considerably above the level of the Brow; but whether

-this was really the top of the mountain--reached, in some mysterious

-way, without going uphill--was more than I could say.[2]

-

-Nor did it matter. I was glad to be there. It was a pleasant place

-and a pleasant hour, with an oak root for a seat, and never an insect

-to trouble me. That, by the way, was true of all those Tennessee

-forests,--when I was there, I mean; from what I heard, the ticks

-and jiggers must be bad enough later in the season. As men do at

-such times,--for human nature is of noble origin, and feels no

-surprise at being well treated,--I took my immunity as a matter of

-course, and only realized how I had been favored when I got back to

-Massachusetts, where, on my first visit to the woods, I was fairly

-driven out by swarms of mosquitoes.

-

-The shoemaker was at home when I reached his house on my return, and

-at the urgent invitation of himself and his wife I joined them on

-the piazza for a bit of neighborly chat. I found him a smallish man,

-not German in appearance, but looking, I thought, like Thoreau,

-only grown a little older. He had been on Walden's Ridge for fifteen

-years. Before that he was in South Carolina, but the yellow fever

-came along and made him feel like getting out. Yes, this was a

-healthy country. He had nothing to complain of; he was sixty-two

-years old and his doctors' bills had never amounted to "five dollar."

-

-"Do _you_ like living here?" I asked his wife.

-

-"No," she answered promptly; "I never did. But then," she added, "we

-can't help it. If you own something, you know, you have to stay."

-

-The author of Walden would have appreciated that remark. There was no

-shoemaking to be done here, the man said, his nearest neighbor being

-half a mile distant through the woods; and there was no clover, so

-that his bees did not do very well; and the frost had just killed

-all his peach-trees; but when I asked if he never felt homesick for

-Germany, the answer came like a pistol shot,--"No."

-

-I inquired about a cave, of which I had heard reports. Yes, it was

-a good cave, they said; I could easily find it. But their directions

-conveyed no very clear idea to my mind, and by and by the woman

-began talking to her husband in German. "She is telling him he ought

-to go with me and show me the way," I said to myself; and the next

-moment she came back to English. "He will go with you," she said. I

-demurred, but he protested that he could do it as well as not. "Take

-up a stick; you might see a snake," his wife called after him, as we

-left the house. He smiled, but did not follow her advice, though I

-fancied he would have done so had she gone along with us. A half-mile

-or so through the pathless woods brought us to the cave, which might

-hold a hundred persons, I thought. The dribbling "creek" fell over it

-in front. Then the man took me to my path, pointed my way homeward,

-and, with a handshake (the silver lining of which was not refused,

-though I had been troubled with a scruple), bade me good-by. First,

-however, he told me that if I found any one in Boston who wanted

-to buy a place on Walden's Ridge, he would sell a part of his or

-the whole of it. I remember him most kindly, and would gladly do

-him a service. If any reader, having a landed investment in view,

-should desire my intervention in the premises, I am freely at his

-command; only let him bear in mind the terms of the deed: "If you own

-something, you know, you have to stay."

-

-

-II.

-

-Fairmount, as has already been said, is but a clearing in the forest.

-Instead of a solitary cabin, as elsewhere, there are perhaps a dozen

-or two of cabins and houses scattered along the road, which emerges

-from the woods at one end of the settlement, and, after a mile or so

-in the sun, drops into them again at the other end. The glory of the

-place, and the reason of its being, as I suppose, is a chalybeate

-spring in a woody hollow before the post-office. There may be a

-shop of some kind, also, but memory retains no such impression. One

-building, rather larger than most of its neighbors, and apparently

-unoccupied, I looked at more than once with a measure of that

-curiosity which is everywhere the stranger's privilege. It sat

-squarely on the road, and boasted a sort of portico or piazza,--it

-puzzled me what to call it,--but there was no vestige of a chimney.

-One day a ragged, bright-faced boy met me at the right moment, and I

-asked, "Did some one use to live in that house?" "That?" said he, in

-a tone I shall never forget. "That's a barn. That over there is the

-dwelling." My ignorance was fittingly rebuked, and I had no spirit to

-inquire about the piazza. Probably it was nothing but a lean-to. Even

-in my humiliation, however, it pleased me to hear what I should have

-called that good literary word "dwelling" on such lips. A Yankee boy

-might have said "dwelling-house," but no Yankee of any age, or none

-that I have ever known, would have said "dwelling," though he might

-have read the word in books a thousand times. I thought of a spruce

-colored waiter in Florida, who, when I asked him at breakfast how the

-day was likely to turn out, answered promptly, "I think it will be

-inclement." It may reasonably be counted among the minor advantages

-of travel that it enriches one's every-day vocabulary.

-

-Another Fairmount building (an unmistakable house, this time) is

-memorable to me because on the doorstep, day after day, an old

-gentleman and a younger antagonist--they might have been grandfather

-and grandson--were playing checkers. "I hope you are beating the

-young fellow," I could not help saying once to the old gentleman.

-He smiled dubiously, and made some halting reply suggestive of

-resignation rather than triumph; and it came to me with a kind of

-pang, as I passed on, that if growing old is a bad business, as most

-of us think, it is perhaps an unfavorable symptom when a man finds

-himself, not out of politeness, but as a simple matter of course,

-taking sides with the aged.

-

-Fairmounters, living in the woods, have no outlook upon the world.

-If they wish to see off, they must go to the Brow, which, by a

-stroller's guess, may be two miles distant. My first visit to it

-was the pleasanter--the more vacational, so to speak--for being an

-accident. I sauntered aimlessly down the road, past the scattered

-houses and orchards (the raising of early apples seemed to be a

-leading industry on the Ridge, though a Chattanooga gentleman had

-assured me that the principal crops were blackberries and rabbits),

-and almost before I knew it, was in the same delightful woods that

-had welcomed me wherever I had gone. And in the same woods the same

-birds were singing. My notes make particular record of hooded and

-Kentucky warblers, these being two of my newer acquaintances, as well

-as two of the commoner Ridge songsters; but I halted for some time,

-and with even a livelier interest, to listen to an old friend (no

-acquaintance, if you please),--a black-throated green warbler. It was

-one of the queerest of songs: a bar of five or six notes, uniform

-in pitch, and then at once, in perfect form and voice,--the voice

-being a main part of the music in the case of this warbler,--the

-familiar _trees_, _trees_, _murmuring trees_. Where could the

-fellow have picked up such a ditty? No doubt there was some story

-connected with it. Nothing is born of itself. A dozen years ago, in

-the Green Mountains,--at Bread-Loaf Inn,--I heard from the forest by

-the roadside a song utterly strange, and hastened in search of its

-author. After much furtive approach and diligent scanning of the

-foliage, I had the bird under my opera-glass,--a black-throated blue

-warbler! With my eye still upon him, he sang again and again, and

-the song bore no faintest resemblance to the _kree_, _kree_, _kree_,

-which all New England bird-lovers know as the work of _Dendroica

-caerulescens_. In what private school he had been educated I have no

-idea; but I believe that every such extreme eccentricity goes back to

-something out of the common in the bird's early training.

-

-I felt in no haste. Life is easy in the Tennessee mountains. A

-pile of lumber, newly unloaded near the road,--in the woods, of

-course,--offered a timely seat, and I took it. Some Chattanooga

-gentleman was planning a summer cottage for himself, I gathered. May

-he enjoy it for twenty years as much as I did for twenty minutes. Not

-far beyond, near a fork in the road, a man of twenty-five or thirty,

-a youth of sixteen or seventeen, and a small boy were playing marbles

-in a cabin yard. I interrupted the sport long enough to inquire

-which road I had better take. I was going nowhere in particular, I

-explained, and wanted simply a pleasant stroll. "Then I would go

-to the Brow, if I were you," said the man. "Keep a straight road.

-It isn't far." I thanked him, and with a cheery "Come on!" to his

-playmates he ran back, literally, to the ring. Yes, life is easy

-in the Tennessee mountains. It is not to be assumed, nevertheless,

-that the man was a do-nothing: probably he had struck work for a

-few minutes only; but, like a sensible player, he was enjoying the

-game while it lasted. Perhaps it is a certain inborn Puritanical

-industriousness, against which I have never found the courage

-effectually to rebel, that makes me look back upon this dooryard

-comedy as one of the brightest incidents of my Tennessee vacation.

-Fancy a Massachusetts farmer playing marbles at nine o'clock in the

-forenoon!

-

-At that moment, it must be owned, a rebuke of idleness would have

-fallen with a poor grace from my Massachusetts lips. If the player of

-marbles had followed his questioner round the first turn, he would

-have seen him standing motionless beside a swamp, holding his head on

-one side as if listening,--though there was nothing to be heard,--or

-evoking ridiculous squeaking noises by sucking idiotically the back

-of his hand. Well, I was trying to find another bird, just as he was

-trying to knock another marble out of the ring.

-

-The spot invited such researches,--a bushy swamp, quite unlike the

-dry woods and rocky woodland brooks which I had found everywhere

-else. I had seen my first cerulean warbler on Lookout Mountain, my

-first Cape May warbler on Cameron Hill, my first Kentucky warbler

-on Missionary Ridge, and my first blue-winged yellow warbler at the

-Chickamauga battlefield. If Walden was to treat me equally well, as

-in all fairness it ought, now was the time. Looking, listening, and

-squeaking were alike unrewarded, however, till I approached the same

-spot on my return. Then some bird sang a new song. I hoped it was a

-prothonotary warbler, a bird I had never seen, and about whose notes

-I knew nothing. More likely it was a Louisiana water-thrush, a bird

-I had seen, but had never heard sing. Whichever it was, alas, it

-speedily fell silent, and no beating of the bush proved of the least

-avail.

-

-Meanwhile I had been to the Brow, where I had sat for an hour or more

-on the edge of the mountain, gazing down upon the world. The sky was

-clouded, but here and there were fugitive patches of sunshine, now

-on Missionary Ridge, now on the river, now glorifying the smoke of

-the city. Southward, just across the valley and over Chattanooga,

-was Lookout Mountain; eastward stretched Missionary Ridge, with

-many higher hills behind it; and more to the north, and far in the

-distance, loomed the Great Smoky Mountains, in all respects true

-to their name. The valley at my feet was beautiful beyond words:

-green forests interspersed with green clearings, lonely cabins,

-and bare fields of red earth. At the north, Walden's Ridge made a

-turn eastward, narrowing the valley, but without ending it. Chimney

-swifts were cackling merrily, and the air was full of the hum of

-seventeen-year locusts,--miles and miles of continuous sound. From

-somewhere far below rose the tinkle of cow-bells. Even on that

-cloudy and smoky day it was a glorious landscape; but it pleased me

-afterward to remember that the eye returned of itself again and again

-to a stretch of freshly green meadow along a slender watercourse,--a

-valley within the valley. Of all the fair picture, that was the most

-like home.

-

-Meanwhile there was no forgetting that undiscovered stranger in the

-swamp. Whoever he was, he must be made to show himself; and the

-next day, when the usual noonday deluge was past, I looked at the

-clouds, and said: "We shall have another, but in the interval I can

-probably reach the Brow. There I will take shelter on the piazza of

-an unoccupied cottage, and, when the rain is over, go back to the

-swamp, see my bird, and thence return home." So it turned out--in

-part. The clouds hurried me, but I reached the Brow just in season,

-climbed the cottage fence, the gate being padlocked, and, thoroughly

-heated as I was, paced briskly to and fro on the piazza in a chilling

-breeze for an hour or more, the flood all the while threatening to

-fall, and the thunder shaking the house. There was plenty to look at,

-for the cottage faced the Great Smokies, and though we were under the

-blackest of clouds, the landscape below was largely in the sun. The

-noise of the locusts was incessant. Nothing but the peals of thunder

-kept it out of my ears.

-

-So far, then, my plans had prospered; but to find the mysterious

-bird,--that was not so easy. The swamp was silent, and I was at once

-so cold and so hot, and so badly under the weather already, that I

-dared not linger.

-

-In the woods, nevertheless, I stopped long enough to enjoy the

-music of a master cardinal,--a bewitching song, and, as I thought,

-original: _birdy_, _birdy_, repeated about ten times in the sweetest

-of whistles, and then a sudden descent in the pitch, and the same

-syllables over again. At that instant, a Carolina wren, as if

-stirred to rivalry, sprang into a bush and began whistling _cherry_,

-_cherry_, _cherry_ at his loudest and prettiest. It was a royal

-duet. The cardinal was in magnificent plumage, and a scarlet tanager

-near by was equally handsome. If the tanager could whistle like the

-cardinal, our New England woods would have a bird to brag of.

-

-Not far beyond these wayside musicians I came upon a boy sitting

-beside a wood-pile, with his saw lying on the ground. "It is easier

-to sit down than to saw wood, isn't it?" said I. Possibly he was

-unused to such aphoristic modes of speech. He took time to consider.

-Then he smiled, and said, "Yes, sir." The answer was all-sufficient.

-We spoke from experience, both of us; and between men who _know_,

-whatever the matter in hand, disagreement is impossible and

-amplification needless.

-

-Three days later--my last day on the Ridge--I had better luck at the

-swamp. The stranger was singing on the nearer edge as I approached,

-and I had simply to draw near and look at him,--a Louisiana

-water-thrush. He sang, and I listened; and farther along, at the

-little bridge where I had first heard the song, another like him was

-in tune. The strain, as warbler songs go ("water-thrushes" being not

-thrushes, but warblers), is rather striking,--clear, pretty loud,

-of about ten notes, the first pair of which are longest and best.

-I speak of what I heard, and give, of course, my own impression.

-Audubon pronounces the notes "as powerful and mellow, and at times

-as varied," as those of the nightingale, and Wilson waxes almost

-equally enthusiastic in his praise of the "exquisitely sweet and

-expressive voice." Here, as in Florida, I was interested to perceive

-how instantly the bird's appearance and carriage distinguished it

-from its Northern relative, although the descriptions of the two

-species, as given in books, sound confusingly alike. It is matter for

-thankfulness, perhaps, that language is not yet so all-expressive as

-to render individual eyesight superfluous.

-

-I kept on to the Brow, and some time afterward was at Mabbitt's

-Spring, quenching my thirst with a draught of liquid iron rust, when

-a third songster of the same kind struck up his tune. The spring,

-spurting out of the rock in a slender jet, is beside the same

-stream--Little Falling Water--that makes through the swamp; and along

-its banks, it appeared, the water-thrushes were at home. I was glad

-to have heard the famous singer, but my satisfaction was not without

-alloy. Walden, after all, had failed to show me a new bird, though it

-had given me a new song.

-

-The most fatiguing, and perhaps the most interesting of my days on

-the Ridge was the one day in which I did not travel on foot. Passing

-through the village, on my return from one of my earlier visits to

-Falling Water, I stopped a nice-looking man (if he will pardon the

-expression, copied from my notes), driving a horse with a pair of

-clothes-line reins. He had an air of being at home, and naturally I

-took him for a native. Would he tell me something about the country,

-especially about the roads, so that I might improve my scanty time

-to the best advantage? Very gladly, he answered. He had walked and

-driven over the mountain a good deal, surveying, and if I would call

-at his house, a short distance down the road,--the house with the big

-barn,--he would make me a rough map, such as would answer my purpose.

-At the same time he mentioned two or three shorter excursions which

-I ought not to miss; and when I had thanked him for his kindness, he

-gathered up the reins and drove on. Intending no disrespect to the

-inhabitants of the Ridge, I may perhaps be allowed to say that I was

-considerably impressed by a certain unexpected propriety, and even

-elegance, of diction, on the part of my new acquaintance. I remember

-in particular his description of a pleasant cold spring as being

-situated not far from the "confluence" of two streams. _Con-fluens_,

-I thought, flowing together. Having always something else to do, I

-omitted to call at his house, and one day, when we met again in the

-road, I apologized for my neglect, and asked another favor. He was

-familiar with the country, and kept a horse. Could he not spare a day

-to take me about? If he thought this proposal a bit presumptuous,

-courtesy restrained him from letting the fact be seen, and, after a

-few minutes of deliberation,--his hands being pretty full just then,

-he explained,--he promised to call for me two mornings later, at

-seven o'clock. We would take a luncheon along, and make a day of it.

-

-He appeared at the gate in due season, and in a few minutes we were

-driving over a road new to me, but through the same spacious oak

-woods to which I had grown accustomed. We went first to Burnt Cabin

-Spring, one of the famous chalybeate springs of the mountain,--a

-place formerly frequented by picnic parties, but now, to all

-appearance, fallen into neglect. We stretched our legs, drank of the

-water, admired the flowers and ferns, talking all the while (it was

-here that my companion told a story of a young theologian from Grant

-University, who, in a solemn discourse, spoke repeatedly of Jacob as

-having "euchred his brother out of his birthright"), and then, while

-a "pheasant" drummed near by, took our places again in the buggy.

-

-Another stage, still through the oak woods, and we were at Signal

-Point, famous--in local tradition, at least--as the station from

-which General Sherman signaled encouragement to the Union army

-beleaguered in Chattanooga, in danger of starvation or surrender.

-I had looked at the bold, jutting crags from Lookout Mountain and

-elsewhere, and rejoiced at last to stand upon them.

-

-It would have been delightful to spend a long day there, lying

-upon the cliffs and enjoying the prospect, which, without being so

-far-reaching as from Point Lookout, or even from the eastern brim

-of Walden, is yet extensive and surpassingly beautiful. The visitor

-is squarely above the river, which here, in the straitened valley

-between the Ridge and Raccoon Mountain, grows narrower and narrower

-till it rushes through the "Suck." Even at that elevation we could

-hear the roar of the rapids. A short distance above the Suck, and

-almost at our feet, lay Williams Island. A farmer's Eden it looked,

-with its broad, newly planted fields, and its house surrounded by

-out-buildings and orchard-trees. The view included Chattanooga,

-Missionary Ridge, and much else; but its special charm was its

-foreground, the part peculiar to itself,--the valley, the river,

-and Raccoon Mountain. Along the river-banks were small clearings,

-each with its one cabin, and generally a figure or two ploughing or

-planting. A man in a strangely long boat--a dugout, probably--was

-making his difficult way upstream with a paddle. The Tennessee, in

-the neighborhood of Chattanooga, at all events, is too swift for

-pleasure-boating. Seen from above, as I commonly saw it, it looked

-tranquil enough; but when I came down to its edge, now and then, the

-speed and energetic sweep of the smooth current laid fast hold upon

-me. From the mountains to the sea is a long, long journey, and no

-wonder the river felt in haste.

-

-I had gone to Signal Point not as an ornithologist, but as a patriot

-and a lover of beauty; but, being there, I added one to my list of

-Tennessee birds,--a red-tailed hawk, one of the very few hawks seen

-in all my trip. Sailing below us, it displayed its rusty, diagnostic

-tail, and put its identity at once beyond question.

-

-Our next start--far too speedy, for the day was short--was for

-Williams Point; but on our way thither we descended into the valley

-of Shoal Creek, down which, with the creek to keep it company, runs

-the old mountain road, now disused and practically impassable. Here

-we hitched the horse, and strolled downwards for perhaps half a mile.

-I was never in a lovelier spot. The mountain brook, laughing over

-the stones, is overhung with laurel and rhododendron, which in turn

-are overhung by precipitous rocks broken into all wild and romantic

-shapes, with here and there a cavern--"rock-house"--to shelter a

-score of travelers. The place was rich in ferns and other plants,

-which, unhappily, I had no time to examine, and all the particulars

-of which have faded out of my memory. We walked far enough to look

-over the edge of the mountain, and up to the Signal Point cliffs. If

-I could have stayed there two or three hours, it would have been a

-memorable season. As it was, the stroll was enlivened by one little

-adventure, at which I have laughed too many times ever to forget it.

-

-I had been growing rapturous over the beauty of things, when my

-companion said, "There are some people whom it is no pleasure to take

-into places like this. They can't keep their eyes off the ground,

-they are so bitten with the fear of snakes." He was a few paces ahead

-of me, as he spoke, and the sentence was barely finished before he

-shouted, "Look at that huge snake!" and sprang forward to snatch up

-a stone. "Get a stick!" he cried. "Get a stick!" From his manner I

-took it for granted that the creature was a rattlesnake, and a glance

-at it, lying motionless among the stones beside the road, did not

-undeceive me. I turned hurriedly, looking for a stick, but somehow

-could not find one, and in a moment more was recalled by shouts of

-"Come and help me! It will get away from us!" It was a question of

-life and death, I thought, and I ran forward and began throwing

-stones. "Look out! Look out! You'll bury it!" cried my companion;

-but just then one of my shots struck the snake squarely in the head.

-"That's a good one!" exclaimed the other man, and, picking up a dead

-stick, he thrust it under the disabled creature and tossed it into

-the road. Then he bent over it, and, with a stone, pounded its head

-to a jelly. Such a fury as possessed him! He might have been bruising

-the head of Satan himself, as no doubt he was--in his mind; for my

-surveyor was also a preacher, as had already transpired.

-

-"It isn't a venomous snake, is it?" I ventured to ask, when the work

-was done.

-

-"Oh, I think not," and he pried open its jaws to look for its fangs.

-

-"I don't generally kill innocent snakes," I ventured again, a little

-inopportunely, it must be confessed.

-

-"Well, _I_ do," said the preacher. "The very sight of a snake stirs

-my hatred to its depths."

-

-After that it was natural to inquire whether he often saw

-rattlesnakes hereabouts. (The driver who brought me up the mountain

-had said that they were not common, but that I "wanted to look out

-sharp for them in the woods.") My companion had never seen one, he

-answered, but his wife had once killed one in their dooryard. Then,

-by way of cooling off, after the fervor of the conflict, he told

-me about a gentleman and his little boy, who, having come to spend

-a vacation on the Ridge, started out in the morning for a stroll.

-They were quickly back again, and the boy, quite out of breath, came

-running into the garden.

-

-"Oh, Mr. M.," he cried, "we saw a rattlesnake, and papa fired off his

-pistol!"

-

-"A rattlesnake! Where is it? What did it look like?"

-

-"Why, we didn't see it, but we heard it."

-

-"What was the noise like?" asked Mr. M., and he took a pencil from

-his pocket and began tapping on a log.

-

-"That's it!" said the boy, "that's it!"

-

-They had heard a woodpecker drilling for grubs,--or drumming for

-love,--whereupon the man had fired his pistol, and for them there was

-no more walking in the woods.

-

-After our ramble along Shoal Creek we rested at the ford, near a

-brilliant show of laurel and rhododendron, and ate our luncheon to

-the music of the stream. I finished first, as my evil habit is, and

-was crossing the brook on natural stepping-stones when a bird--a

-warbler of some unknown kind--saluted me from the thicket. Making my

-companion a signal not to disturb us by driving into the stream, I

-gave myself up to discovering the singer; edging this way and that,

-while the fellow moved about also, always unseen, and sang again and

-again, now a louder song, now, with charming effect, a quieter and

-briefer one, till I was almost as badly beside myself as the preacher

-had been half an hour before. But my warfare was less successful than

-his, for, with all my pains, I saw not so much as a feather. There

-is nothing prettier than a jungle of laurel and rhododendron in full

-bloom, but there are many easier places in which to make out a bird.

-

-Williams Point, which we reached on foot, after driving as near it

-as the roughness of the unfrequented road would comfortably allow,

-is not in itself equal to Signal Point, but affords substantially

-the same magnificent prospect. Near it, in the woods, stood a newly

-built cabin, looking badly out of place with its glaring unweathered

-boards; and beside the cabin stood a man and woman in a condition of

-extreme disgust. The man had come up the mountain to work in some

-coal-mine, if I understood him correctly; but the tools were not

-ready, there was no water, his household goods were stranded down

-in the valley somewhere (the hens were starving to death, the woman

-added), and, all in all, the pair were in a sorry plight.

-

-Here, as at Signal Point, I made an addition to my local ornithology,

-and this time too the bird was a hawk. We were standing on the edge

-of the cliff, when a sparrow hawk, after alighting near us, took wing

-and hung for some time suspended over the abyss, beating against the

-breeze, and so holding itself steady,--a graceful piece of work,

-the better appreciated for being seen from above. Here, also, for

-the first time in my life, I was addressed as a "you-un." "Where

-be you-uns from?" asked the woman at the cabin, after the ordinary

-greetings had been exchanged. I believe, in my innocence, I had

-always looked upon that word as an invention of story-writers.

-

-Somewhere in this neighborhood we traversed a pine wood, in which

-my first Walden pine warbler was trilling. Then, for some miles, we

-drove along the Brow, with the glory of the world--valley, river,

-and mountain--outspread before us, and the Great Smokies looming in

-the background, barely visible through the haze. For seven miles, I

-was told, one could drive along that mountain rim. Surely the city

-of Chattanooga is happy in its suburbs. Here were many cottages, the

-greater number as yet unopened; and not far beyond the one under

-the piazza of which I had weathered the thunderstorm of the day

-before, the road entered the forest again. Then, as the way grew

-more and more difficult, we left the horse behind us, and by and by

-came to a foot-path. This brought us at last to Falling Water Fall,

-where Little Falling Water--after threading the swamp and passing

-Mabbitt's Spring, as before described--tumbles over a precipice

-which my companion, with his surveyor's eye, estimated to be one

-hundred and fifty feet in height. The slender stream, broken into

-jewels as it falls, strikes the bottom at some distance from the

-foot of the cliffs, which here form the arc of a circle, and are

-not perpendicular, but deeply hollowed. After enjoying the prospect

-from this point,--holding to a tree and leaning over the edge of the

-rocks,--we retraced our steps till we came to a steep, zigzag path,

-which took us to the foot of the precipice. Here, as well as above,

-were laurel and rhododendron in profusion. One big rhododendron-tree

-grew on the face of the cliff, thirty feet over our heads, leaning

-outward, and bearing at least fifty clusters of gorgeous rose-purple

-flowers; and a smaller one, in a similar position, was equally full.

-The hanging gardens of Babylon may have been more wonderful, but I

-was well content.

-

-From the point where we stood the ledge makes eastward for a long

-distance, almost at right angles, and the cliffs for a mile--or,

-more likely, for two or three miles--were straight before us, broken

-everywhere into angles, light gray and reddish-brown intermixed, with

-the late afternoon sun shining full upon them, and the green forest

-fringing them above and sweeping away from them below.

-

-It was a breathless clamber up the rocks again, tired and poorly off

-as I was, but I reached the top with one hand full of rhododendrons

-(it seemed a shame to pick them, and a shame to leave them), and in

-half an hour we were driving homeward, our day's work done; while my

-seatmate, who, besides being preacher, lawyer, surveyor, and farmer,

-was also a mystic and a saint,--though he would have refused the

-word,--fell into a strain of reminiscence, appropriate to the hour,

-about the inner life of the soul, its hopes, its struggles, and its

-joys. I listened in reverent silence. The passion for perfection is

-not yet so common as to have become commonplace, and one need not be

-certain of a theory in order to admire a practice. He had already

-told me who his father was, and I had ceased to wonder at his using

-now and then a choice phrase.

-

-My friend (he will allow me that word, I am sure) had given me a day

-of days, and with it a new idea of this mountain world; where the

-visitor finds hills and valleys, creeks and waterfalls, the most

-beautiful of forests, with clearings, isolated cabins, straggling

-settlements, orchards, and gardens, and where he forgets again and

-again that he is on a mountain at all. Even now I had seen but

-a corner of it, as I have seen but a corner of the larger world

-on which, for these few years back, I have had what I call my

-existence. And even of what I saw, much has gone undescribed: stately

-tulip-trees deep in the forest, with humming-birds darting from

-flower to flower among them; the flame-colored azalea; the ground

-flowers of the woods, including some tiny yellow lady's-slippers,

-too dainty for the foot of Cinderella herself; the road to Sawyer's

-Springs; and numbers of birds, whose names, even, I have omitted. It

-was a wonderful world; but if the hobbyist may take the pen for a

-single sentence, it may stand confessed that the greatest wonder of

-all was this,--that in all those miles of oak forest I found not one

-blue jay.

-

-Another surprising circumstance, which I do not remember to have

-noticed, however, till my attention was somewhat rudely called

-to it, was the absence of colored people. With the exception of

-three servants at the hotel, I saw none but whites. Walden's Ridge,

-although stanchly Union in war-time, and largely Republican now, as

-I was told, is a white man's country. I had gone to bed one night,

-and was fast asleep, when I was wakened suddenly by the noise of some

-one hurrying up the stairs and shouting, "Where's the gun? Where's

-the gun? Shorty's been shot!" "Shorty" was the colored waiter, and

-the speaker was a general factotum, an English boy. The colored

-people--Shorty, his wife, and the cook--had been out on the edge of

-the woods behind the house, when three men had fired at them, or

-pretended to do so. It was explained the next morning that this was

-only an attempt (on the part of some irresponsible young men, as the

-older residents said) to "run the niggers off the mountain,"--after

-what I understood to be a somewhat regular custom. "Niggers" did not

-belong there; their place was down below. If a Chattanooga cottager

-brought up a colored servant, he was "respectfully requested" to

-send him back, and save the natives the trouble of attending to the

-matter. In short, the Ridgites appeared to look upon "niggers" as

-Northern laborers look upon non-union men--"scabs."

-

-The hotel-keeper, an Englishman, with an Englishman's notions about

-personal rights, was naturally indignant. He would hire his own

-servants, or he would shut the house. In any event, the presence of

-"Whitecaps," real or imaginary, must affect his summer patronage.

-I fully expected to see the colored trio pack up and go back to

-Chattanooga, without waiting for further hints; but they showed no

-disposition to do anything of the sort, and, I must add, rose in my

-estimation accordingly.

-

-Of the feeling of the community I had a slight but ludicrous

-intimation a day or two after the shooting. I passed a boy whom I had

-noticed in the road, some days before, playing with a pig, lifting

-him by the hind legs and pitching him over forwards. "He can turn a

-somerset good," he had said to me, as I passed. Now, for the sake of

-being neighborly, I asked, "How's the pig to-day?" He smiled, and

-made some reply, as if he appreciated the pleasantry; but a more

-serious-looking playmate took up his parable, and said, "The pig'll

-be all right, if the folks up at the hotel don't shoot him." His tone

-and look were intended to be deeply significant. "Oh, I know you,"

-they implied: "you are up at the hotel, where they threaten to shoot

-white folks."

-

-For my last afternoon--wars and rumors of wars long since

-forgotten--I went to the place that had pleased me first, the valley

-of Falling Water Creek. The cross-vine on the dead hemlock had by

-this time dropped the greater part of its bells, but even yet many

-were hanging from the uppermost branches. The rhododendron was still

-at the height of its splendor. All the gardens were nothing to it,

-I said to myself. Crossing the creek on the log, and the branch on

-stepping-stones, I went to quench my thirst at the Marshall Spring,

-which once had a cabin beside it, and frequent visitors, but now was

-clogged with fallen leaves and seemingly abandoned. It was perhaps

-more beautiful so. Directly behind it rose a steep bank, and in front

-stood an oak and a maple, the latter leaning toward it and forming

-a pointed arch,--a worthy entrance. Mossy stones walled it in, and

-ferns grew luxuriantly about it. Just over them, an azalea still

-held two fresh pink flowers, the last till another May. In such a

-spot it would have been easy to grow sentimental; but there came a

-rumbling of thunder, the sky darkened, and, with a final hasty look

-about me, I picked up my umbrella and started homeward.

-

-My last walk had ended like many others in that showery, fragmentary

-week. But what is bad weather when the time is past? All those black

-clouds have left no shadow on Walden's Ridge, and the best of all my

-strolls beside Falling Water, a stroll not yet finished,

-

-    "The calm sense of seen beauty without sight,"

-

-suffers no harm. As Thoreau says, "It is after we get home that we

-really go over the mountain."

-

-FOOTNOTE:

-

-[2] It was _not_ the top of the mountain; so I am now informed, on

-the best of authority. I followed the map, but misunderstood the man

-who drew it. It was a map of some other route, and I did not see the

-top of the mountain, after all.

-

-

-

-

-SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES.

-

-

-Whoever loves the music of English sparrows should live in

-Chattanooga; there is no place on the planet, it is to be hoped,

-where they are more numerous and pervasive. Mocking-birds are scarce.

-To the best of my recollection, I saw none in the city itself,

-and less than half a dozen in the surrounding country. A young

-gentleman whom I questioned upon the subject told me that they used

-to be common, and attributed their present increasing rarity to the

-persecution of boys, who find a profit in selling the young into

-captivity. Their place, in the city especially, is taken by catbirds;

-interesting, imitative, and in their own measure tuneful, but poor

-substitutes for mocking-birds. In fact, that is a role which it is

-impossible to think of any bird as really filling. The brown thrush,

-it is true, sings quite in the mocking-bird's manner, and, to my

-ear, almost or quite as well; but he possesses no gift as a mimic,

-and furthermore, without being exactly a bird of the forest or the

-wilderness, is instinctively and irreclaimably a recluse. It would

-be hard, even among human beings, to find a nature less touched with

-urbanity. In the mocking-bird the elements are more happily mingled.

-Not gregarious, intolerant of rivalry, and, as far as creatures of

-his own kind are concerned, a stickler for elbow-room,--sharing with

-his brown relative in that respect,--he is at the same time a born

-citizen and neighbor; as fond of gardens and dooryard trees as the

-thrasher is of scrublands and barberry bushes. "Man delights me," he

-might say, "and woman also." He likes to be listened to, it is pretty

-certain; and possibly he is dimly aware of the artistic value of

-appreciation, without which no artist ever did his best. Add to this

-endearing social quality the splendor and freedom of the mocker's

-vocal performances, multifarious, sensational, incomparable, by turns

-entrancing and amusing, and it is easy to understand how he has come

-to hold a place by himself in Southern sentiment and literature.

-A city without mocking-birds is only half Southern, though black

-faces be never so thick upon the sidewalks and mules never so common

-in the streets. If the boys have driven the great mimic away from

-Chattanooga, it is time the fathers took the boys in hand. Civic

-pride alone ought to bring this about, to say nothing of the possible

-effect upon real estate values of the abundant and familiar presence

-of this world-renowned, town-loving, town-charming songster.

-

-From my window, on the side of Cameron Hill, I heard daily the

-singing of an orchard oriole--another fine and neighborly bird--and

-a golden warbler, with sometimes the _fidgety_, _fidgety_ of a

-Maryland yellow-throat. What could _he_ be fussing about in so

-unlikely a quarter? An adjoining yard presented the unnatural

-spectacle--unnatural, but, I am sorry to say, not unprecedented--of

-a bird-house occupied in partnership by purple martins and English

-sparrows. They had finished their quarrels, if they had ever had

-any,--which can hardly be open to doubt, both native and foreigner

-being constitutionally belligerent,--and frequently sat side by side

-upon the ridge-pole, like the best of friends. The oftener I saw

-them there, the more indignant I became at the martins' un-American

-behavior. Such a disgraceful surrender of the Monroe Doctrine was too

-much even for a man of peace. I have never called myself a Jingo, but

-for once it would have done me good to see the lion's tail twisted.

-

-With the exception of a few pairs of rough-wings on Missionary

-Ridge, the martins seemed to be the only swallows in the country

-at that time of the year; and though _Progne subis_, in spite of

-an occasional excess of good nature, is a most noble bird, it was

-impossible not to feel that by itself it constituted but a meagre

-representation of an entire family. Swallows are none too numerous in

-Massachusetts, in these days, and are pretty certainly growing fewer

-and fewer, what with the prevalence of the box-monopolizing European

-sparrow, and the passing of the big, old-fashioned, widely ventilated

-barn; for there is no member of the family, not even the sand martin,

-whose distribution does not depend in great degree upon human agency.

-Even yet, however, if a Massachusetts man will make a circuit of a

-few miles, he will usually meet with tree swallows, barn swallows,

-cliff swallows, sand martins, and purple martins. In other words, he

-need not go far to find all the species of eastern North America,

-with the single exception of the least attractive of the six; that

-is to say, the rough-wing. As compared with the people of eastern

-Tennessee, then, we are still pretty well favored. It is worth while

-to travel now and then, if only to find ourselves better off at home.

-

-It might be easy to suggest plausible reasons for the general

-absence of swallows from a country like that about Chattanooga;

-but the extraordinary scarcity of hawks, while many persons--not

-ornithologists--would account it less of a calamity, is more of a

-puzzle. From Walden's Ridge I saw a single sparrow hawk and a single

-red-tail; in addition to which I remember three birds whose identity

-I could not determine. Five hawks in the course of three weeks spent

-entirely out of doors, in the neighborhood of mountains covered

-with old forest! Taken by itself, this unexpected showing might

-have been ascribed to some queer combination of accidents, or to a

-failure of observation. In fact, I was inclined so to explain it

-till I noticed that Mr. Brewster had chronicled a similar state of

-things in what is substantially the same piece of country. Writing

-of western North Carolina, he says:[3] "The general scarcity--one

-may almost say absence--of hawks in this region during the breeding

-season is simply unaccountable. Small birds and mammals, lizards,

-snakes, and other animals upon which the various species subsist are

-everywhere numerous, the country is wild and heavily forested, and,

-in short, all the necessary conditions of environment seem to be

-fulfilled." Certainly, so far as my ingenuity goes, the mystery is

-"unaccountable;" but of course, like every other mystery, it would

-open quickly enough if we could find the key.

-

-Turkey vultures were moderately numerous,--much less abundant than

-in Florida,--and twice I saw a single black vulture, recognizable,

-almost as far as it could be seen (but I do not mean at a first

-glance, nor without due precaution against foreshortened effects),

-by its docked tail. Both are invaluable in their place,--useful,

-graceful, admirable, and disgusting. The vultures, the martins, and

-the swifts were the only common aerial birds. The swifts, happily,

-were everywhere,--jovial souls in a sooty dress,--and had already

-begun nest-building. I saw them continually pulling up against the

-twigs of a partially dead tree near my window. In them nature has

-developed the bird idea to its extreme,--a pair of wings, with just

-body enough for ballast; like a racing-yacht, built for nothing but

-to carry sail and avoid resistance. Their flight is a good visual

-music, as Emerson might have said; but I love also their quick,

-eager notes, like the sounds of children at play. And while it has

-nothing to do with Tennessee, I am prompted to mention here a bird

-of this species that I once saw in northern New Hampshire on the 1st

-of October,--an extraordinarily late date, if my experience counts

-for anything. With a friend I had made an ascent of Mount Lafayette

-(one of the days of a man's life), and as we came near the Profile

-House, on our return to the valley, there passed overhead a single

-chimney swift. What he could be doing there at that season was more

-than either of us could divine. It was impossible to feel any great

-concern about him, however. The afternoon was nearly done, but at the

-rate he was traveling it seemed as if he might be in Mexico before

-sunrise. And easily enough he may have been, if Mr. Gaetke is right in

-his contention that birds of very moderate powers of wing are capable

-of flying all night at the rate of four miles a minute!

-

-The comparative scarcity of crows about Chattanooga, and the amazing

-dearth of jays in the oak forest of Walden's Ridge, have been touched

-upon elsewhere. As for the jays, their absence must have been more

-apparent than real, I am bound to believe. It was their silent time,

-probably. Still another thing that I found surprising was the small

-number of woodpeckers. For the first four days I saw not a single

-representative of the family. It would be next to impossible to be

-so much out of doors in Massachusetts at any season of the year

-with a like result. During my three weeks in Tennessee I saw eight

-flickers, seven hairy woodpeckers, two red-heads, and two or three

-red-cockaded woodpeckers, besides which I heard one downy and one

-"logcock." The last-named bird, which is big enough for even the

-careless to notice, seemed to be well known to the inhabitants of

-Walden's Ridge, where I heard it. By what they told me, it should be

-fairly common, but I saw nothing of its "peck-holes." The first of

-my two red-headed woodpeckers was near the base of Missionary Ridge,

-wasting his time in exploring pole after pole along the railway. Did

-he mistake them for so many dead trees still standing on their own

-roots? Dry and seemingly undecayed, they appeared to me to offer

-small encouragement to a grub-seeker; but probably the fellow knew

-his own business best. On questions of economic entomology, I fear

-I should prove but a lame adviser for the most benighted woodpecker

-that ever drummed. And yet, being a man, I could not help feeling

-that this particular red-head was behaving uncommonly like a fool.

-Was there ever a man who did not take it as a matter of course that

-he should be wiser than the "lower animals"?

-

-Humming-birds cut but a small figure in my daily notes till I

-went to Walden's Ridge. There, in the forest, they were noticeably

-abundant,--for humming-birds, that is to say. It seemed to be the

-time of pairing with them; more than once the two sexes were seen

-together,--an unusual occurrence, unless my observation has been

-unfortunate, after the nest is built, or even while it is building.

-One female piqued my curiosity by returning again and again to the

-bole of an oak, hovering before it as before a flower, and more

-than once clinging to its rough upright surface. At first I took it

-for granted that she was picking off bits of lichen with which to

-embellish the outer wall of her nest; but after each browsing she

-alighted here or there on a leafless twig. If she had been gathering

-nest material, she would have flown away with it, I thought.

-

-At another time, in a tangle of shrubbery, I witnessed a most

-lively encounter between two humming-birds; a case of fighting or

-love-making,--two things confusingly alike to an outsider,--in the

-midst of which one of the contestants suddenly displayed so dazzling

-a gorget that for an instant I mistook it for a scarlet flower. I

-did not "wipe my eye," not being a poet, nor even a "rash gazer,"

-but I admired anew the wonderful flashing jewel, now coal-black,

-now flaming red, with which, perhaps, the male ruby-throat blinds

-his long-suffering mate to all his shameful treatment of her in her

-season of watchfulness and motherly anxiety. Does she never remind

-him, I wonder, that there are some things whose price is far above

-rubies? I had never seen the humming-bird so much a forest-dweller as

-here, and gladly confessed that I had never seen him when he looked

-so romantically at home and in place. The tulip-trees, in particular,

-might have been made on purpose for him.

-

-As the Chattanooga neighborhood was poorly supplied with hawks,

-woodpeckers, and swallows, so was it likewise with sparrows, though

-in a less marked degree. The common species--the only resident

-species that I met with, but my explorations were nothing like

-complete--were chippers, field sparrows, and Bachman sparrows; the

-first interesting for their familiarity, the other two for their

-musical gifts. In a comparison between eastern Tennessee--as I

-saw it--and eastern Massachusetts, the Bachman sparrow must be set

-against the song sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and the swamp sparrow.

-It is a brilliant and charming songster, one of the very finest; but

-it would be too costly a bargain to buy its presence with loss of the

-song sparrow's abounding versatility and high spirits, and the vesper

-sparrow's unfailing sweetness, serenity, and charm.

-

-So much for the sparrows, commonly so called. If we come to the

-family as a whole, the goodly family of sparrows and finches, we miss

-in Tennessee the rose-breasted grosbeak and the purple finch, two of

-our best esteemed Massachusetts birds, both for music and for beauty;

-to offset which we have the cardinal grosbeak, whose whistle is

-exquisite, but who can hardly be ranked as a singer above either the

-rose-breast or the linnet, to say nothing of the two combined.

-

-At the season of my visit,--in the latter half of the vernal

-migration,--the preponderance of woodland birds, especially of the

-birds known as wood warblers, was very striking. Of ninety-three

-species observed, twenty-eight belonged to the warbler family. In

-this list it was curious to remark the absence of the Nashville and

-the Tennessee. The circumstance is significant of the comparative

-worthlessness--except from a historical point of view--of locality

-names as they are applied to American birds in general. Here were

-Maryland yellow-throats, Cape May warblers, Canada warblers, Kentucky

-warblers, prairie warblers, palm warblers, Acadian flycatchers,

-but not the two birds (the only two, as well as I remember) that

-bear Tennessee names.[4] The absence of the Nashville was a matter

-of wonderment to me. Dr. Rives, I have since noticed, records it

-as only a rare migrant in Virginia. Yet by some route it reaches

-eastern New England in decidedly handsome numbers. Its congener,

-the blue golden-wing, surprised me in an opposite direction,--by

-its commonness, both in the lower country near the river and on

-Walden's Ridge. This, too, is a rare bird in Virginia; so much so

-that Dr. Rives has never met with it there. In certain places about

-Chattanooga it was as common as it is locally in the towns about

-Boston, where, to satisfy a skeptical friend, I once counted eleven

-males in song in the course of a morning's walk. That the Chattanooga

-birds were on their breeding grounds I had at the time no question,

-although I happened upon no proof of the fact.

-

-In the same way, from the manner in which the oven-birds were

-scattered over Walden's Ridge in the middle of May, I assumed, rather

-hastily, that they were at home for the summer. Months afterward,

-however, happening to notice their southern breeding limits as

-given by the best of authorities,--"breeding from ... Virginia

-northward,"--I saw that I might easily have been in error. I wrote,

-therefore, to a Chattanooga gentleman, who pays attention to birds

-while disclaiming acquaintance with ornithology, and he replied

-that if the oven-bird summered in that country he did not know it.

-The case seemed to be going against me, but I bethought myself

-of Mr. Brewster's "Ornithological Reconnaissance in Western North

-Carolina," and there I read,[5] "The open oak woodlands, so prevalent

-in this region, are in every way adapted to the requirements of

-the oven-bird, and throughout them it is one of the commonest and

-most characteristic summer birds." "Open oak woodlands" is exactly

-descriptive of the Walden's Ridge forest; and eastern Tennessee and

-western North Carolina being practically one, I resume my assured

-belief (personal and of no authority) that the birds I saw and heard

-were, as I first thought, natives of the mountain. Birds which are

-at home have, as a rule, an air of being at home; a certain manner

-hard to define, but felt, nevertheless, as a pretty strong kind of

-evidence--not proof--by a practiced observer.

-

-Several of the more northern species of the warbler family manifested

-an almost exclusive preference for patches of evergreens. I have

-elsewhere detailed my experience in a grove of stunted pines on

-Lookout Mountain. A similar growth is found on Cameron Hill,--in the

-city of Chattanooga,--one side of which is occupied by dwellings,

-while the other drops to the river so precipitously as to be almost

-inaccessible, and is even yet, I was told, an abode of foxes. On

-the day after my arrival I strolled to the top of the hill toward

-evening, and in the pines found a few black-polls and yellow-rumps.

-I was in a listless mood, having already taken a fair day's exercise

-under an intolerable sun, but I waked up with a start when my glass

-fell on a bird which at a second glance showed the red cheeks of a

-Cape May warbler. For a moment I was almost in poor Susan's case,--

-

-    "I looked, and my heart was in heaven."

-

-Then, all too soon, as happened to poor Susan also, the vision faded.

-But I had seen it. Yes, here it was in Tennessee, the rarity for

-which, spring after spring, I had been so many years on the watch. I

-had come South to find it, after all,--a bird that breeds from the

-northern border of New England to Hudson's Bay!

-

-It is of the nature of such excitements that, at the time, the

-subject of them has no thought of analyzing or justifying his

-emotions. He is better employed. Afterward, in some vacant mood,

-with no longer anything actively to enjoy, he may play with the

-past, and from an evil habit, or flattering himself with a show of

-intellectuality, may turn his former delight into a study; tickling

-his present conceit of himself by smiling at the man he used to

-be. How very wise he has grown, to be sure! All such refinements,

-nevertheless, if he did but know it, are only a poorer kind of

-child's play; less spontaneous, infinitely less satisfying, and

-equally irrational. Ecstasy is not to be assayed by any test that

-the reason is competent to apply; nor does it need either defense or

-apology. It is its own end, and so, like beauty, its own excuse for

-being. That is one of the crowning felicities of this present order

-of things,--the world, as we call it. What dog would hunt if there

-were no excitement in overhauling the game? And how would elderly

-people live through long evenings if there were no exhilaration in

-the odd trick?

-

-"What good does it do?" a prudent friend and adviser used to say to

-me, smiling at the fervor of my first ornithological enthusiasm. He

-thought he was asking me a poser; but I answered gayly, "It makes

-me happy;" and taking things as they run, happiness is a pretty

-substantial "good." So was it now with the sight of this long-desired

-warbler. It taught me nothing; it put nothing into my pocket; but it

-made me happy,--happy enough to sing and shout, though I am ashamed

-to say I did neither. And even a sober son of the Puritans may be

-glad to find himself, in some unexpected hour, almost as ineffably

-delighted as he used to be with a new plaything in the time when he

-had not yet tasted of the tree of knowledge, and knew not that the

-relish for playthings could ever be outgrown. I cannot affirm that I

-went quite as wild over my first Cape May warbler as I did over my

-first sled (how well the rapture of that frosty midwinter morning is

-remembered,--a hard crust on the snow, and the sun not yet risen!),

-but I came as near to that state of heavenly felicity--to reenter

-which we must become as little children--as a person of my years is

-ever likely to do, perhaps.

-

-It is one precious advantage of natural history studies that they

-afford endless opportunities for a man to enjoy himself in this

-sweetly childish spirit, while at the same time his occupation is

-dignified by a certain scientific atmosphere and relationship.

-He is a collector of insects, let us say. Whether he goes to the

-Adirondacks for the summer, or to Florida for the winter, he is

-surrounded with nets and cyanide bottles. He travels with them as

-another travels with packs of cards. Every day's catch is part of

-the game; and once in a while, as happened to me on Cameron Hill,

-he gets a "great hand," and in imagination, at least, sweeps the

-board. Commonplace people smile at him, no doubt; but that is only

-amusing, and he smiles in turn. He can tell many good stories under

-that head. He delights to be called a "crank." It is all because

-of people's ignorance. They have no idea that he is Mr. So-and-So,

-the entomologist; that he is in correspondence with learned men the

-country over; that he once discovered a new cockroach, and has had a

-grasshopper named after him; that he has written a book, or is going

-to write one. Happy man! a contributor to the world's knowledge, but

-a pleasure-seeker; a little of a savant, and very much of a child; a

-favorite of Heaven, whose work is play. No wonder it is commonly said

-that natural historians are a cheerful set.

-

-For the supplying of rarities and surprises there are no birds

-like the warblers. Their pursuit is the very spice of American

-ornithology. The multitude of species (Mr. Chapman's "Handbook of the

-Birds of Eastern North America" enumerates forty-five species and

-sub-species) is of itself an incalculable blessing in this respect.

-No single observer is likely ever to come to the end of them. They do

-not warble, it must be owned, and few of them have much distinction

-as singers, the best that I know being the black-throated green and

-the Kentucky; but they are elegant and varied in their plumage, with

-no lack of bright tints, while their extreme activity and their

-largely arboreal habits render their specific determination and their

-individual study a work most agreeably difficult and tantalizing. The

-ornithologist who has seen all the warblers of his own territory, say

-of New England, and knows them all by their notes, and has found all

-their nests,--well, he is himself a pretty rare specimen.

-

-As for my experience with the family in Tennessee, I was glad, of

-course, to scrape acquaintance--or to renew it, as the case might

-be--with the more southern species, the Kentucky, the hooded, the

-cerulean, the blue-wing, and the yellow-throat: that was partly why

-I was here; but perhaps I enjoyed quite as keenly the sight of our

-own New England birds moving homeward; tarrying here and there for

-a day, but not to be tempted by all the allurements of this fine

-country; still pushing on, northward, and still northward, as if for

-them there were no place in the world but the woods where they were

-born. Of the southern species just named, the Kentucky was the most

-abundant, with the hooded not far behind. The prairie warbler seemed

-about as common here as in its favored Massachusetts haunts; but

-unless my ear was at fault its song went somewhat less trippingly:

-it sounded labored,--too much like the scarlet tanager's in the way

-of effort and jerkiness. Unlike the golden warbler, the prairie

-was found not only in the lower country, but--in less numbers--on

-Walden's Ridge. The two warblers that I listed every day, no matter

-where I went, were the chat and the black-and-white creeper.

-

-When all is said, the Kentucky, with its beauty and its song, is

-the star of the family, as far as eastern Tennessee is concerned.

-I can hear it now, while Falling Water goes babbling past in

-the shade of laurel and rhododendron. As for the chat, it was

-omnipresent: in the valley, along the river, on Missionary Ridge,

-on Lookout Mountain, on Walden's Ridge, in the national cemetery,

-at Chickamauga,--everywhere, in short, except within the city

-itself. In this regard it exceeded the white-eyed vireo, and even

-the indigo-bird, I think. Black-polls were seen daily up to May 13,

-after which they were missing altogether. The last Cape May and the

-last yellow-rump were noted on the 8th, the last redstart and the

-last palm warbler on the 11th, the last chestnut-side, magnolia,

-and Canadian warbler on the 12th. On the 12th, also, I saw my only

-Wilson's blackcap. In my last outing, on the 18th, on Walden's Ridge,

-I came upon two Blackburnians in widely separate places. At the

-time, I assumed them to be migrants, in spite of the date. One of

-them was near the hotel, on ground over which I had passed almost

-daily. Why they should be so behindhand was more than I could tell;

-but only the day before I had seen a thrush which was either a

-gray-cheek or an olive-back, and of course a bird of passage. "The

-flight of warblers did not pass entirely until May 19," says Mr.

-Jeffries, writing of what he saw in western North Carolina.[6]

-

-The length of time occupied by some species in accomplishing their

-semi-annual migration is well known to be very considerable, and

-is best observed--in spring, at least--at some southern point.

-It is admirably illustrated in Mr. Chapman's "List of Birds seen

-at Gainesville, Florida."[7] Tree swallows, he tells us, were

-abundant up to May 6, a date at which Massachusetts tree swallows

-have been at home for nearly or quite a month. Song sparrows were

-noted March 31, two or three weeks after the grand irruption of

-song sparrows into Massachusetts usually occurs. Bobolinks, which

-reach Massachusetts by the 10th of May, or earlier, were still very

-abundant--both sexes--May 25! Such dates are not what we should

-have expected, I suppose, especially in the case of a bird like

-the bobolink, which has no very high northern range; but they seem

-not to be exceptional, and are surprising only because we have

-not yet mastered the general subject. Nothing exists by itself,

-and therefore nothing can be understood by itself. One thing the

-most ignorant of us may see,--that the long period covered by the

-migratory journeys is a matter for ornithological thankfulness. In

-Massachusetts, for example, spring migrants begin to appear in late

-February or early March, and some of the most interesting members of

-the procession--notably the mourning warbler and the yellow-bellied

-flycatcher--are to be looked for after the first of June. The

-autumnal movement is equally protracted; so that for at least half

-the year--leaving winter with its arctic possibilities out of

-consideration--we may be on the lookout for strangers.

-

-One of the dearest pleasures of a southern trip in winter or early

-spring is the very thing at which I have just now hinted, the sight

-of one's home birds in strange surroundings. You leave New England in

-early February, for instance, and in two or three days are loitering

-in the sunny pine-lands about St. Augustine, with the trees full of

-robins, bluebirds, and pine warblers, and the savanna patches full of

-meadow larks. Myrtle warblers are everywhere. Phoebes salute you as

-you walk the city streets, and flocks of chippers and vesper sparrows

-enliven the fields along the country roads. In a piece of hammock

-just outside the town you find yourself all at once surrounded by a

-winter colony of summer birds. Here are solitary vireos, Maryland

-yellow-throats, black-and-white creepers, prairie warblers, red-poll

-warblers, hermit thrushes, red-eyed chewinks, thrashers, catbirds,

-cedar-birds, and many more. White-eyed vireos are practicing in the

-smilax thickets,--though they have small need of practice,--and

-white-bellied swallows go flashing and twittering overhead. The world

-is good, you say, and life is a festival.

-

-My vacation in Tennessee afforded less of contrast and surprise, for

-a twofold reason: it was near the end of April, instead of early in

-February, so that migrants had been arriving in Massachusetts for six

-or seven weeks before my departure; and Tennessee has nothing of the

-foreign, half-tropical look which Florida presents to Yankee eyes;

-but even so, it was no small pleasure to step suddenly into a world

-full of summer music. Such multitudes of birds as were singing on

-Missionary Ridge on that first bright forenoon! The number of species

-was not great, when it came to counting them,--morning and afternoon

-together yielded but forty-two; but the whole country seemed alive

-with wings. And of the forty-two species, thirty-two were such as

-summer in Massachusetts or pass through it to their homes beyond.

-Here were already (April 27) the olive-backed thrush, and northern

-warblers like the black-poll, the bay-breast, and the Cape May, none

-of which would be due in Massachusetts for at least a fortnight.

-Here, too, were yellow-rumps and white-throated sparrows, though the

-advance guard of both species had reached New England before I left

-home. The white-throats lingered on Walden's Ridge on the 13th of

-May, a fact which surprised me more at the time than it does in the

-review.

-

-One bird was seen on this first day, and not afterward. I had been

-into the woods north of the city, and was returning, when from the

-bridge over the Tennessee I caught sight of a small flock of black

-birds, which at first, even with the aid of my glass, I could not

-make out, the bridge being so high above the river and its banks.

-While I was watching them, however, they began to sing. They were

-bobolinks. Probably the species is not common in eastern Tennessee,

-as the name is wanting in Dr. Fox's "List of Birds found in Roane

-County, Tennessee, during April, 1884, and March and April, 1885."[8]

-

-I have ventured upon some slight ornithological comparison between

-southeastern Tennessee and eastern Massachusetts, and, writing as a

-patriot (or a partisan), have seen to it that the scale inclined

-northward. To this end I have made as much as possible of the absence

-of robins, song sparrows, and vesper sparrows, and of the comparative

-dearth of swallows; but of course the loyal Tennessean is in no

-want of a ready answer. Robins, song sparrows, vesper sparrows, and

-swallows are _not_ absent, except as breeding birds. He has them

-all in their season,[9] and probably hears them sing. On the whole,

-then, he may fairly retort, he has considerably the advantage of us

-Yankees: he sees our birds on their passage, and drinks his fill

-of their music before we have caught the first spring notes; while

-we, on the other hand, see nothing of his distinctively southern

-birds unless we come South for the purpose. Well, they are worth the

-journey. Bachman's finch alone--yes, the one dingy, shabbily clad

-little genius by the Chickamauga well--might almost have repaid me

-for my thousand miles on the rail.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It was a strange mingling of sensations that possessed me in

-Chattanooga. The city itself was like other cities of its age and

-size, with some appearance of a community that had been in haste to

-grow,--a trifle impatient, shall we say (impatience being one of

-the virtues of youth), to pull down its barns and build greater;

-just now a little checked in its ambition, as things looked; yet

-still enterprising, still fairly well satisfied with itself, with

-no lack of energy and bustle. As it happened, there was a stir in

-local politics at the time of my visit (possibly there always is),

-and at the street corners all patriotic citizens were exhorted to

-do their duty. "Vote for Tom ---- for sheriff," said one placard.

-"Vote for Bob ----," said another, in capitals equally importunate.

-In Tennessee, as everywhere else, the politician knows his trade.

-Familiarity, readiness with the hand, freedom with one's own name

-(Tom, not Thomas, if you please), and a happy knack at remembering

-the names of other people,--these are some of the preelection tests

-of statesmanship.

-

-All in all, then, between politics and business, the city was "very

-much alive," as the saying goes; but somehow it was not so often the

-people about me that occupied my thoughts as those who had been here

-thirty years before. Precious is the power of a first impression.

-Because I was newly in the country I was constantly under the feeling

-of its past. Hither and thither I went in the region round about,

-listening at every turn, spying into every bush at the stirring of a

-leaf or the chirp of a bird; yet I had always with me the men of '63,

-and felt always that I was on holy ground.

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-[3] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 103.

-

-[4] Both these warblers--the Nashville and the Tennessee--were named

-by Wilson from the places where the original specimens were shot.

-Concerning the Tennessee warbler he sets down the opinion that "it is

-most probably a native of a more southerly climate." It would be a

-pity for men to cease guessing, though the shrewdest are certain to

-be sometimes wrong.

-

-[5] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 175.

-

-[6] _The Auk_, vol. vi. p. 120.

-

-[7] _Ibid._, vol. v. p. 267.

-

-[8] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 315. Of sixty-two species seen by me

-during the last four days of April, eleven are not given by Dr.

-Fox, namely, Wilson's thrush, black-poll warbler, bay-breasted

-warbler, Cape May warbler, black-throated blue warbler, palm warbler,

-chestnut-sided warbler, blue golden-winged warbler, bobolink, Acadian

-flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo.

-

-[9] See Dr. Fox's list.

-

-

-

-

-A LIST OF BIRDS

-

-FOUND IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF CHATTANOOGA FROM APRIL 27 TO MAY 18,

-1894.

-

-

-1. Green Heron. _Ardea virescens._--A single individual seen from a

-car window. No other water birds were observed except three or four

-ducks and a single wader, all upon the wing and unidentified.

-

-2. Bob White. Quail. Partridge. _Colinus virginianus._--Common.

-

-3. Ruffed Grouse. "Pheasant." _Bonasa umbettus._--Heard drumming on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-4. Carolina Dove. Mourning Dove. _Zenaidura macroura._--A small

-number seen.

-

-5. Turkey Vulture. Turkey Buzzard. _Cathartes aura._--Common.

-

-6. Black Vulture. Carrion Crow. _Catharista atrata._--Two birds seen.

-

-7. Red-tailed Hawk. _Buteo borealis._--One bird seen from Walden's

-Ridge.

-

-8. Sparrow Hawk. _Falco sparverius._--One bird, on Walden's Ridge.

-

-9. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. _Coccyzus americanus._--Common. First

-noticed April 29.

-

-10. Black-billed Cuckoo. _Coccyzus erythrophthalmus._--Seen twice on

-Lookout Mountain, May 7 and 8, and once on Walden's Ridge, May 12.

-

-11. Belted Kingfisher. _Ceryle alcyon._--A single bird heard on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-12. Hairy Woodpecker. _Dryobates villosus._--My notes record

-seven birds. No attempt was made to determine their specific or

-sub-specific identity, but they are presumed to have been _D.

-villosus_, not _D. villosus audubonii_.

-

-13. Downy Woodpecker. _Dryobates pubescens._--A single bird was heard

-(not seen) on Walden's Ridge,--a noticeable reversal of the usual

-relative commonness of this species and the preceding.

-

-14. Red-cockaded Woodpecker. _Dryobates borealis._--Found only at

-Chickamauga, on Snodgrass Hill, in long-leaved pines--two or three

-birds.

-

-15. Pileated Woodpecker. "Logcock." _Ceophloeus pileatus._--Said to

-be common on Walden's Ridge, where I heard its flicker-like shout.

-

-16. Red-headed Woodpecker. _Melanerpes erythrocephalus._--One seen

-near Missionary Ridge and one at Chickamauga. The scarcity of this

-bird, and the absence of the red-bellied and the yellow-bellied, were

-among the surprises of my visit.

-

-17. Flicker. Golden-winged Woodpecker. _Colaptes auratus._--Not

-common. Three birds were seen at Chickamauga, and it was occasional

-on Walden's Ridge, where I listed it five days of the seven.

-

-18. Whippoorwill. _Antrostomus vociferus._--Undoubtedly common. I

-heard it only on Walden's Ridge, the only place where I went into the

-woods after dark.

-

-19. Nighthawk. _Chordeiles virginianus._--Common.

-

-20. Chimney Swift. _Chaetura pelagica._--Abundant.

-

-21. Ruby-throated Humming-bird. _Trochilus colubris._--Common in the

-forests of Walden's Ridge. Seen but twice elsewhere. First seen April

-28.

-

-22. Kingbird. _Tyrannus tyrannus._--Seen but three times--nine

-specimens in all. First seen April 29.

-

-23. Crested Flycatcher. _Myiarchus crinitus._--Noticed daily, with

-two exceptions.

-

-24. Phoebe. _Sayornis phoebe._--Common on Lookout Mountain and

-Walden's Ridge. Not seen elsewhere.

-

-25. Wood Pewee. _Contopus virens._--Very common. Much the most

-numerous member of the family. Present in good force April 27, and

-gathering nest materials April 29.

-

-26. Acadian Flycatcher. Green-crested Flycatcher. _Empidonax

-virescens._--Common.

-

-27. Blue Jay. _Cyanocitta cristata._--Scarce (for the blue jay), and

-not seen on Walden's Ridge!

-

-28. Crow. _Corvus americanus._--Apparently much less common than in

-Eastern Massachusetts.

-

-29. Bobolink. _Dolichonyx oryzivorus._--A small flock seen, and heard

-singing, April 27.

-

-30. Orchard Oriole. _Icterus spurius._--Common, but not found on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-31. Baltimore Oriole. _Icterus galbula._--A single bird, at

-Chickamauga, May 3.

-

-32. Crow Blackbird. _Quiscalus quiscula?_--Seen on sundry occasions

-in the valley country, but specific distinction not made out. Both

-forms--_Q. quiscula_ and _Q. quiscula aeneus_--are found in Tennessee.

-See Dr. Fox's List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee. "The

-Auk," vol. iii. p. 315. My own list of the Icteridae is remarkable for

-its omissions, especially of the cowbird, the red-winged blackbird

-(which, however, I am pretty certain that I saw on the wing) and the

-meadow lark.

-

-33. House Sparrow. English Sparrow. _Passer

-domesticus._--Distressingly superabundant in the city and its suburbs.

-

-34. Goldfinch. _Spinus tristis._--Abundant. Still in flocks.

-

-35. White-crowned Sparrow. _Zonotrichia leucophrys._--Seen but once

-(May 1), two birds, in the national cemetery.

-

-36. White-throated Sparrow. _Zonotrichia albicollis._--Common. Still

-present on Walden's Ridge (in two places) May 13. Sang very little.

-

-37. Chipping Sparrow. Doorstep Sparrow. _Spizella socialis._--Common.

-

-38. Field Sparrow. _Spizella pusilla._--Common.

-

-39. Bachman's Sparrow. _Peucaea aestivalis bachmanii._--Common. One of

-the best of singers.

-

-40. Chewink. Towhee. _Pipilo erythrophthalmus._--Rather common. Much

-less numerous than I should have expected from the nature of the

-country.

-

-41. Cardinal Grosbeak. _Cardinalis cardinalis._--Seen daily, but

-seemingly not very numerous.

-

-42. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. _Habia ludoviciana._--A single female,

-May 11.

-

-43. Indigo-bird. _Passerina cyanea._--Very abundant. For the first

-time I saw this tropical-looking beauty in flocks.

-

-44. Scarlet Tanager. _Piranga erythromelas._--Common on the

-mountains, but seemingly rare in the valley.

-

-45. Summer Tanager. _Piranga rubra._--Common throughout.

-

-46. Purple Martin. _Progne subis._--Common.

-

-47. Rough-winged Swallow. _Stelgidopteryx serripennis._--A few birds

-seen.

-

-48. Red-eyed Vireo. _Vireo olivaceus._--Common. One of the species

-listed every day.

-

-49. Yellow-throated Vireo. _Vireo flavifrons._--Common. Seen or heard

-every day except April 27.

-

-50. White-eyed Vireo. _Vireo noveboracensis._--Abundant. Heard every

-day.

-

-51. Black-and-white Creeper. _Mniotilta varia._--Very common.

-

-52. Blue-winged Warbler. _Helminthophila pinus._--One bird seen at

-Chickamauga, and a pair on Missionary Ridge.

-

-53. Golden-winged Warbler. _Helminthophila chrysoptera._--Common,

-especially in the broken woods north of the city.

-

-54. Panda Warbler. Blue Yellow-backed Warbler. _Compsothlypis

-americana._--Only on Walden's Ridge.

-

-55. Cape May Warbler. _Dendroica tigrina._--One bird seen on Cameron

-Hill, and a small company on Lookout Mountain--April 27, and May 7

-and 8.

-

-56. Yellow Warbler. Golden Warbler. _Dendroica aestiva._--Common, but

-not observed on Walden's Ridge.

-

-57. Black-throated Blue Warbler. _Dendroica caerulescens._--Common,

-April 27 to May 14.

-

-58. Myrtle Warbler. Yellow-rumped Warbler. _Dendroica

-coronata._--Noted April 27 and 28, and May 7 and 8.

-

-59. Magnolia Warbler. _Dendroica maculosa._--Not uncommon, May 1 to

-12.

-

-60. Cerulean Warbler. _Dendroica coerulea._--One bird, a male in

-song, on Lookout Mountain.

-

-61. Chestnut-sided Warbler. _Dendroica pensylvanica._--Listed on six

-dates--April 27 to May 12.

-

-62. Bay-breasted Warbler. _Dendroica castanea._--Seven or eight

-individuals--April 27 to May 10.

-

-63. Black-poll Warbler. _Dendroica striata._--Common to May 13.

-

-64. Blackburnian Warbler. _Dendroica blackburniae._--Seven birds--May

-1 to 18.

-

-65. Yellow-throated Warbler. _Dendroica dominica._

-(_Albilora?_)--Found only at Chickamauga (Snodgrass Hill), where it

-seemed to be common.

-

-66. Black-throated green Warbler. _Dendroica virens._--Common.

-

-67. Pine Warbler. _Dendroica vigorsii._--Not numerous, but found in

-appropriate places.

-

-68. Palm Warbler. _Dendroica palmarum._--The specific--or

-sub-specific--identity of this bird was not certainly determined, but

-I judged the specimens--seen on four dates, April 29 to May 11--to be

-as above given, rather than _D. palmarum hypochrysea_.

-

-69. Prairie Warbler. _Dendroica discolor._--Very common.

-

-70. Oven-bird. _Seiurus aurocapillus._--Common on Lookout Mountain

-and Walden's Ridge. Seen but once in the lower country.

-

-71. Louisiana Water-thrush. _Seiurus motacilla._--A few birds seen on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-72. Kentucky Warbler. _Geothlypis formosa._--Very common, and in

-places very unlike.

-

-73. Maryland Yellow-throat. _Geothlypis trichas._--Common.

-

-74. Yellow-breasted Chat. _Icteria virens._--Very common.

-

-75. Hooded Warbler. _Sylvania mitrata._--Common, especially along the

-woodland streams on Walden's Ridge.

-

-76. Wilson's Blackcap. _Sylvania pusilla._--A single bird on Walden's

-Ridge, May 12, in free song.

-

-77. Canadian Warbler. _Sylvania canadensis._--Seen on three

-dates--May 6, 11, and 12.

-

-78. Redstart. _Setophaga ruticilla._--Common. Not seen after May 14.

-

-79. Mocking-bird. _Mimus polyglottos._--Rare. Not found on the

-mountains.

-

-80. Catbird. _Galeoscoptes carolinensis._--Very common, both in the

-city and in the country round about.

-

-81. Brown Thrasher. _Harporhynchus rufus._--Common.

-

-82. Carolina Wren. Mocking Wren. _Thryothorus ludovicianus._--Common.

-

-83. Bewick's Wren. _Thryothorus bewickii._--Not common. Seen only on

-Missionary Ridge.

-

-84. White-breasted Nuthatch. _Sitta carolinensis._--Common at

-Chickamauga and on Walden's Ridge. A single bird noticed on Lookout

-Mountain.

-

-85. Tufted Titmouse. _Parus bicolor._--Common.

-

-86. Carolina Chickadee. _Parus carolinensis._--Common.

-

-87. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. _Polioptila caerulea._--Common.

-

-88. Wood Thrush. _Turdus mustelinus._--Very common. A bird with

-its beak full of nest materials was seen April 29, at the base of

-Missionary Ridge.

-

-89. Wilson's Thrush. Veery. _Turdus fuscescens._--Rare.

-

-90. Gray-cheeked Thrush. _Turdus aliciae_, or _T. aliciae

-bicknelli_.--Two birds, May 2 and 13.

-

-91. Swainson's Thrush. Olive-backed Thrush. _Turdus ustulatus

-swainsonii._--In good numbers and free song. Seen on four dates, the

-latest being May 12.

-

-92. Robin. _Merula migratoria._--Five birds in the national cemetery,

-April 29.

-

-93. Bluebird. _Sialia sialis._--Common. Young birds out of the nest,

-April 28.

-

-

-

-

-INDEX.

-

-

-    Arbutus, 137.

-    Azalea:--

-      flame-colored, 178.

-      pink, 182.

-      white, 132.

-

-    Baptisia, blue, 14, 93.

-    Blackbird:--

-      crow, 99.

-      red-winged, 215.

-    Bluebird, 9, 13, 78, 99, 111, 207.

-    Bobolink, 205, 209.

-    Buzzard, turkey, 6, 188.

-

-    Catbird, 6, 17, 25, 43, 47, 78, 99, 111, 183, 207.

-    Catchfly, scarlet, 15, 85, 109.

-    Cedar-bird, 207.

-    Chat, yellow-breasted, 3, 6, 9, 13, 17, 19, 27, 47, 55, 99, 110,

-        121, 135, 204.

-    Chewink, 6, 13, 207.

-    Chickadee, blackcap, 98.

-    Chickadee, Carolina, 13, 25, 71, 88.

-    Cowslip, 85.

-    Cranesbill, 34, 85.

-    Creeper, black-and-white, 6, 12, 33, 42, 117, 204, 207.

-    Cross-vine, 23, 137, 181.

-    Crow, 42, 189.

-    Cuckoo:--

-      black-billed, 31, 42.

-      yellow-billed, 19, 24, 71, 99, 111, 117.

-

-    Dogwood, flowering, 136.

-    Dove, mourning, 24.

-

-    Fern:--

-      cinnamon, 148.

-      maiden-hair, 47.

-    Finch:--

-      Bachman's, 2, 6, 9, 13, 25, 66, 78, 81, 110, 118, 193, 194, 210.

-      purple, 194.

-    Flicker, 66, 78, 190.

-    Flycatcher:--

-      Acadian, 17, 24, 26, 62, 117.

-      crested, 9, 13, 67, 71, 87.

-      yellow-bellied, 206.

-    Fringe-tree, 135.

-

-    Ginger, wild, 137.

-    Gnatcatcher, blue-gray, 6, 13, 18, 55, 99, 110.

-    Goldfinch, 13, 17, 24, 25, 47, 78, 111.

-    Gromwell, 85, 92.

-    Grosbeak:--

-      cardinal, 6, 13, 23, 26, 42, 135, 146, 162.

-      rose-breasted, 119, 194.

-    Grouse, ruffed (pheasant), 167.

-

-    Hawk:--

-      red-tailed, 169, 187.

-      sparrow, 174, 187.

-    Hieracium, 122.

-    Houstonia, 23, 61, 85, 93.

-    Humming-bird, ruby-throated, 109, 178, 191.

-

-    Indigo-bird, 6, 9, 13, 17, 47, 55, 72, 78, 110, 111, 121, 204.

-

-    Jay, blue, 178, 189.

-

-    Kingbird, 13, 87.

-    Kinglet, golden-crowned, 97.

-

-    Lady's-slipper, yellow, 178.

-    Lizard, 43, 55.

-    Locust, seventeen-year, 55, 70, 83, 114, 149.

-

-    Magnolia, 136, 148.

-    Martin, purple, 6, 185.

-    Maryland yellow-throat, 6, 13, 47, 61, 70, 185.

-    Milkweed, 92, 142.

-    Mistletoe, 110.

-    Mocking-bird, 6, 78, 82, 94, 183.

-    Mountain Laurel, 132, 135, 147, 169, 173, 176.

-

-    Nuthatch, white-breasted (Carolina), 58, 61, 82.

-

-    Oriole:--

-      Baltimore, 78.

-      orchard, 13, 78, 99, 111, 185.

-    Oven-bird, 31, 33, 42, 122, 196.

-    Oxalis:--

-      violet, 34, 61, 85.

-      yellow, 85.

-

-    Pentstemon, 61, 122.

-    Pewee, wood, 6, 17, 33, 62, 71, 78, 99, 117, 135.

-    Phlox, 23, 34, 61, 85, 122.

-    Phoebe, 28, 41, 207.

-    Pink, Indian, 15.

-

-    Quail, 6, 71, 122.

-

-    Ragwort (Senecio), 93, 122.

-    Raven, 130.

-    Redstart, 6, 13, 25, 108, 117.

-    Rhododendron, 135-137, 147, 169, 173, 176, 181.

-    Robin, 96, 207, 210.

-    Rue anemone, 62, 85.

-

-    Saxifrage, 34.

-    Sparrow:--

-      Bachman's (see FINCH).

-      chipping, 6, 13, 26, 99, 111, 193, 207.

-      field, 6, 13, 17, 25, 47, 55, 62, 67, 70, 87, 117, 135, 193.

-      house (English) 93, 183, 185.

-      song, 4, 194, 205, 210.

-      vesper, 194, 207, 210.

-      white-crowned, 96.

-      white-throated, 6, 26, 95, 135, 142, 208.

-    Specularia, 122.

-    Spring beauty, 61, 85.

-    Stonecrop, white, 34.

-    Swallow:--

-      rough-winged, 22, 87, 88, 187.

-      tree (white-bellied), 187, 205, 207.

-    Sweet bush, 137.

-    Swift, chimney, 189.

-

-    Tanager:--

-      scarlet, 20, 24, 33, 41, 118, 131, 135, 162.

-      summer, 3, 6, 13, 17, 20, 47, 70, 78, 120, 131.

-    Thrasher (brown thrush), 6, 7, 13, 17, 33, 82, 99, 111, 183, 207.

-    Thrush:--

-      gray-cheeked, 141.

-      hermit, 207.

-      Louisiana water, 163.

-      olive-backed (Swainson's), 7, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 24, 133, 208.

-      Wilson's (veery), 13, 14, 25, 111.

-      wood, 6, 13, 14, 17, 33, 47, 87, 99, 117, 120, 135.

-    Titmouse, tufted, 13, 14, 61, 70.

-    Tulip-tree, 178, 193.

-    Tupelo, 23.

-    Turkey, wild, 81, 130, 140.

-

-    Viburnum, maple-leaved, 34.

-    Violet, bird-foot, 34, 85.

-    Vireo:--

-      red-eyed, 6, 13, 33, 42, 47, 55, 70.

-      solitary, 207.

-      white-eyed, 6, 9, 13, 17, 47, 110, 121, 204, 207.

-      yellow-throated, 9, 13, 33, 70, 99, 117.

-    Vulture:--

-      black (carrion crow), 111, 188.

-      turkey, 6, 188.

-

-    Warbler:--

-      bay-breasted, 6, 28, 32, 38, 49, 208.

-      Blackburnian, 30, 31, 38, 204.

-      black-poll, 6, 12, 19, 28, 32, 38, 42, 49, 61, 81, 96, 117, 198,

-          204, 208.

-      black-throated blue, 12, 31, 32, 37, 135, 157.

-      black-throated green, 28, 31, 135, 156, 202.

-      blue-winged, 20, 22, 71, 79, 80.

-      blue yellow-backed, 21, 134, 135.

-      Canadian, 21, 22, 23, 117, 135, 204.

-      Cape May, 32, 37, 39, 198, 200, 204, 208.

-      cerulean, 53.

-      chestnut-sided, 12, 25, 117, 204.

-      Connecticut, 14.

-      golden-winged, 13, 110, 120, 195.

-      hooded, 7, 48, 135, 146, 156, 203.

-      Kentucky, 9, 13, 14, 19, 24, 35, 47, 49, 109, 110, 116, 122, 132,

-          135, 156, 202-204.

-      magnolia, 19, 30, 32, 37, 117, 204.

-      mourning, 206.

-      myrtle (yellow-rumped), 6, 12, 32, 39, 198, 204, 207, 208.

-      Nashville, 195.

-      palm (red-poll), 32, 38, 117, 204, 207.

-      pine, 25, 175, 207.

-      prairie, 6, 21, 25, 110, 121, 203, 207.

-      Tennessee, 195.

-      Wilson's blackcap, 136, 204.

-      yellow (golden), 12, 99, 108, 185, 203,

-      yellow-throated, 72, 73, 75, 80.

-    Water-thrush, Louisiana, 163.

-    Whippoorwill, 143.

-    Wintergreen, striped, 34.

-    Woodpecker:--

-      downy, 191.

-      golden-winged, 66, 190.

-      hairy, 30, 190.

-      pileated, 191.

-      red-cockaded, 67, 73, 80, 191.

-      red-headed, 80, 190, 191.

-    Wren:--

-      Bewick's, 4.

-      Carolina (mocking), 6, 13, 17, 25, 26, 28, 42, 47, 55, 71, 109,

-          162.

-

-

-

-

-

-End of Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey

-

-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE ***

-

-***** This file should be named 45708.txt or 45708.zip *****

-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:

-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/7/0/45708/

-

-Produced by JoAnn Greenwood, and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

-

-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions

-will be renamed.

-

-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no

-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation

-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without

-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,

-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to

-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to

-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project

-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you

-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you

-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the

-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose

-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and

-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do

-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is

-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial

-redistribution.

-

-

-

-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

-

-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

-

-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free

-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work

-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project

-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project

-Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at

-  www.gutenberg.org/license.

-

-

-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic works

-

-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to

-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property

-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all

-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy

-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.

-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the

-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or

-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

-

-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be

-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who

-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few

-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works

-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See

-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement

-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

-

-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"

-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the

-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an

-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are

-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from

-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative

-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg

-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project

-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by

-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of

-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with

-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by

-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project

-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

-

-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern

-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in

-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check

-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement

-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or

-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project

-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning

-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United

-States.

-

-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

-

-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate

-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently

-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the

-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project

-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,

-copied or distributed:

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

-

-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived

-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is

-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied

-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees

-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work

-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the

-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1

-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the

-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or

-1.E.9.

-

-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted

-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution

-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional

-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked

-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the

-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

-

-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this

-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

-

-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without

-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project

-Gutenberg-tm License.

-

-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,

-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any

-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or

-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than

-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version

-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),

-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a

-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon

-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other

-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

-

-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works

-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-

-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided

-that

-

-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from

-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method

-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is

-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he

-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the

-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments

-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you

-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax

-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and

-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the

-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to

-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

-

-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies

-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he

-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-     License.  You must require such a user to return or

-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium

-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of

-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

-

-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any

-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the

-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days

-     of receipt of the work.

-

-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free

-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

-

-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set

-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from

-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael

-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the

-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

-

-1.F.

-

-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread

-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm

-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain

-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or

-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual

-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a

-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by

-your equipment.

-

-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right

-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project

-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all

-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal

-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

-DAMAGE.

-

-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can

-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a

-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you

-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with

-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with

-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a

-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity

-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to

-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy

-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further

-opportunities to fix the problem.

-

-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth

-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER

-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO

-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

-

-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.

-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the

-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be

-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by

-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any

-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

-

-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone

-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance

-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,

-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,

-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,

-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do

-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm

-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any

-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

-

-

-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of

-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers

-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists

-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from

-people in all walks of life.

-

-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's

-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will

-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure

-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.

-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4

-and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org

-

-

-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

-Foundation

-

-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit

-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the

-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal

-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification

-number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg

-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent

-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

-

-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.

-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered

-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809

-North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email

-contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the

-Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

-

-For additional contact information:

-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby

-     Chief Executive and Director

-     gbnewby@pglaf.org

-

-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg

-Literary Archive Foundation

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide

-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of

-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be

-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest

-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations

-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt

-status with the IRS.

-

-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United

-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a

-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up

-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations

-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To

-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any

-particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

-

-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition

-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who

-approach us with offers to donate.

-

-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from

-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

-

-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation

-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other

-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.

-To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate

-

-

-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works.

-

-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm

-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared

-with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project

-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed

-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.

-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily

-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

-

-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

-

-     www.gutenberg.org

-

-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,

-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to

-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45708 ***
+
+        Books by Mr. Torrey.
+
+    BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.
+    A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.
+    THE FOOT-PATH WAY. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25.
+    A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK. 16mo, $1.25.
+    SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE. 16mo, $1.25.
+
+        HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
+         BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+        SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE
+
+                     BY
+
+               BRADFORD TORREY
+
+
+    We travelled in the print of olden wars;
+        Yet all the land was green.
+
+                           ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+               [Illustration]
+
+            BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+       HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
+       The Riverside Press, Cambridge
+                    1896
+
+
+
+
+              Copyright, 1896,
+             BY BRADFORD TORREY.
+
+            _All rights reserved._
+
+
+_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
+
+ Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                               PAGE
+
+    AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE                  1
+
+    LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN                             28
+
+    CHICKAMAUGA                                  57
+
+    ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL CEMETERY       89
+
+    AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER                   102
+
+    A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS                113
+
+    A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE                    124
+
+    SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES                   183
+
+    A LIST OF BIRDS                             213
+
+    INDEX                                       221
+
+
+
+
+SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.
+
+
+
+
+AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE.
+
+
+I reached Chattanooga on the evening of April 26th, in the midst of
+a rattling thunder-shower,--which, to look back upon it, seems to
+have been prophetic,--and the next morning, after an early breakfast,
+took an electric car for Missionary Ridge. Among my fellow-passengers
+were four Louisiana veterans fresh from their annual reunion at
+Birmingham, where, doubtless, their hearts had been kindled by much
+fervent oratory, as well as by much private talk of those bygone days
+when they did everything but die for the cause they loved. As the
+car mounted the Ridge, one of them called his companions' attention
+to a place down the valley where "the Rebels and the Yankees" (his
+own words) used to meet to play cards. "A regular gambling-hole,"
+he called it. Their boys brought back lots of coffee. In another
+direction was a spot where the Rebels once "had a regular picnic,"
+killing some extraordinary number of Yankees in some incredibly
+brief time. I interrupted the conversation, and at the same time
+made myself known as a stranger and a Northerner, by inquiring after
+the whereabouts of Orchard Knob, General Grant's headquarters; and
+the same man, who seemed to be the spokesman of the party, after
+pointing out the place, a savin-sprinkled knoll between us and the
+city, kindly invited me to go with him and his comrades up to the
+tower,--on the site of General Bragg's headquarters,--where he would
+show me the whole battlefield and tell me about the fight.
+
+We left the car together for that purpose, and walked up the slope to
+the foot of the observatory,--an open structure of iron, erected by
+the national government; but just then my ear caught somewhere beyond
+us the song of a Bachman's finch,--a song I had heard a year before
+in the pine woods of Florida, and, in my ignorance, was unprepared
+for here. I must see the bird and make sure of its identity. It led
+me a little chase, and when I had seen it I must look also at a
+summer tanager, a chat, and so on, one thing leading to another; and
+by the time I returned to the observatory the veterans had come down
+and were under some apple-trees, from one of which the spokesman was
+cutting a big walking-stick. He had stood under those trees--which
+were now in bloom--thirty years before, he said, with General Bragg
+himself.
+
+I was sorry to have missed his story of the battle, and ashamed to
+have seemed ungrateful and rude, but I forget what apology I offered.
+At this distance it is hard to see how I could have got out of the
+affair with much dignity. I might have heard all about the battle
+from a man who was there, and instead I went off to listen to a
+sparrow singing in a bush. I thought, to be sure, that the men would
+be longer upon the observatory, and that I should still be in season.
+Probably that was my excuse, if I made one; and in all likelihood
+the veteran was too completely taken up with his own concerns to
+think twice about the vagaries of a stray Yankee, who seemed to be
+an odd stick, to say nothing worse of him. Well, the loss, such
+as it was, was mine, not his; and I have lost too much time in the
+way of business to fret over a little lost (or saved) in the way of
+pleasure. As for any apparent lack of patriotic feeling, I suppose
+that the noblest patriot in the world, if he chanced to be also an
+ornithologist, would notice a bird even amid the smoke of battle; and
+why should not I do as much on a field from which the battle smoke
+had vanished thirty years before?
+
+So I reason now; at the time I had no leisure for such sophistries.
+Every moment brought some fresh distraction. The long hill--woodland,
+brambly pasture, and shrubby dooryard--was a nest of singing birds;
+and when at last I climbed the tower, I came down again almost as
+suddenly as my Louisiana friends had done. The landscape,--the city
+and its suburbs, the river, the mountains,--all this would be here
+to-morrow; just now there were other things to look at. Here in the
+grass, almost under my nose, were a pair of Bewick wrens, hopping
+and walking by turns, as song sparrows may sometimes be found doing;
+conscious through and through of my presence, yet affecting to
+ignore it; carrying themselves with an indescribable and pretty
+demureness, as if a nest were something never dreamed of by birds
+of their kind; the female, nevertheless, having at that moment her
+beak bristling with straws, while the male, a proud young husband,
+hovered officiously about her with a continual sweetly possessive
+manner and an occasional burst of song. Till yesterday Bewick's wren
+had been nothing but a name to me. Then, somewhere after crossing the
+state line, the train stopped at a station, and suddenly through the
+open window came a song. "That's a Bewick wren," I said to myself,
+as I stepped across the aisle to look out; and there he stood, on
+the fence beside the track, his long tail striking the eye on the
+instant. He sang again, and once again, before the train started.
+Tennessee was beginning well with a visiting bird-gazer.
+
+There must be some wrennish quality about the Bewick's song, it would
+seem: else how did I recognize it so promptly? And yet, so far as I
+am able to give an account of my own impressions, it had in my ears
+no resemblance to any wren song I had ever heard. I think it never
+suggested to me any music except the song sparrow's. The truth is, I
+suppose, that we _feel_ resemblances and relationships of which the
+mind takes no cognizance.
+
+I wandered at a venture down the further slope, turning this way and
+that as a song invited me. Here were Southerners and Northerners
+fraternally commingled: summer tanagers, Carolina wrens, blue-gray
+gnatcatchers, cardinal grosbeaks, chats, Bachman finches, field
+sparrows, chippers, white-throated sparrows, chewinks, indigo
+buntings, black-poll warblers, myrtle-birds, prairie warblers, a
+Maryland yellow-throat, a bay-breasted warbler, a black-and-white
+creeper, a redstart, brown thrushes, catbirds, a single mocking-bird,
+wood thrushes, red-eyed vireos, white-eyed vireos, wood pewees, a
+quail, and, in the air, purple martins and turkey buzzards. On the
+Ridge, as well as near the foot on our way up, a mocking-bird and a
+wood thrush sang within hearing of each other. Comparison as between
+birds so dissimilar is useless and out of place; but how shall a man
+avoid it? The mocking-bird is a great vocalist,--yes, and a great
+singer; but to my Northern ears the wood thrush carried the day with
+his _voice_.
+
+Having climbed the Ridge again,--though climbing might be thought
+rather too laborious a word for so gradual a slope,--and started
+down on the side toward the city, I came to a patch of blackberry
+vines, in the midst of which sat a thrasher on her nest, all a
+mother's anxiety in her staring yellow eyes. Close by her stood
+an olive-backed thrush. There, too, was my first hooded warbler,
+a female. She escaped me the next instant, though I made an eager
+chase, not knowing yet how common birds of her sort were to prove in
+that Chattanooga country.
+
+In my delight at finding Missionary Ridge so happy a hunting-ground
+for an opera-glass naturalist, I went thither again the very
+next morning. This time some Virginia veterans were in the car
+(they all wore badges), and when we had left it, and were about
+separating,--after a bit of talk about the battle, of course,--one
+of them, with almost painful scrupulosity, insisted upon assuring me
+that if the thing were all to be done over again, he should do just
+as before. One of his comrades, seeing me a Northerner, interrupted
+him more than once in a vain attempt to smooth matters over. They had
+buried the hatchet, he said; let bygones be bygones. But the first
+man was not to be cajoled with a phrase. He spoke without passion,
+with no raising of the voice, quite simply and amicably: he too
+accepted the result; the thing never _would_ be done over again; only
+let his position be understood,--he had nothing to take back. It was
+impossible not to respect such conscientiousness. For my own part, at
+any rate, I felt no prompting to argue against it, being sufficiently
+"opinionated" to appreciate a difficulty which some obstinate people
+experience in altering their convictions as circumstances change,
+or accepting the failure of a cause as proof of its injustice. If
+a man is not _too_ obstinate, to be sure, time and the course of
+events may bring him new light; but that is another matter. Once,
+when the men were talking among themselves, I overheard one say, as
+he pointed down the hill, "The Rebels were there, and the Union men
+yonder." That careless recurrence of the word "Rebel" came to me as a
+surprise.
+
+The principal excitement of the morning was a glimpse of a Kentucky
+warbler, a bird most peculiarly desired. I had finished my jaunt,
+and was standing beside the bramble patch not far from the railway,
+where I had seen the hooded warbler the day before, when the splendid
+creature flashed into sight, saw me, uttered a volley of quick, clear
+notes, and vanished up the hillside. I ran after him, but might as
+well have remained where I was. "He _is_ a beauty!" I find written
+in my notebook. And so he is, clothed in lustrous olive and the
+most gorgeous of yellows with trimmings of black, all in the best
+of taste, with nothing patchy, nothing fantastic or even fanciful.
+I was again impressed with the abundance of chats, indigo-birds,
+and white-eyed vireos. Bachman sparrows were numerous, also, in
+appropriate localities,--dry and bushy,--and I noted a bluebird, a
+yellow-throated vireo, and, shouting from a dead treetop, a great
+crested flycatcher.
+
+My most vivid recollection of this second visit, however, is of the
+power of the sun, an old enemy of mine, by whom, in my ignorance
+of spring weather in Tennessee, I allowed myself to be taken at a
+cruel noonday disadvantage. Even now, in the deep frigidity of a
+Massachusetts winter, I cannot think of Missionary Ridge without
+seeing again those long stretches of burning sunshine, wherein the
+least spot of shade was like a palm in the desert. In every such
+shelter I used to stand awhile, bareheaded; then, marking the next
+similar haven, so many rods ahead, I would hoist my umbrella and
+push forward, cringing at every step as if I were crossing a field
+under fire. Possibly I exaggerate, but, if I do, it is very little;
+and though it be an abuse of an exquisite poem, I say over to myself
+again and again a couplet of Miss Guiney's:--
+
+    "Weather on a sunny ridge,
+    Showery weather, far from here."
+
+In truth, early as the season was, the excessive heat, combined with
+a trying dog-day humidity, sadly circumscribed all my Tennessee
+rambles. As for my umbrella, my obligations to it were such that
+nothing but a dread of plagiarism has restrained me from entitling
+this sketch "An Umbrella on Missionary Ridge." Nature never intended
+me for a tropical explorer. Often I did nothing more than seek a
+shady retreat and stay there, letting the birds come to me, if they
+would.
+
+Improved after this indolent fashion, one of the hottest of my
+forenoons became also one of the most enjoyable. I left the car
+midway up the Ridge,--at the angle of the Y,--and, passing my
+thrasher's blackberry tangle and descending a wooded slope, found
+myself unexpectedly in a pleasant place, half wood, half grassy
+field, through which ran a tiny streamlet, the first one I had seen
+in this dry and thirsty land. Near the streamlet, on the edge of the
+wood, quite by itself, stood a cabin of most forlorn appearance, with
+a garden patch under the window,--if there _was_ a window, as to
+which I do not remember, and the chances seem against it,--the whole
+closely and meanly surrounded by a fence. In the door stood an aged
+white woman, looking every whit as old and forlorn as the cabin, with
+a tall mastiff on one side of her and a black cat on the other.
+
+"Your dog and cat are good friends," I remarked, feeling it polite to
+speak even to a stranger in so lonesome a spot.
+
+"Yes," she answered gruffly, "they're good friends, only once in a
+while he wants to kill her."
+
+She said nothing more, and her manner did not encourage further
+attempts at neighborly intercourse; but as I passed the cabin now and
+then during the forenoon, the birds leading me about, I heard her
+muttering often and at considerable length to her hens and ducks.
+Evidently she enjoyed conversation as well as most people, only
+she liked to pick her own company. She was "Aunt Tilly," I learned
+afterwards, and had lived there by herself for many years; one of the
+characters of the city, a fortune-teller, whose professional services
+were in frequent request.
+
+In this favored nook, especially along the watercourse, were many
+birds, some of them at home for the summer, but the greater part,
+no doubt, lying over for a day or two on their long northward
+journey. Not one of them but was interesting to me here in a new
+country, however familiar it might have become in New England. Here
+were at least eleven kinds of warblers: black-polls of both sexes,
+black-throated blues, chestnut-sides, myrtle-birds, golden warblers,
+black-and-white creepers, redstarts (have we anything handsomer?),
+Maryland yellow-throats, blue golden-wings, chats, and Kentuckies.
+Here were blue-gray gnatcatchers, bluebirds, wood thrushes, veeries,
+an olive-backed thrush, catbirds, thrashers, Carolina wrens, tufted
+titmice, a Carolina chickadee, summer tanagers uncounted, orchard
+orioles, field sparrows, chippers, a Bachman sparrow (unseen), a
+cardinal, a chewink, flocks of indigo-birds and goldfinches, red-eyed
+vireos, white-eyed vireos, a yellow-throated vireo, kingbirds, and a
+crested flycatcher.
+
+In an oak at the corner of Aunt Tilly's cabin a pair of gnatcatchers
+had built a nest; an exquisite piece of work, large and curiously
+cylindrical,--not tapering at the base,--set off with a profusion of
+gray lichens, and saddled upon one limb directly under another, as
+if for shelter. If the gnatcatcher is not a great singer (his voice
+is slender, like himself), he is near the head of his profession as
+an architect and a builder. Twice, in the most senseless manner, one
+of the birds--the female, I had no doubt, in spite of the adjective
+just applied to her conduct--stood beside the nest and scolded at
+me; then, having freed her mind and attracted my attention, she got
+inside and began pecking here and there at the rim, apparently giving
+it the final touches. The tufted tits whistled unseen with all their
+characteristic monotony. The veeries and the olive-back kept silence,
+but the wood thrushes, as was their daily habit, made the woods ring.
+One of them was building a nest.
+
+Most admired of all were the Kentucky warblers, of which there were
+at least five. It was my first real sight of them, and, fortunately,
+they were not in the least bashful. They spent the time mostly on
+the ground, in open, grassy places, especially about the roots of
+trees and thorn-bushes,--the latter now snowy with bloom,--once in a
+while hopping a few inches up the bole, as if to pick off insects.
+In movement and attitude they made me think often of the Connecticut
+warbler, although when startled they took a higher perch. Once I
+saw one of them under a pretty tuft of the showy blue baptisia (_B.
+australis_),--a new bird in the shadow of a new flower! Who says that
+life is an old story? From the general manner of the birds,--more
+easily felt than defined,--as well as from their presence in a group
+and their silence, I inferred, rightly or wrongly, that they had
+but recently arrived. For aught I yet knew, they might be nothing
+but wayfarers,--a happy uncertainty which made them only the more
+interesting. Of their beauty I have already spoken. It would be
+impossible to speak of it too highly.
+
+As I took the car at noon, I caught sight of a wonderfully bright
+blood-red flower on the bank above the track, and, as I was the only
+passenger, the conductor kindly waited for me to run up and pluck it.
+It turned out to be a catchfly, and, like the Kentucky warbler, it
+became common a little later. "Indian pink," one of my Walden's Ridge
+friends said it was called; a pretty name, but to me "battlefield
+pink" or "carnage pink" would have seemed more appropriate.
+
+I had found an aviary, I thought, this open grove of Aunt Tilly's,
+with its treasure of a brook, and at the earliest opportunity I went
+that way again. Indeed, I went more than once. But the birds were no
+longer there. What I had seen was mainly a flock of "transients,"
+a migratory "wave." On the farther side of the Ridge, however, I
+by and by discovered a spot more permanently attractive,--a little
+valley in the hillside. Here was a spring, and from it, nearly dry
+as it was, there still oozed a slender rill, which trickled halfway
+down the slope before losing itself in the sand, and here and there
+dribbled into a basin commodious enough for a small bird's bath.
+Several times I idled away an hour or two in this retreat, under the
+shadow of red maples, sweet-gums, sycamores, and tupelos, making an
+occasional sortie into the sun as an adventurous mood came over me or
+a distant bird-call proved an irresistible attraction.
+
+They were pleasant hours, but I recall them with a sense of waste and
+discomfort. In familiar surroundings, such waitings upon Nature's
+mood are profitable, wholesome for body and soul; but in vacation
+time, and away from home, with new paths beckoning a man this way and
+that, and a new bird, for aught he can tell, singing beyond the next
+hill,--at such a time, I think, sitting still becomes a burden, and
+the cheerful practice of "a wise passiveness" a virtue beyond the
+comfortable reach of ordinary flesh and blood. Along the upper edge
+of the glen a road ran downward into the valley east of the Ridge,
+and now and then a carriage or a horseman passed. It would have been
+good to follow them. All that valley country, as I surveyed it from
+the railway and the tower, had an air of invitingness: beautiful
+woods, with footpaths and unfrequented roads. In them I must have
+found birds, flowers, and many a delightful nook. If the Fates could
+have sent me one cool day!
+
+Yet for all my complaining, I have lived few more enjoyable Sunday
+forenoons than one that I passed most inactively in this same
+hillside hollow. As I descended the bank to the spring, two or three
+goldfinches were singing (goldfinch voices go uncommonly well in
+chorus, and the birds seem to know it); a female tanager sat before
+me calling _clippity_, _clippity_; a field sparrow, a mocking wren,
+and a catbird sang in as many different directions; and a pair of
+thrashers--whose nest could not be far away--flitted nervously about,
+uttering characteristic moaning whistles. If they felt half as badly
+as their behavior indicated, their case was tragical indeed; but at
+the moment, instead of pitying them, I fell to wondering just when it
+is that the thrasher _smacks_ (all friends of his are familiar with
+his resounding imitation of a kiss), and when it is that he whistles.
+I have never made out, although I believe I know pretty well the
+states of mind thus expressed. The thrasher is to a peculiar degree
+a bird of passion; ecstatic in song, furious in anger, irresistibly
+pitiful in lamentation. How any man can rob a thrasher's nest with
+that heartbroken whistle in his ears is more than I can imagine.
+
+Indigo-birds are here, of course. Their number is one of the marvels
+of this country,--though indeed the country seems made for them, as
+it is also for chats and white-eyed vireos. A bit farther down the
+valley, as I come to the maples and tupelos, with their grateful
+density of shade, a wood pewee sings, and then a wood thrush. At the
+same moment, an Acadian flycatcher, who is always here (his nest
+is building overhead, as, after a while, I discover), salutes me
+with a quick, spiteful note. "No trespassing," he says. Landowners
+are pretty much alike. I pass on, but not far, and beside a little
+thicket I take up my stand, and wait. It is pleasant here, and
+patience will be rewarded. Yes, there is a magnolia warbler, my
+second Tennessee specimen; a great beauty, but without that final
+perfection of good taste (simplicity) which distinguishes the
+Kentucky. I see him, and he is gone, and I am not to be drawn into
+a chase. Now I have a glimpse of a thrush; an olive-back, from what
+I can see, but I cannot be sure. Still I keep my place. A blue-gray
+gnatcatcher is drawling somewhere in the leafy treetops. Thence, too,
+a cuckoo fires off a lively fusillade of _kuks_,--a yellow-bill,
+by that token. Next a black-poll warbler shows himself, still far
+from home, though he has already traveled a long way northward;
+and then, in one of the basins of the stream (if we may call it a
+stream, in which there is no semblance of a current), a chat comes
+to wash himself. Now I see the thrush again; or rather, I hear him
+whistle, and by moving a step or two I get him with my eye. He _is_
+an olive-back, as his whistle of itself would prove; and presently
+he begins to sing, to my intense delight. Soon two others are in
+voice with him. Am I on Missionary Ridge or in the Crawford Notch?
+I stand motionless, and listen and listen, but my enjoyment is
+interrupted by a new pleasure. A warbler, evidently a female, from
+a certain quietness and plainness, and, as I take it, a blue-winged
+yellow, though I have never seen a female of that species (and only
+once a male--three days ago at Chickamauga), comes to the edge of
+the pool, and in another minute her mate is beside her. Him there is
+no mistaking. They fly away in a bit of lovers' quarrel, a favorite
+pastime with mated birds. And look! there is a scarlet tanager; the
+same gorgeous fellow, I suppose, that was here two days ago, and the
+only one I have seen in this lower country. What a beauty he is! One
+of the finest; handsomer, so I think, than the handsomest of his
+all-red cousins. Now he calls _chip-cherr_, and now he breaks into
+song. There he falls behind; his cousin's voice is less hoarse, and
+his style less labored and jerky.
+
+Now straight before me, up a woody aisle, an olive-backed thrush
+stands in full view and a perfect light, facing me and singing,
+a lovely chorister. Looking at him, I catch a flutter of yellow
+and black among the leaves by the streamlet; a Kentucky warbler, I
+suspect, but I dare not go forward to see, for now the thrushes are
+in chorus again. By and by he comes up from his bath, and falls to
+dressing his feathers: not a Kentucky, after all, but a Canadian
+flycatcher, my first one here. He, too, is an exquisite, with fine
+colors finely laid on, and a most becoming jet necklace. While I am
+admiring him, a blue yellow-back begins to practice his scales--still
+a little blurred, and needing practice, a critic might say--somewhere
+at my right among the hillside oaks; another exquisite, a beauty
+among beauties. I see him, though he is out of sight. And what seems
+odd, at this very moment his rival as a singer of the scale, the
+prairie warbler, breaks out on the other side of me. Like the chat
+and the indigo-bird, he is abundantly at home hereabout.
+
+All this woodland music is set off by spaces of silence, sweeter
+almost than the music itself. Here is peace unbroken; here is a
+delicious coolness, while the sun blazes upon the dusty road above
+me. How amiable a power is contrast--on its softer side! I think of
+the eager, bloody, sweaty, raging men, who once stormed up these
+slopes, killing and being killed. The birds know nothing of all
+that. It might have been thousands of years ago. The very trees have
+forgotten it. Two or three cows come feeding down the glade, with
+the lazy tinkle of a bell. And now my new friend, the blue-winged
+yellow warbler, sings across the path (across the aisle, I was going
+to say), but only two or three times, and with only two insignificant
+lisping syllables. The chary soul! He sings to the eye, I suppose. I
+go over to look at him, and my sudden movement startles the thrushes,
+who, finding themselves again in the singers' gallery, cannot
+refrain from another chorus. At the same moment the Canadian warbler
+comes into sight again, this time in a tupelo. The blue-wings are
+found without difficulty; they have a call like the black-and-white
+creeper's. A single rough-winged swallow skims above the treetops. I
+have seen him here before, and one or two others like him.
+
+As I return to the bed of the valley, a female cardinal grosbeak
+flutters suspiciously about a thicket of tall blackberry vines. Her
+nest should be there, I think, but a hasty look reveals nothing.
+Again I come upon the Canadian warbler. If there is only one
+here, he is often in my way. I sit down upon the leaning, almost
+horizontal, bole of a large tupelo,--a new tree to me, but common
+in this country. The thick dark-colored bark is broken deeply into
+innumerable geometrical figures, giving the tree a noticeable,
+venerable appearance, as wrinkles lend distinction and character to
+an old man's face. Another species, which, as far as I can tell,
+should be our familiar tupelo of Massachusetts, is equally common,--a
+smaller tree, with larger leaves. The moisture here, slight as it
+now is, gives the place a vegetation of its own and a peculiar
+density of leafage. From one of the smaller tupelos (I repeat that
+word as often as I can, for the music of it) cross-vine streamers
+are swinging, full of red-and-yellow bells. Scattered thinly over
+the ground are yellow starflowers, the common houstonia, a pink
+phlox, and some unknown dark yellow blossom a little like the fall
+dandelion,--Cynthia, I guess.
+
+My thoughts are recalled by a strong, sharp _chip_ in a voice I do
+not recognize,--a Kentucky warbler's, as presently turns out. He
+walks about the ground amid the short, thin grass, seemingly in the
+most placid of moods; but at every few steps, for some inscrutable
+reason, he comes out with that quick, peremptory call. And all the
+while I keep saying to myself, "What a beauty!" But my forenoon is
+past. I rise to go, and at the motion he takes flight. Near the
+spring the goldfinches are still in full chorus, and just beyond them
+in the path is a mourning dove.
+
+That was a good season: hymns without words, "a sermon not made
+with hands," and the world shut out. Three days afterward, fast
+as my vacation was running away, I went to the same place again.
+The olive-backed thrushes were still singing, to my surprise, and
+the Kentucky warblers were still feeding in the grass. The scarlet
+tanager sang (it is curious how much oftener I mention him than the
+comparatively unfamiliar, but here extremely common summer tanager),
+the cuckoo called, the Acadian flycatcher was building her nest,--on
+a horizontal limb of a maple,--and a goldfinch warbled as if he
+could never cease. A veery sang, also (I heard but one other in
+Tennessee), with a chestnut-sided warbler, two redstarts (one of them
+in the modest garb of his mother), a Carolina chickadee, a mocking
+wren, a pine warbler, a prairie warbler, and a catbird. In time,
+probably, all the birds for a mile around might have been heard or
+seen beside that scanty rill.
+
+To-day, however, my mood was less Sundayish than before, and in spite
+of the heat I ventured across an open pasture,--where a Bachman's
+finch was singing an ingenious set of variations, and a rabbit
+stamped with a sudden loudness that made me jump,--and then through
+a piece of wood, till I came to another hollow like the one I had
+left, but without water, and therefore less thickly shaded. Here was
+the inevitable thicket of brambles (since I speak so much of chats
+and indigo-birds, the presence of a sufficiency of blackberry bushes
+may be taken for granted), and I waited to see what it would bring
+forth. A field sparrow sang from the hillside,--a sweet and modest
+tune that went straight to the heart, and had nothing to fear from
+a comparison with Bachman's finch or any other. What a contrast in
+this respect between him and his gentle-seeming but belligerent
+and tuneless cousin whom we call "chippy."[1] Here, likewise, were
+a pair of complaining Carolina wrens and an Acadian flycatcher. A
+thrush excited my curiosity, having the look of a gray-cheek, but
+showing a buff eye-ring; and while I was coaxing him to whistle,
+and so declare himself,--often a ready means of identification,
+and preferable on all accounts to shooting the bird,--there came a
+furious outburst from the depths of the brier patch, with a grand
+flurry of wings: a large bird and two smaller ones engaged in sudden
+battle, as well as I could make out. At the close of the _mêlée_,
+which ended as abruptly as it had begun, the thicket showed two
+wrens, a white-throated sparrow, and a female cardinal. The cardinal
+flew away; the affair was no business of hers, apparently; but in a
+minute she was back again, scolding. Then, while my back was turned,
+everything became quiet; and on my stepping up to reconnoitre, there
+she sat in her nest with four eggs under her. At that moment a chat's
+loud voice was heard, and, turning quickly, I caught the fellow in
+the midst of a brilliant display of his clownish tricks, ridiculous,
+indescribable. At a little distance, it is hard to believe that it
+can be a bird, that dancing, shapeless thing, balancing itself in the
+air with dangling legs and prancing, swaying motions. Well, that is
+the chat's way. What more need be said? Every creature must express
+himself, and birds no less than other poets are entitled to an
+occasional "fine frenzy."
+
+My little excursion had brought me nothing new, and, like all my
+similar ventures on Missionary Ridge, it ended in defeat. The sun was
+too much for me; to use a word suggested by the place, it carried too
+many guns. I took a long and comfortable siesta under a magnificent
+chestnut oak. Then it was near noon, and, with my umbrella spread, I
+mounted the hill to the railway, and waited for a car.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] If I could have my way, he should be known as the doorstep
+sparrow. The name would fit him to a nicety.
+
+
+
+
+LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+Lookout Mountain was at first a disappointment. I went home
+discouraged. The place was spoiled, I thought. About the fine inn
+were cheap cottages,--as if one had come to a second-class summer
+resort; while the lower slopes of the mountain, directly under
+Lookout Point on the side toward the city, were given up to a squalid
+negro settlement, and, of all things, a patent-medicine factory,--a
+shameful desecration, it seemed to me. I was half ready to say I
+would go there no more. The prospect was beautiful,--so much there
+was no denying; but the air was thick with smoke, and, what counted
+for ten times more, the eye itself was overclouded. A few northern
+warblers were chirping in the evergreens along the edge of the
+summit, between the inn and the Point,--black-polls and bay-breasts,
+with black-throated greens and Carolina wrens; and near them I saw
+with pleasure my first Tennessee phoebes. In the street car, on the
+way back to Chattanooga, I had for my fellow-passengers a group of
+Confederate veterans from different parts of the South, one of whom,
+a man with an empty sleeve, was showing his comrades an interesting
+war-time relic,--a bit of stone bearing his own initials. He had cut
+them in the rock while on duty at the Point thirty years before, I
+heard him say, and now, remembering the spot, and finding them still
+there, he had chipped them off to carry home. These are all the
+memories I retain of my first visit to a famous and romantic place
+that I had long desired to see.
+
+My second visit was little more remunerative, and came to an untimely
+and inglorious conclusion. Not far from the inn I noticed what seemed
+to be the beginning of an old mountain road. It would bring me to St.
+Elmo, a passing cottager told me; and I somehow had it fast in my
+mind that St. Elmo was a particularly wild and attractive woodland
+retreat somewhere in the valley,--a place where a pleasure-seeking
+naturalist would find himself happy for at least an hour or two, if
+the mountain side should insufficiently detain him. The road itself
+looked uncommonly inviting, rough and deserted, with wild crags
+above and old forest below; and without a second thought I took it,
+idling downward as slowly as possible, minding the birds and plants,
+or sitting for a while, as one shady stone after another offered
+coolness and a seat, to enjoy the silence and the prospect. Be as
+lazy as I could, however, the road soon gave signs of coming to an
+end; for Lookout Mountain, although it covers much territory and
+presents a mountainous front, is of a very modest elevation. And at
+the end of the way there was no sylvan retreat, but a village; yes,
+the same dusty little suburb that I had passed, and looked away from,
+on my way up. _That_ was St. Elmo!--and, with my luncheon still in
+my pocket, I boarded the first car for the city. One consolation
+remained: I had lived a pleasant hour, and the mountain road had
+made three additions to my local ornithology,--a magnolia warbler, a
+Blackburnian warbler, and a hairy woodpecker.
+
+There was nothing for it but to laugh at myself, and try again; but
+it was almost a week before I found the opportunity. Then (May
+7) I made a day of it on the mountain, mostly in the woods along
+the western bluffs. An oven-bird's song drew me in that direction,
+to begin with; and just as the singer had shown himself, and been
+rewarded with an entry as "No. 79" in my Tennessee catalogue, a
+cuckoo, farther away, broke into a shuffling introductory measure
+that marked him at once as a black-bill. Till now I had seen
+yellow-bills only, and though the voice was perhaps a sufficient
+identification, a double certainty would be better, especially in the
+retrospect. Luckily it was a short chase, and there sat the bird, his
+snowy throat swelling as he cooed, while his red eye-ring and his
+abbreviated tail-spots gave him a clear title to count as "No. 80."
+
+As I approached the precipitous western edge of the mountain, I
+heard, just below, the sharp, wiry voice of a Blackburnian warbler;
+a most splendid specimen, for in a moment more his orange-red
+throat shone like fire among the leaves. From farther down rose
+the hoarse notes of a black-throated blue warbler and two or three
+black-throated greens.
+
+Here were comfortable, well-shaded boulders and delightful
+prospects,--a place to stay in; but behind me stood a grove of small
+pine-trees, out of which came now and then a warbler's _chip_;
+and in May, with everything on the move, and anything possible,
+invitations of that kind are not to be refused. Warbler species
+are many, and there is always another to hope for. I turned to the
+pines, therefore, as a matter of course, and was soon deeply engaged
+with a charming bevy of northward-bound passengers,--myrtle-birds,
+palm warblers, black-throated blues (of both sexes), a female Cape
+May warbler (the first of her sex that I had seen) magnolias,
+bay-breasts, and many black-polls. It makes a short story in the
+telling; but it was long in the doing, and yielded more excitement
+than I dare try to describe. To and fro I went among the low trees
+(their lowness a most fortunate circumstance), slowly and with all
+quietness, putting my glass upon one bird after another as something
+stirred among the needles, and hoping every moment for some glorious
+surprise. In particular, I hoped for a cerulean warbler; but this was
+not the cerulean's day, and, if I had but known it, these were not
+the cerulean's trees. None but enthusiasts in the same line will be
+able to appreciate the delight of such innocent "collecting,"--birds
+in the memory instead of specimens in a bag. Even on one's home beat
+it quickens the blood; how much more, then, in a new field, where a
+man is almost a stranger to himself, and rarities and novelties seem
+but the order of the day. Again and again, morning and afternoon, I
+traversed the little wood, leaving it between whiles for a rest under
+the big oaks on the edge of the cliffs, whence, through green vistas,
+I gazed upon the farms of Lookout Valley and the mountains beyond. A
+scarlet tanager called,--my second one here,--wood thrush voices rang
+through the mountain side forest, a single thrasher was doing his
+bravest from the tip of a pine (our "brown mocking-bird" is anything
+but a skulker when the lyrical mood is on him), while wood pewees,
+red-eyed vireos, yellow-throated vireos, black-and-white creepers,
+and I do not remember what else, joined in the chorus. Just after
+noon an oven-bird gave out his famous aerial warble. To an aspiring
+soul even a mountain top is but a perch, a place from which to take
+wing.
+
+All these birds, it will be noticed, were such as I might have seen
+in Massachusetts; and indeed, the general appearance of things about
+me was pleasantly homelike. Here was much of the pretty striped
+wintergreen, a special favorite of mine, with bird-foot violets,
+the common white saxifrage (dear to memory as the "Mayflower" of
+my childhood), the common wild geranium (cranesbill, which we were
+told was "good for canker"), and maple-leaved viburnum. One of the
+loveliest flowers was the pink oxalis, and one of the commonest
+was a pink phlox; but I was most pleased, perhaps, with the white
+stonecrop (_Sedum ternatum_), patches of which matted the ground, and
+just now were in full bloom. The familiar look of this plant was a
+puzzle to me. I cannot remember to have seen it often in gardens, and
+I am confident that I never found it before in a wild state except
+once, fifteen years ago, at the Great Falls of the Potomac. Yet here
+on Lookout Mountain it seemed almost as much an old friend as the
+saxifrage or the cranesbill.
+
+I ate my luncheon on Sunset Rock, which literally overhangs the
+mountain side, and commands the finest of valley prospects; and
+then, after another turn through the pines, where the warblers
+were still busy with their all-day meal,--but not the new warbler,
+for which I was still looking,--I crossed the summit and made the
+descent by the St. Elmo road, as before. How long I was on the way
+I am unable to tell; I had learned the brevity of the road, and,
+like a schoolboy with his tart, I made the most of it. Midway down I
+caught sudden sight of an olive bird in the upper branch of a tree,
+with something black about the crown and the cheek. "What's that?" I
+exclaimed; and on the instant the stranger flew across the road and
+up the steep mountain side. I pushed after him in hot haste, over the
+huge boulders, and there he stood on the ground, singing,--a Kentucky
+warbler. Seeing him so hastily, and on so high a perch, and missing
+his yellow under-parts, I had failed to recognize him. As it was, I
+now heard his song for the first time, and rejoiced to find it worthy
+of its beautiful author: _klurwée_, _klurwée_, _klurwée_, _klurwée_,
+_klurwée_; a succession of clear, sonorous dis-syllables, in a fuller
+voice than most warblers possess, and with no flourish before or
+after. Like the bird's dress, it was perfect in its simplicity. I
+felt thankful, too, that I had waited till now to hear it. Things
+should be desired before they are enjoyed. It was another case of
+the schoolboy and his tart; and I went home good-humored. Lookout
+Mountain was not wholly ruined, after all.
+
+The next day found me there again, to my own surprise, for I had
+promised myself a trip down the river to Shellmound. In all the
+street cars, as well as in the city newspapers, this excursion was
+set forth as supremely enjoyable, a luxury on no account to be
+missed,--a fine commodious steamer, and all the usual concomitants.
+The kind people with whom I was sojourning, on Cameron Hill, hastened
+the family breakfast that I might be in season; but on arriving at
+the wharf I found no sign of the steamer, and, after sundry attempts
+to ascertain the condition of affairs, I learned that the steamer did
+not run now. The river was no longer high enough, it was explained;
+a smaller boat would go, or might be expected to go, some hours
+later. Little disposed to hang about the landing for several hours,
+and feeling no assurance that so doing would bring me any nearer to
+Shellmound, I made my way back to the Read House, and took a car for
+Lookout Mountain. In it I sat face to face with the same conspicuous
+placard, announcing an excursion for that day by the large and
+commodious steamer So-and-So, from such a wharf, at eight o'clock.
+But I then noticed that intending passengers were invited, in smaller
+type, to call at the office of the company, where doubtless it would
+be politely confided to them that the advertisement was a "back
+number." So the mistake was my own, after all, and, as the American
+habit is, I had been blaming the servants of the public unjustly.
+
+I was no sooner on the summit than I hastened to the pine wood. At
+first it seemed to be empty, but after a little, hearing the drawling
+_kree_, _kree_, _kree_, of a black-throated blue, I followed it,
+and found the bird. Next a magnolia dropped into sight, and then a
+red-cheeked Cape May, the second one I had ever seen, after fifteen
+or twenty years of expectancy. He threaded a leafless branch back and
+forth on a level with my eyes. I was glad I had come. Soon another
+showed himself, and presently it appeared that the wood, as men speak
+of such things, was full of them. There were black-polls, also, with
+a Blackburnian, a bay-breast, and a good number of palm warblers,
+(typical _palmarum_, to judge from the pale tints); but especially
+there were Cape Mays, including at least two females. As to the
+number of males it is impossible to speak; I never had more than
+two under my eye at once, but I came upon them continually,--they
+were always in motion, of course, being warblers,--till finally, as
+I put my glass on another one, I caught myself saying, in a tone of
+disappointment, "Only a Cape May." But yesterday I might as well have
+spoken of a million dollars as "only a million." So soon does novelty
+wear off. The magnolia and the Blackburnian were in high feather, and
+made a gorgeous pair as chance brought them side by side in the same
+tree. They sang with much freedom; but the Cape Mays kept silence,
+to my deep regret, notwithstanding the philosophical remarks just
+now volunteered about the advantages derivable from a bird's gradual
+disclosure of himself. Such pieces of wisdom, I have noticed, when
+by chance they do not fall into the second or third person, are
+commonly applied to the past rather than the present; a man's past
+being, in effect, not himself, but another. In morals, as in archery,
+the target should be set at a fair distance. The Cape May's song is
+next to nothing,--suggestive of the black-poll's, I am told,--but I
+would gladly have bought a ticket to hear it.
+
+The place might have been made on purpose for the use to which it
+was now put. The pinery, surrounded by hard-wood forest, was like
+an island; and the warblers, for the most part, had no thought of
+leaving it. Had they been feeding in the hard wood,--miles of tall
+trees,--I should have lost them in short order. At the same time, the
+absence of undergrowth enabled me to move about with all quietness,
+so that none of them took the least alarm. Not a black-throated green
+was seen or heard, though yesterday they had been in force both among
+the pines and along the cliffs. A flock of myrtle warblers were
+surprisingly late, it seemed to me; but it was my last sight of them.
+
+The reader will perceive that I was not exploring Lookout Mountain,
+and am in no position to set forth its beauties. It is eighty odd
+miles long, we are told, and in some places more than a dozen miles
+wide. I visited nothing but the northern point, the Tennessee end,
+the larger part of the mountain being in Georgia; and even while
+there I looked twice at the birds, and once at the mountain itself.
+
+At noon, I lay for a long time upon a flat boulder under the tall
+oaks of the western bluff, looking down upon the lower woods, now in
+tender new leaf and most exquisitely colored. There are few fairer
+sights than a wooded mountain side seen from above; only one must
+not be too far above, and the forest should be mainly deciduous.
+The very thought brings before my eyes the long, green slopes of
+Mount Mansfield as they show from the road near the summit,--beauty
+inexpressible and never to be forgotten; and miles of autumn color
+on the sides of Kinsman, Cannon, and Lafayette, as I have enjoyed
+it by the hour, stretched in the September sunshine on the rocks of
+Bald Mountain. Perhaps the earth itself will never be fully enjoyed
+till we are somewhere above it. The Lookout woods, as I now saw
+them, were less magnificent in sweep, but hardly less beautiful. And
+below them was the valley bottom,--Lookout Valley, once the field of
+armies, now the abode of peaceful industry: acres of brown earth,
+newly sown, with no trace of greenness except the hedgerows along the
+brooks and on the banks of Lookout Creek. And beyond the valley was
+Raccoon Mountain, wooded throughout; and behind that, far away, the
+Cumberland range, blue with distance.
+
+A phoebe came and perched at my elbow, dropping a curtsey with
+old-fashioned politeness by way of "How are you, sir?" and a little
+afterward was calling earnestly from below. This is one of the
+characteristic birds of the mountain, and marks well the difference
+in latitude which even a slight elevation produces. I found it
+nowhere in the valley country, but it was common on Lookout and on
+Walden's Ridge. Then, behind me on the summit, another northern
+bird, the scarlet tanager, struck up a labored, rasping, breathless
+tune, hearty, but broken and forced. I say labored and breathless;
+but, happily, the singer was unaware of his infirmity (or can it
+be I was wrong?), and continued without interruption for at least
+half an hour. If he was uncomfortably short-breathed, he was very
+agreeably long-winded. Oven-birds sang at intervals throughout the
+day, and once I heard again the black-billed cuckoo. Yes, Hooker was
+right: Lookout Mountain is Northern, not Southern. But then, as if to
+show that it is not exactly Yankee land, in spite of oven-bird and
+black-bill, and notwithstanding all that Hooker and his men may have
+done, a cardinal took a long turn at whistling, and a Carolina wren
+came to his support with a _cheery_, _cheery_. A far-away crow was
+cawing somewhere down the valley, no very common sound hereabout; a
+red-eye, our great American missionary, was exhorting, of course; a
+black-poll, on his way to British America, whispered something, it
+was impossible to say what; and a squirrel barked. I lay so still
+that a black-and-white creeper took me for a part of the boulder,
+and alighted on the nearest tree-trunk. He goes round a bole just
+as he sings, in corkscrew fashion. Now and then I caught some of
+the louder phrases of a distant brown thrush, and once, when every
+one else fell silent, a catbird burst out spasmodically with a few
+halting, disjointed eccentricities, highly characteristic of a bird
+who can sing like a master when he will, but who seems oftener to
+enjoy talking to himself. Lizards rustled into sight with startling
+suddenness; and one big fellow disappeared so instantaneously--in
+"less than no time," as the Yankee phrase is--that I thought "quick
+as a lizard" might well enough become an adage. Here and there I
+remarked a chestnut-tree, the burs of last year still hanging;
+and chestnut oaks were among the largest and handsomest trees of
+the wood, as they were among the commonest. The temperature was
+perfect,--so says my penciled note. Let the confession not be
+overlooked, after all my railing at the fierce Tennessee sun. It made
+all the pleasure of the hour, too, that there were no troublesome
+insects. I had been in that country for ten days, the mercury had
+been much of the time above 90°, and I had not seen ten mosquitoes.
+
+I left my boulder at last, though it would have been good to remain
+there till night, and wandered along the bluffs to the Point. Here it
+was apparent at once that the wind had shifted. For the first time I
+caught sight of lofty mountains in the northeast; the Great Smokies,
+I was told, and could well believe it. I sat down straightway and
+looked at them, and had I known how things would turn, I would
+have looked at them longer; for in all my three weeks' sojourn in
+Chattanooga, that was the only half-day in which the atmosphere was
+even approximately clear. It was unfortunate, but I consoled myself
+with the charm of the foreground,--a charm at once softened and
+heightened, with something of the magic of distance, by the very
+conditions that veiled the horizon and drew it closer about us.
+
+It is truly a beautiful world that we see from Lookout Point:
+the city and its suburbs; the river with its broad meanderings,
+and, directly at our feet, its great Moccasin Bend; the near
+mountains,--Raccoon and Sand mountains beyond Lookout Valley, and
+Walden's Ridge across the river; and everywhere in the distance
+hills and high mountains, range beyond range, culminating in the
+Cumberland Mountains in one direction, and the Great Smokies in
+another. And as we look at the fair picture we think of what was
+done here,--of historic persons and historic deeds. At the foot of
+the cliffs on which we stand is White House plateau, the battlefield
+of Lookout Mountain. Chattanooga itself is spread out before us,
+with Orchard Knob, Cameron Hill, and the national cemetery. Yonder
+stretches the long line of Missionary Ridge, and farther south,
+recognizable by at least one of the government towers, is the
+battlefield of Chickamauga. Here, if anywhere, we may see places that
+war has made sacred.
+
+The feeling of all this is better enjoyed after one has grown
+oblivious to the things which at first do so much to cheapen the
+mountain,--the hotels, the photographers' shanties, the placards,
+the hurrying tourists, and the general air of a place given over
+to showmen. Much of this seeming desecration is unavoidable,
+perhaps; at all events, it is the part of wisdom to overlook it, as,
+fortunately, by the time of my third visit I was pretty well able to
+do. If that proves impossible, if the visitor is of too sensitive
+a temperament,--to call his weakness by no worse a name,--he can at
+least betake himself to the woods, and out of them see enough, as I
+did from my boulder, to repay him for all his trouble.
+
+The battlefield, as has been said, lies at the base of the
+perpendicular cliffs which make the bold northern tip of the
+mountain,--Lookout Point. I must walk over it, though there is
+little to see, and after a final look at the magnificent panorama I
+descended the steps to the head of the "incline," or, as I should
+say, the cable road. The car dropped me at a sentry-box marked
+"Columbus" (it was easy to guess in what year it had been named), and
+thence I strolled across the plateau,--so called in the narratives of
+the battle, though it is far from level,--past the Craven house and
+Cloud Fort, to the western slope looking down into Lookout Valley,
+out of which the Union forces marched to the assault. The place was
+peaceful enough on that pleasant May afternoon. The air was full
+of music, and just below me were apple and peach orchards and a
+vineyard.
+
+In such surroundings, half wild, half tame, I had hope of finding
+some strange bird; it would be pleasant to associate him with a
+spot so famous. But the voices were all familiar: wood thrushes,
+Carolina wrens, bluebirds, summer tanagers, catbirds, a Maryland
+yellow-throat, vireos (red-eyes and white-eyes), goldfinches, a field
+sparrow (the dead could want no sweeter requiem than he was chanting,
+but the wood pewee should have been here also), indigo-birds, and
+chats. In one of the wildest and roughest places a Kentucky warbler
+started to sing, and I plunged downward among the rocks and bushes
+(here was maiden-hair fern, I remember), hoping to see him. It was
+only my second hearing of the song, and it would be prudent to verify
+my recollection; but the music ceased, and I saw nothing. At the
+turn, where the land begins to decline westward, I came to a low,
+semicircular wall of earth. Here, doubtless, on that fateful November
+morning, when clouds covered the mountain sides, the Confederate
+troops meant to make a stand against the invader. Now a wilderness of
+young blue-green persimmon-trees had sprung up about it, as about
+the Craven house was a similar growth of sassafras. I had already
+noticed the extreme abundance of sassafras (shrubs rather than trees)
+in all this country, and especially on Missionary Ridge.
+
+With my thoughts full of the past, while my senses kept watch of the
+present, I returned slowly to the "incline," where I had five minutes
+to wait for a downward car. It had been a good day, a day worth
+remembering; and just then there came to my ear the new voice for
+which I had been on the alert: a warbler's song, past all mistake,
+sharp, thin, vivacious, in perhaps eight syllables,--a song more like
+the redstart's than anything else I could think of. The singer was in
+a tall tree, but by the best of luck, seeing how short my time was,
+the opera-glass fell upon him almost of itself,--a hooded warbler;
+my first sight of him in full dress (he might have been rigged out
+for a masquerade, I thought), as it was my first hearing of his song.
+If it had been also my last hearing of it, I might have written that
+the hooded warbler, though a frequenter of low thickets, chooses a
+lofty perch to sing from. So easy is it to generalize; that is, to
+tell more than we know. The fellow sang again and again, and, to my
+great satisfaction, a Kentucky joined him,--a much better singer in
+all respects, and much more becomingly dressed; but I gave thanks for
+both. Then the car stopped for me, and we coasted to the base, where
+the customary gang of negroes, heavily chained, were repairing the
+highway, while the guard, a white man, stood over them with a rifle.
+It was a strange spectacle to my eyes, and suggested a considerable
+postponement of the millennium; but I was glad to see the men at work.
+
+Two days afterward (May 10), in spite of "thunder in the morning"
+and one of the safest of weather saws, I made my final excursion
+to Lookout, going at once to the warblers' pines. There were few
+birds in them. At all events, I found few; but there is no telling
+what might have happened, if the third specimen that came under my
+glass--after a black-poll and a bay-breast--had not monopolized my
+attention till I was driven to seek shelter. That was the day when
+I needed a gun; for I suppose it must be confessed that even an
+opera-glass observer, no matter how much in love he may be with his
+particular method of study, and no matter how determined he may be
+to stick to it, sees a time once in a great while when a bird in the
+hand would be so much better than two in the bush that his fingers
+fairly itch for something to shoot with. From what I know of one such
+man, I am sure it would be exaggerating their tenderness of heart
+to imagine observers of this kind incapable of taking a bird's life
+under any circumstances. In fact, it may be partly a distrust of
+their own self-restraint, under the provocations of curiosity, that
+makes them eschew the use of firearms altogether.
+
+My mystery on the present occasion was a female warbler,--of so
+much I felt reasonably assured; but by what name to call her, that
+was a riddle. Her upper parts were "not olive, but of a neutral
+bluish gray," with light wing-bars, "not conspicuous, but distinct,"
+while her lower parts were "dirty, but unstreaked." What at once
+impressed me was her "bareheaded appearance" (I am quoting my
+penciled memorandum), with a big eye and a light eye-ring,--like a
+ruby-crowned kinglet, for which, at the first glance, I mistook her.
+If my notes made mention of any dark streaks or spots underneath, I
+would pluck up courage and hazard a glorious guess, to be taken for
+what it might be worth. As it is, I leave guessing to men better
+qualified, for whose possible edification or amusement I have set
+down these particulars.
+
+While I was pursuing the stranger, but not till I had seen her
+again and again, and secured as many "points" as a longer ogling
+seemed likely to afford me, it began thundering ominously out of
+ugly clouds, and I edged toward some woodland cottages not far
+distant. Then the big drops fell, and I took to my heels, reaching
+a piazza just in time to escape a torrent against which pine-trees
+and umbrella combined would have been as nothing. The lady of the
+house and her three dogs received me most hospitably, and as the rain
+lasted for some time we had a pleasant conversation (I can speak
+for one, at least) about dogs in general and particular (a common
+interest is the soul of talk); in illustration and furtherance of
+which the spaniel of the party, somewhat against his will, was
+induced to "sit up like a gentleman," while I boasted modestly of
+another spaniel, Antony by name, who could do that and plenty of
+tricks beside,--a perfect wonder of a dog, in short. Thus happily
+launched, we went on to discuss the climate of Tennessee (whatever
+may be the soul of talk, the weather supplies it with members and
+a bodily substance) and the charms of Lookout Mountain. She lived
+there the year round, she said (most of the cottagers make the place
+a summer resort only), and always found it pleasant. In winter it
+wasn't so cold there as down below; at any rate, it didn't feel so
+cold,--which is the main thing, of course. Sometimes when she went
+to the city, it seemed as if she should freeze, although she hadn't
+thought of its being cold before she left home. It is one form of
+patriotism, I suppose,--parochial patriotism, perhaps we may call
+it,--that makes us stand up pretty stoutly for our own dwelling-place
+before strangers, however we may grumble against it among ourselves.
+In the present instance, however, no such qualifying explanation
+seemed necessary. In general, I was quite prepared to believe that
+life on a mountain top, in a cottage in a grove, would be found every
+whit as agreeable as my hostess pictured it.
+
+The rain slackened after a while, though it was long in ceasing
+altogether, and I went to the nearest railway station (Sunset
+Station, I believe) and waited half an hour for a train to the Point,
+chatting meanwhile with the young man in charge of the relic-counter.
+Then, at the Point, I waited again--this time to enjoy the prospect
+and see how the weather would turn--till a train passed on "the broad
+gauge" below. Just beyond Fort Cloud it ran into a fine old forest,
+and a sudden notion took me to go straight down through the woods and
+spend the rest of the day rambling in that direction. The weather had
+still a dubious aspect, but, with motive enough, some things can be
+trusted to Providence, and, the steepness of the descent accelerating
+my pace, I was soon on the sleepers, after which it was but a little
+way into the woods. Once there, I quickly forgot everything else at
+the sound of a new song. But _was_ it new? It bore some resemblance
+to the ascending scale of the blue yellow-back, and might be the
+freak of some individual of that species. I stood still, and in
+another minute the singer came near and sang under my eye; the very
+bird I had been hoping for,--a cerulean warbler in full dress; as
+Dr. Coues says, "a perfect little beauty." He continued in sight,
+feeding in rather low branches,--an exception to his usual habit, I
+have since found,--and sang many times over. His complaisance was a
+piece of high good fortune, for I saw no second specimen. The strain
+opens with two pairs of notes on the same pitch, and concludes with
+an upward run much like the blue yellow-back's, or perhaps midway
+between that and the prairie warbler's. So I heard it, I mean to
+say. But everything depends upon the ear. Audubon speaks of it as
+"extremely sweet and mellow" (the last a surprising word), while Mr.
+Ridgway is quoted as saying that the bird possesses "only the most
+feeble notes."
+
+The woods of themselves were well worth a visit: extremely open, with
+broad barren spaces; the trees tall, largely oak,--chestnut oak,
+especially,--but with chestnut, hickory, tupelo, and other trees
+intermingled. Here, as afterward on Walden's Ridge, I was struck
+with the almost total absence of mosses, and the dry, stony character
+of the soil,--a novel and not altogether pleasing feature in the eyes
+of a man accustomed to the mountain forests of New England, where
+mosses cover every boulder, stump, and fallen log, while the feet
+sink into sphagnum as into the softest of carpets.
+
+Comfortable lounging-places continually invited me to linger, and at
+last I sat down under a chestnut oak, with a big broken-barked tupelo
+directly before me. Over the top of a neighboring boulder a lizard
+leaned in a praying attitude and gazed upon the intruder. Once in a
+while some loud-voiced tree-frog, as I suppose, uttered a grating
+cry. A blue-gray gnatcatcher was complaining,--snarling, I might have
+said; a red-eye, an indigo-bird, a field sparrow, and a Carolina wren
+took turns in singing; and a sudden chat threw himself into the air,
+quite unannounced, and, with ludicrous teetering motions, flew into
+the tupelo and eyed me saucily. A few minutes later, a single cicada
+(seventeen-year locust) followed him. With my glass I could see its
+monstrous red eyes and the orange edge of its wing. It kept silence;
+but without a moment's cessation the musical hum of distant millions
+like it filled the air,--a noise inconceivable.
+
+I would gladly have sat longer, as I would gladly have gone much
+farther into the woods, for I had seen none more attractive;
+but a rumbling of thunder, a rapid blackening of the sky, and a
+recollection of the forenoon's deluge warned me to turn back. And
+now, for the first time, although I had been living within sound of
+locusts for a week or more, I suddenly came to trees in which they
+were congregated. The branches were full of them. Heard thus near,
+the sound was no longer melodious, but harsh and shrill.
+
+It seemed cruel that my last day on Lookout Mountain should be so
+broken up, and so abruptly and unseasonably concluded, but so the
+Fates willed it. My retreat became a rout, and of the remainder of
+the road I remember only the hurry and the warmth, and two pleasant
+things,--a few wild roses, and the scent of a grapevine in bloom; two
+things so sweet and homelike that they could be caught and retained
+by a man on the run.
+
+
+
+
+CHICKAMAUGA.
+
+
+The field of Chickamauga--a worthily resounding name for one of
+the great battlefields of the world--lies a few miles south of the
+Tennessee and Georgia boundary, and is distant about an hour's ride
+by rail from Chattanooga. A single morning train outward, and a
+single evening train inward, made an all-day excursion necessary, and
+the time proved to be none too long. Unhappily, as I then thought,
+the sun was implacable, with the mercury in the nineties, though
+it was only the 3d of May; and as I was on foot, and the national
+reservation covers nine or ten square miles, I saw hardly more
+than a corner of the field. This would have been a more serious
+disappointment had my errand been of a topographical or historical
+nature. As the case was, being only a sentimental pilgrim, I ought
+perhaps to have welcomed the burning heat as a circumstance all in
+my favor; suiting the spirit of the place, and constraining me to a
+needful moderation. When a man goes in search of a mood, he must
+go neither too fast nor too far. As the Scripture saith, "Bodily
+exercise profiteth little." So much may readily be confessed now; for
+wisdom comes with reflection, and it is no great matter to bear a
+last year's toothache.
+
+From the railway station I followed, at a venture, a road that soon
+brought me to a comfortable, homelike house, with fine shade trees
+and an orchard. This was the Dyer estate,--so a tablet informed all
+comers. Here, in September, 1863, lived John Dyer, who suddenly
+found his few peaceful acres surrounded and overrun by a hundred
+thousand armed men, and himself drafted into service--if he needed
+drafting--as guide to the Confederate commander. Since then strange
+things had happened to the little farmhouse, which now was nothing
+less than a sort of government headquarters, as I rightly inferred
+from the general aspect of things round about, and the American flag
+flying above the roof. I passed the place without entering, halting
+only to smile at the antics of a white-breasted nuthatch,--my first
+Tennessee specimen,--which was hopping awkwardly about the yard.
+It was a question of something to eat, I suppose, or perhaps of a
+feather for the family nest, and precedents and appearances went for
+nothing. Two or three minutes afterward I came face to face with
+another apparition, a horseman as graceful and dignified, not to say
+majestic, as the nuthatch had been lumbering and ungainly; a man in
+civilian's dress, but visibly a soldier, with a pose and carriage
+that made shoulder-straps superfluous; a man to look at; every inch
+a major-general, at the very least; of whom, nevertheless,--the heat
+or something else giving me courage,--I ventured to inquire, from
+under my umbrella, if there were any way of seeing some of the more
+interesting portions of the battlefield without too much exposure
+to the sun. He showed a little surprise (military gentlemen always
+do, so far as I have observed, when strangers address them), but
+recovered himself, and answered almost with affability. Yes, he said,
+if I would take the first turn to the left, I should pass the spot
+over which Longstreet made the charge that decided the fate of the
+contest, and as he spoke he pointed out the field, which appeared to
+be part of the Dyer farm; then I should presently come within sight
+of the Kelly house, about which the fighting was of the hottest; and
+from there I should do well to go to the Snodgrass Hill tower and the
+Snodgrass house. To do as much as that would require little walking,
+and at the same time I should have seen a good share of what was best
+worth a visitor's notice. I thanked him, and followed his advice.
+
+The left-hand road, of which my informant had spoken, ran between
+the forest--mostly of tall oaks and long-leaved pines--and the
+grassy Dyer field. Here it was possible to keep in the shade, and
+life was comparatively easy; so that I felt no stirrings of envious
+desire when two gentlemen, whom I recognized as having been among my
+fellow-passengers from Chattanooga, came up behind me in a carriage
+with a pair of horses and a driver. As they overtook me, and while
+I was wondering where they could have procured so luxurious a
+turnout, since I had discovered no sign of a public conveyance or a
+livery stable, the driver reined in his horses, and the older of the
+gentlemen put out his head to ask, "Were you in the battle, sir?" I
+answered in the negative; and he added, half apologetically, that he
+and his companion wished to get as many points as possible about the
+field. In the kindness of my heart, I told him that I was a stranger,
+like himself, but that the gentleman yonder, on horseback, seemed
+to be well acquainted with the place, and would no doubt answer all
+inquiries. With a queer look in his face, and some remark that I
+failed to catch, my interlocutor dropped back into his seat, and the
+carriage drove on. It was only afterward that I learned--on meeting
+him again--that he was no other than General Boynton, the man who is
+at the head of all things pertaining to Chickamauga and its history.
+
+In the open field several Bachman finches were singing, while the
+woods were noisier, but less musical, with Maryland yellow-throats,
+black-poll warblers, tufted titmice, and two sorts of vireos.
+Sprinkled over the ground were the lovely spring beauty and the
+violet wood sorrel, with pentstemon, houstonia, and a cheerful pink
+phlox. Here I soon heard a second nuthatch, and fell into a kind of
+fever about its notes, which were clearer, less nasal, than those of
+our New England birds, it seemed to me, and differently phrased.
+Such peculiarities might indicate a local race, I said to myself,
+with that predisposition to surprise which is one of the chief
+compensations of life away from home. As I went on, a wood pewee and
+a field sparrow began singing,--two birds whose voices might have
+been tuned on purpose for such a place. Of the petulant, snappish cry
+of an Acadian flycatcher not quite the same could be said. One of the
+"unreconstructed," I was tempted to call him.
+
+The Kelly house, on the way to which through the woods my Yankee
+eyes were delighted with the sight of loose patches of rue anemones,
+was duly marked with a tablet, and proved to be a cabin of the
+most primitive type, standing in the usual bit of fenced land (the
+smallness of the houseyards, as contrasted with the miles of open
+country round about, is a noticeable feature of Southern landscapes),
+with a corn-house near by, and a tumble-down barn across the way.
+For some time I sat beside the road, under an oak; then, seeing two
+women, older and younger, inside the house, I asked leave to enter,
+the doors being open, and was made welcome with apparent heartiness.
+The elderly woman soon confided to me that she was seventy-six years
+old,--a marvelous figure she seemed to consider it; and when I
+tried to say something about her comparative youthfulness, and the
+much greater age of some ladies of my acquaintance (no names being
+mentioned, of course), she would only repeat that she was awful
+old, and shouldn't live much longer. She meant to improve the time,
+however,--and the unusual fortune of a visitor,--and fairly ran over
+with talk. She didn't belong about here. Oh no; she came from "'way
+up in Tennessee, a hundred and sixty miles!" "'Pears like I'm a long
+way from home," she said,--"a hundred and sixty miles!" Again I
+sought to comfort her. That wasn't so very far. What did she think
+of me, who had come all the way from Massachusetts? She threw up her
+hands, and ejaculated, "Oh, Lor'!" with a fervor to which a regiment
+of exclamation points would scarcely do justice. Yet she had but a
+vague idea of where Massachusetts was, I fancy; for pretty soon she
+asked, "Where did you say you was from? Pennsylvany?" And when I
+said, "Oh no, Massachusetts, twice as far as that," she could only
+repeat, "Oh, Lor'!" Her grandson was at work in the park, and she had
+come down to live with him and his wife. But she shouldn't live long.
+
+The wonder of this new world was still strong upon her. "Them
+moniment things they've put up," she said, "have you seen 'em? Men
+cut in a rock!--three of 'em? Have you seen 'em? Ain't they a sight
+to see?" She referred to the granite monuments of the regulars, on
+which are life-size figures in high relief. And had I seen the tower
+on the hill, she proceeded to ask,--an open iron structure,--and
+what did I think of _that_? She wouldn't go up in it for a bushel
+of money. "Oh yes, you would," I told her. "You would like it, I'm
+sure." But she stuck to her story. She wouldn't do it for a bushel of
+money. She should be dizzy; and she threw up her hands, literally, at
+the very thought, while her granddaughter sat and smiled at my waste
+of breath. I asked if many visitors came here. "Oh, Lor', yes!" the
+old lady answered. "More'n two dozen have been here from 'way up in
+Chicago."
+
+The mention of visitors led the younger woman to produce a box of
+relics, and I paid her a dime for three minie-balls. "I always get
+a nickel," she said, when I inquired the price; but when I selected
+two, and handed her a ten-cent piece, she insisted upon my taking
+another. Wholesale customers deserved handsome treatment. She had
+picked up such things herself before now, but her husband found most
+of them while grubbing in the woods.
+
+The cabin was a one-room affair, of a sort common in that country
+("cracker-boxes," one might call them, if punning were not so
+frowned upon), with a big fireplace, two opposite doors, two beds
+in diagonally opposite corners, and, I think, no window. Here
+was domestic life in something like its pristine simplicity, a
+philosopher might have said: the house still subordinate to the man,
+and the housekeeper not yet a slave to furniture and bric-à-brac. But
+even a philosopher would perhaps have tolerated a second room and a
+light of glass. As for myself, I remembered that I used to read of
+"poor white trash" in anti-slavery novels.
+
+By this time the sun had so doubled its fury that I would not cross
+the bare Kelly field, and therefore did not go down to look at the
+"men cut in a rock;" but after visiting a shell pyramid which marks
+the spot where Colonel King fell,--and near which I saw my first
+Tennessee flicker,--I turned back toward Snodgrass Hill, keeping to
+the woods as jealously as any soldier can have done on the days of
+the battle. At the foot of the hill was a well, with a rude bucket
+and a rope to draw with. Here I drank,--having to stand in the sun,
+I remember,--and then sat down in the shelter of large trees near
+by, with guideboards and index-fingers all about me, while a Bachman
+finch, who occupied a small brush-heap just beyond the well (_he_ had
+no fear of sunshine), entertained me with music. He was a master. I
+had never heard his equal of his own kind, and seldom a bird of any
+kind, that seemed so much at home with his instrument. He sang "like
+half a dozen birds," to quote my own pencil; now giving out a brief
+and simple strain, now running into protracted and intricate warbles;
+and all with the most bewitching ardor and sweetness, and without
+the slightest suggestion of attempting to make a show. A field
+sparrow sang from the border of the grass land at the same moment. I
+wished he could have refrained. Nothing shall induce me to say a word
+against him; but there are times when one would rather be spared even
+the opportunity for a comparison.
+
+As I went up the hill under the tall trees, largely yellow pines, a
+crested flycatcher stood at the tip of one of the tallest of them,
+screaming like a bird of war; and further on was a red-cockaded
+woodpecker, flitting restlessly from trunk to trunk, its flight
+marked with a musical woodpeckerish wing-beat,--like the downy's
+purr, but louder. I had never seen the bird before except in the
+pine-lands of Florida, nor did I see it afterward except on this same
+hill, at a second visit. It is a congener of the downy and the hairy,
+ranking between them in size, and by way of distinction wears a big
+white patch, an ear-muff, one might say, on the side of its head. Its
+habitat is strictly southern, so that its name, _Dryobates borealis_,
+though easily rememberable, seems but moderately felicitous.
+
+Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the day--the most comfortable,
+certainly, but the words are not synonymous--was a two-hour siesta on
+the Snodgrass Hill tower, above the tops of the highest trees. The
+only two landmarks of which I knew the names were Missionary Ridge
+and Lookout Mountain; the latter running back for many miles into
+Georgia, like a long wooded plateau, till it rises into High Point at
+its southern end, and breaks off precipitously.
+
+Farther to the south were low hills followed by a long mountain
+of beautiful shape,--Pigeon Mountain, I heard it called,--with
+elevations at each end and in the middle. And so my eye made the
+round of the horizon, hill after hill in picturesque confusion, till
+it returned to Missionary Ridge, with Walden's Ridge rising beyond,
+and Lookout Point on the left: a charming prospect, especially for
+its atmosphere and color. The hard woods, with dark pines everywhere
+among them to set them off, were just coming into leaf, with all
+those numberless, nameless, delicate shades of green that make
+the glory of the springtime. The open fields were not yet clear
+green,--if they ever would be,--but green and brown intermixed,
+while the cultivated hillsides, especially on Missionary Ridge, were
+of a deep rich reddish-brown. The air was full of beautifying haze,
+and cumulus clouds in the south and west threw motionless shadows
+upon the mountain woods.
+
+Around me, in different parts of the battlefield, were eight or ten
+houses and cabins, the nearest of them, almost at my feet, being the
+Snodgrass house, famous as the headquarters of General Thomas, the
+hero of the fight,--the "Rock of Chickamauga,"--who saved the Union
+army after the field was lost. All was peaceful enough there now,
+with the lines full of the week's washing, which a woman under a
+voluminous sunbonnet was at that moment taking in (in that sun things
+would dry almost before the clothes-pins could be put on them, I
+thought), while a red-gowned child, and a hen with a brood of young
+chickens, kept close about her feet. Her husband, like the occupant
+of the Kelly house, was no doubt one of the government laborers, who
+to-day were burning refuse in the woods,--invisible fires, from each
+of which a thin cloud of blue smoke rose among the trees. The Dyer
+house, in a direction nearly opposite the Snodgrass house, stood
+broadly in the open, with an orchard behind it, and dark savins
+posted here and there over the outlying pasture.
+
+Even at noonday the air was full of music: first an incessant tinkle
+of cow-bells rising from all sides, wondrously sweet and soothing;
+then a continuous, far-away hum, like a sawmill just audible in
+the extreme distance, or the vibration of innumerable wires, miles
+remote, perhaps,--a noise which I knew neither how to describe nor
+how to guess the origin of, the work of seventeen-year locusts, I
+afterward learned; and then, sung to this invariable instrumental
+accompaniment,--this natural pedal point, if I may call it so,--the
+songs of birds.
+
+The singers were of a quiet and unpretentious sort, as befitted
+the hour: a summer tanager; a red-eyed vireo; a tufted titmouse;
+a Maryland yellow-throat, who cried, "What a pity! What a pity!
+What a pity!" but not as if he felt in the least distressed about
+it; a yellow-throated vireo, full-voiced and passionless; a field
+sparrow, pretty far off; a wood pewee; a yellow-billed cuckoo; a
+quail; a Carolina wren, with his "Cherry, cherry, cherry!" and a
+Carolina chickadee,--a modest woodland chorus, interrupted now by the
+jubilant cackling of a hen at the Snodgrass house (if a man's daily
+achievements only gave him equal satisfaction!) and now by the scream
+of a crested flycatcher.
+
+The most interesting member of the choir, though one of the
+poorest of them all as a singer, is not included in the foregoing
+enumeration. While I lay dreaming on the iron floor of the tower,
+enjoying the breeze, the landscape, the music, and, more than all,
+the place, I was suddenly brought wide awake by a hoarse drawling
+note out of the upper branches of a tall oak a little below my level.
+I caught a glimpse of the bird, having run down to a lower story of
+the tower for that purpose. Then he disappeared, but after a while,
+from the same tree, he called again; and again I saw him, but not
+well. Another long absence, and once more, still in the same tree, he
+sang and showed himself: a blue-winged yellow warbler, an exquisite
+bunch of feathers, but with a song of the oddest and meanest,--two
+syllables, the first a mere nothing, and the second a husky drawl,
+in a voice like the blue golden-wing's. Insignificant and almost
+contemptible as it was, a shabby expression of connubial felicity, to
+say the least, I counted myself happy to have heard it, for novelty
+covers a multitude of sins.
+
+The yellow-throated warblers were hardly less interesting than the
+blue-wing, though they threw me into less excitement. For a long
+time I heard them without heeding them. From the day of my arrival
+in Chattanooga I had been surrounded by indigo-birds in numbers
+beyond anything that a New England mind ever dreams of. As a matter
+of course they were singing here on Snodgrass Hill, or so I thought.
+But by and by, as the lazy notes were once more repeated, there came
+over me a sudden sense of difference. "_Was_ that an indigo-bird?" I
+said to myself. "Wasn't it a yellow-throated warbler?" I was sitting
+among the tops of the pine-trees; the birds had been droning almost
+in my very ears, and without a thought I had listened to them as
+indigo-birds. It confirmed what I had written in Florida, that the
+two songs are much alike; but it was a sharp lesson in caution. When
+a prudent man finds himself thus befooled, he begins to wonder how it
+may be with the remainder of that precious body of notions, inherited
+and acquired, to which, in all but his least complacent moods, he has
+been accustomed to give the name of knowledge.
+
+Here was a lesson, also, in the close relation that everywhere
+subsists between the distribution of plants and the distribution of
+animals. These were the only yellow pines noticed in the neighborhood
+of Chattanooga; and in them, and nowhere else, I found two birds
+of the Southern pine-barrens, the red-cockaded woodpecker and the
+yellow-throated warbler.
+
+At the base of the tower, when I finally descended, I paused a moment
+to look at a cluster of graves, eight or ten in all, unmarked save
+by a flagging of small stones; one of those family or neighborhood
+burying-grounds, the occupants of which--happier than most of us, who
+must lie in crowded cities of the dead--repose in decent privacy,
+surrounded by their own, with no ugly staring white slabs to publish
+their immemorable names to every passer-by.
+
+From the hill it was but a few steps to the Snodgrass house, where
+a woman stood in the yard with a young girl, and answered all my
+inquiries with cheerful and easy politeness. None of the Snodgrass
+family now occupied the house, she said, though one of the daughters
+still lived just outside the reservation. The woman had heard
+her describe the terrible scenes on the days of the battle. The
+operating-table stood under this tree, and just there was a trench
+into which the amputated limbs were thrown. Yonder field, now grassy,
+was then planted with corn; and when the Federal troops were driven
+through it, they trod upon their own wounded, who begged piteously
+for water and assistance. A large tree in front of the house was
+famous, the woman said; and certainly it was well hacked. A picture
+of it had been in "The Century." General Thomas was said to have
+rested under it; but an officer who had been there not long before to
+set up a granite monument near the gate told her that General Thomas
+didn't rest under that tree, nor anywhere else. Two things he did,
+past all dispute: he saved the Federal army from destruction and made
+the Snodgrass farmhouse an American shrine.
+
+When our talk was ended I returned to the hill, and thence sauntered
+through the woods--the yellow-throated warblers singing all about me
+in the pine-tops--down to the vicinity of the railroad. Here, finding
+myself in the sun again, I made toward a shop near the station,--shop
+and post-office in one,--where fortunately there were such edibles,
+semi-edibles, as are generally to be looked for in country groceries.
+Meanwhile there came on a Tennessee thunder shower, lightning of
+the closest and rain by the bucketful; and, driven before it, an
+Indiana soldier made his appearance, a wiry little man of fifty or
+more. He had been spending the day on the field, he told me. In one
+hand he carried a battered and rusty cartridge-box, and out of his
+pockets he produced and laid on the counter a collection of bullets.
+His were relics of the right stamp,--found, not purchased,--and not
+without a little shamefacedness I showed him my three minie-balls.
+"Oh, you have got all Federal bullets," he said; and on my asking
+how he could tell that, he placed a Confederate ball beside them, and
+pointed out a difference in shape. He was a cheery, communicative
+body, good-humored but not jocose, excellent company in such an
+hour, though he had small fancy for the lightning, it seemed to me.
+Perhaps he had been under fire so often as to have lost all relish
+for excitement of that kind. He was not at the battle of Chickamauga,
+he said, but at Vicksburg; and he gave me a vivid description of his
+work in the trenches, as well as of the surrender, and the happiness
+of the half-starved defenders of the city, who were at once fed by
+their captors.
+
+All his talk showed a lively sense of the horrors of war. He had
+seen enough of fighting, he confessed; but he couldn't keep away
+from a battlefield, if he came anywhere near one. He had been to the
+national cemetery in Chattanooga, and agreed with me that it was a
+beautiful place; but he had heard that Southern soldiers were lying
+in unmarked graves just outside the wall (a piece of misinformation,
+I have no doubt), and he didn't think it right or decent for the
+government to discriminate in that way. The Confederates were just as
+sincere as the Union men; and anyhow, vengeance ought not to follow a
+man after he was dead. Evidently he had fought against an army and a
+cause, not against individuals.
+
+When the rain was over, or substantially so, I proposed to improve
+an hour of coolness and freshness by paying another visit to
+headquarters; but my Indiana veteran was not to be enticed out of
+shelter. It was still rather wet, he thought. "I'm pretty careful
+of my body," he added, by way of settling the matter. It had been
+through so much, I suppose, that he esteemed it precious.
+
+I set out alone, therefore, and this time went into the Dyer house,
+after drinking from a covered spring across the way. But there was
+little to see inside, and the three or four officers and clerks
+were occupied with maps and charts,--courteous, no doubt, but with
+official and counting-house courtesy; men of whom you could well
+enough ask a definite question, but with whom it would be impossible
+to drift into random talk. There was far better company outside. Even
+while I stood in the back door, on my way thither, there suddenly
+flashed upon me from a treetop by the fence a splendid Baltimore
+oriole. He fairly "gave me a start," and I broke out to the young
+fellow beside me, "Why, there's a Baltimore oriole!" The exclamation
+was thrown away, but I did not mind.
+
+It was the birds' own hour,--late afternoon, with sunshine after
+rain. The orchard and shade-trees were alive with wings, and the air
+was loud. How brilliant a company it was a list of names will show:
+a mocking-bird, a thrasher, several catbirds, a pair of bluebirds,
+a pair of orchard orioles, a summer tanager, a wood pewee, and a
+flicker, with goldfinches and indigo-birds, and behind the orchard a
+Bachman finch. For bright colors and fine voices that was a chorus
+hard to beat. As for the Baltimore oriole, the brightest bird of the
+lot, and the only one of his race that I found in all that country,
+he looked most uncommonly at home--to me--in the John Dyer trees. I
+was never gladder to see him.
+
+A strange fate this that had befallen these Georgia farms, owned
+once by Dyer, Snodgrass, Kelly, Brotherton, and the rest: the
+plainest and most ordinary of country houses, in which lived the
+plainest of country people, with no dream of fame, or of much else,
+perhaps, beyond the day's work and the day's ration. Then comes
+Bragg retreating before Rosecrans, who is manoeuvring him out of
+Tennessee. Here the Confederate leader turns upon his pursuers. Here
+he--or rather, one of his subordinates--wins a great victory, which
+nevertheless, as a Southern historian says, "sealed the fate of the
+Southern Confederacy." Now the farmers are gone, but their names
+remain; and as long as the national government endures, pilgrims from
+far and near will come to walk over the historic acres. "This is the
+Dyer house," they will say, "and this is the Kelly house, and this
+is the Snodgrass house." So Fame catches up a chance favorite, and
+consigns the rest to oblivion.
+
+My first visit to Chickamauga left so pleasant a taste that only two
+days afterward I repeated it. In particular I remembered my midday
+rest among the treetops, and my glimpse of the blue-winged warbler.
+It would be worth a day of my vacation to idle away another noon so
+agreeably, and hear again that ridiculous makeshift of a bird-song.
+Field ornithology has this for one of its distinguishing advantages,
+that every excursion leaves something for another to verify or finish.
+
+This time I went straight to Snodgrass Hill through the woods, and
+was barely on the steps of the tower before I heard the blue-wing.
+As well as I could judge, the voice came from the same oak that the
+bird had occupied two days before. I was in luck, I thought; but the
+miserly fellow vouchsafed not another note, and I could not spend
+the forenoon hours in waiting for him. Two red-cockaded woodpeckers
+were playing among the trees, where, like the blue-wing and the
+yellow-throats, they were doubtless established in summer quarters.
+"Sap-suckers," one of the workmen called them. They were common, he
+said, but likely enough he failed to discriminate between them and
+their two black-and-white relatives. Red-headed woodpeckers were
+_not_ common here (I had seen a single bird, displaying its colors
+from a lofty dead pine), but were abundant and very destructive,
+so my informant declared, on Lookout Mountain. Turkeys were still
+numerous on the mountain, and only the Sunday before one had been
+seen within the park limits.
+
+The Bachman finch was again in tune at his brush-heap near the well,
+and between the music and a shady seat I was in no haste to go
+further. Finally, I experimented to see how near the fellow would let
+me approach, taking time enough not to startle him in the process.
+It was wonderful how he held his ground. The "Rock of Chickamauga"
+himself could not have been more obstinate. I had almost to tread on
+him before he would fly. He was a great singer, a genius, and a poet,
+
+              "with modest looks,
+    And clad in homely russet brown,"
+
+and withal a lover of the sun,--a bird never to be forgotten. I wish
+I knew how to praise him.
+
+To-day, as on my previous visit, I remarked a surprising scarcity of
+migrants. With the exception of black-poll warblers, I am not certain
+that I saw any, though I went nowhere else without finding them in
+good variety. Had my imagination been equal to such a stretch, I
+might have suspected that Northern birds did not feel at home on the
+scene of a great Southern victory. Here and there a nuthatch called,
+and again I seemed to perceive a decided strangeness in the voice.
+From the tip of a fruit-tree in the Kelly yard a thrasher or a mocker
+was singing like one possessed. It was impossible to be sure which it
+was, and the uncertainty pleased me so much, as a testimony to the
+thrasher's musical powers, that I would not go round the house in the
+sun to get a nearer observation. Instead, I went down to look at the
+monuments of the regulars, with their "men cut in a rock." Thence I
+returned to Snodgrass Hill for my noonday rest, stopping once more
+at the well, of course, and reading again some of the placards, the
+number of which just here bore impressive witness to the fierceness
+of the battle at this point. One inscription I took pains to copy:--
+
+    [Pointing hand sign] GEN. J. B. HOOD WAS WOUNDED 11.10 A. M.
+    20 SEPT. '63 IN EDGE OF TIMBER ON COVE ROAD 1/2 MILE EAST OF
+    SOUTH, LOOSING HIS LEG.
+
+It was exactly eleven o'clock as I went up the hill toward the
+tower, and the workmen were already taking down their dinner-pails.
+Standard time, so called, is an unquestioned convenience, but the
+stomach of a day-laborer has little respect for convention, and is
+not to be appeased by a setting back of the clock. For my own part,
+I was not hungry,--in that respect, as in some others, I might have
+envied the day-laborers,--but as men of a certain amusing sort are
+said to turn up their trousers in New York when it rains in London,
+so I felt it patriotic to nibble at my luncheon as best I could, now
+that the clocks were striking twelve in Boston.
+
+The hour (but it was two hours) calls for little description. The
+breeze was delicious, and the hazy landscape beautiful. The cow-bells
+and the locusts filled the air with music, the birds kept me company,
+and for half an hour or more I had human society that was even more
+agreeable. When the workmen had eaten their dinner at the foot of the
+tower, four of them climbed the stairs, and my field-glass proved so
+pleasing a novelty that they stayed till their time was up, to the
+very last minute. One after another took the glass, and no sooner
+had it gone the rounds once than it started again; for meanwhile
+every man had thought of something else that he wanted to look at.
+They were above concealing their delight, or affecting any previous
+acquaintance with such a toy, and probably I never before gave so
+much pleasure by so easy a means. I believe I was as happy as if the
+blue-wing had sung a full hour. They were rough-looking men, perhaps,
+at least they were coarsely dressed, but none of them spoke a rude
+word; and when the last moment came, one of them, in the simplest
+and gentlest manner, asked me to accept three relics (bullets) which
+he had picked up in the last day or two on the hill. It was no great
+thing, to be sure, but it was better: it was one of those little
+acts which, from their perfect and unexpected grace, can never be
+forgotten.
+
+A jaunt through the woods past the Kelly house, after luncheon,
+brought me to a superfine, spick-and-span new road,--like the new
+government "boulevard" on Missionary Ridge, of which it may be a
+continuation,--following which I came to the Brotherton house,
+another war-time landmark, weather-beaten and fast going to ruin.
+In the woods--cleared of underbrush, and with little herbage--were
+scattered ground flowers: houstonia, yellow and violet oxalis, phlox,
+cranesbill, bird-foot violets, rue anemones, and spring beauties. I
+remarked especially a bit of bright gromwell, such as I had found
+first at Orchard Knob, and a single tuft of white American cowslip
+(_Dodecatheon_), the only specimen I had ever seen growing wild. The
+flower that pleased me most, however, was the blood-red catchfly,
+which I had seen first on Missionary Ridge. Nothing could have been
+more appropriate here on the bloody field of Chickamauga. Appealing
+to fancy instead of to fact, it nevertheless spoke of the battle
+almost as plainly as the hundreds of decapitated trees, here one and
+there one, which even the most careless observer could not fail to
+notice.
+
+From the Brotherton house to the post-office was a sunny stretch, but
+under the protection of my umbrella I compassed it; and then, passing
+the Widow Glenn's (Rosecrans's headquarters), on the road to Crawfish
+Springs, I came to a diminutive body of water,--a sink-hole,--which
+I knew at once could be nothing but Bloody Pond. At the time of the
+fight it contained the only water to be had for a long distance.
+It was fiercely contended for, therefore, and men and horses drank
+from it greedily, while other men and horses lay dead in it, having
+dropped while drinking. Now a fence runs through it, leaving an outer
+segment of it open to the road for the convenience of passing teams;
+and when I came in sight of the spot, two boys were fishing round
+the further edge. Not far beyond was an unfinished granite tower, on
+which no one was at work, though a derrick still protruded from the
+top. It offered the best of shade,--the shadow of a great rock,--in
+the comfort of which I sat awhile, thinking of the past, and watching
+the peaceful labors of two or three men who were cultivating a
+broad ploughed field directly before me, crossing and recrossing
+it in the sun. Then I took the road again; but by this time I had
+relinquished all thought of walking to Crawfish Springs, and so did
+nothing but idle along. Once, I remember, I turned aside to explore
+a lane running up to a hillside cattle pasture, stopping by the way
+to admire the activities--and they _were_ activities--of a set of
+big scavenger beetles. Next, I tried for half a mile a fine new road
+leading across the park to the left, with thick, uncleared woods on
+one side; and then I went back to Bloody Pond.
+
+The place was now deserted, and I took a seat under a tree opposite.
+Prodigious bullfrogs, big enough to have been growing ever since the
+war, lay here and there upon the water; now calling in the lustiest
+bass, now falling silent again after one comical expiring gulp. It
+was getting toward the cool of the afternoon. Already the birds felt
+it. A wood thrush's voice rang out at intervals from somewhere beyond
+the ploughed land, and a field sparrow chanted nearer by. At the same
+time my eye was upon a pair of kingbirds,--wayfarers hereabout, to
+judge from their behavior; a crested flycatcher stood guard at the
+top of a lofty dead tree, and a rough-winged swallow alighted on
+the margin of the pool, and began bathing with great enjoyment. It
+made me comfortable to look at him. By and by two young fellows with
+fishing-poles came down the railroad.
+
+"Why is this called Bloody Pond?" I asked.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, there were a lot of soldiers killed here in the war, and the
+pond got bloody."
+
+The granite tower in the shadow of which I had rested awhile ago was
+General Wilder's monument, they said. His headquarters were there.
+Then they passed on down the track out of sight, and all was silent
+once more, till a chickadee gave out his sweet and quiet song just
+behind me, and a second swallow dropped upon the water's edge. The
+pond was of the smallest and meanest,--muddy shore, muddy bottom, and
+muddy water; but men fought and died for it in those awful September
+days of heat and dust and thirst. There was no better place on the
+field, perhaps, in which to realize the horrors of the battle, and I
+was glad to have the chickadee's voice the last sound in my ears as I
+turned away.
+
+
+
+
+ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL CEMETERY.
+
+
+The street cars that run through the open valley country from
+Chattanooga to Missionary Ridge, pass between two places of peculiar
+interest to Northern visitors,--Orchard Knob on the left, and the
+national cemetery on the right. Of these, the Knob remains in all
+the desolation of war-time; unfenced, and without so much as a
+tablet to inform the stranger where he is and what was done here; a
+low, round-topped hill, dry, stony, thin-soiled, with out-cropping
+ledges and a sprinkling of stunted cedars and pines. Some remains of
+rifle-pits are its only monument, unless we reckon as such a cedar
+rather larger than its fellows, which must have been of some size
+thirty years ago, and now bears the marks of abundant hard usage.
+
+The hill was taken by the Federal troops on the 23d of November,
+1863, by way of "overture to the battle of Chattanooga," Grant,
+Thomas, Hooker, Granger, Howard, and others overlooking the
+engagement from the ramparts of Fort Wood. The next day, as all
+the world knows, Hooker's men carried Lookout Mountain, while the
+multitude below, hearing the commotion, wondered what could be going
+on above them, till suddenly the clouds lifted, and behold, the
+Confederates were in full flight. Then, says an eye-witness, there
+"went up a mighty cheer from the thirty thousand in the valley,
+that was heard above the battle by their comrades on the mountain."
+On the day following, for events followed each other fast in that
+spectacular campaign, Grant and Thomas had established themselves on
+Orchard Knob, and late in the afternoon the Union army, exceeding its
+orders, stormed Missionary Ridge, put the army of Bragg to sudden
+rout, and completed one of the really decisive victories of the war.
+
+For a man who wishes to feel the memory of that stirring time there
+is no better place than Orchard Knob, where Grant stood and anxiously
+watched the course of the battle, a battle of which he declared that
+it was won "under the most trying circumstances presented during
+the war." For my own part, I can see the man himself as I read the
+words of one who was there with him. The stormers of Missionary
+Ridge, as I have said, after making the demonstration they had been
+ordered to make, kept on up the slope, thinking "the time had come
+to finish the battle of Chickamauga." "As soon as this movement was
+seen from Orchard Knob," writes General Fullerton, "Grant turned
+quickly to Thomas, who stood by his side, and I heard him say
+angrily, 'Thomas, who ordered those men up the ridge?' Thomas replied
+in his usual slow, quiet manner, 'I don't know; I did not.' Then,
+addressing General Gordon Granger, he said, 'Did you order them up,
+Granger?' 'No,' said Granger; 'they started up without orders. When
+those fellows get started all hell can't stop them.'" In the heat of
+battle a soldier may be pardoned, I suppose, if his speech smells
+of sulphur; and after the event an army is hardly to be censured
+for beating the enemy a day ahead of time. I speak as a civilian.
+Military men, no doubt, find insubordination, even on the right side,
+a less pardonable offense; a fact which may explain why General
+Grant, in his history of the battle, written many years afterward,
+makes no mention of this its most dramatic incident, so that the
+reader of his narrative would never divine but that everything had
+been done according to the plans and orders of the general in command.
+
+Orders or no orders, the fight was won. That was more than thirty
+years ago. It was now a pleasant May afternoon, the afternoon of
+May-day itself. The date, indeed, was the immediate occasion of
+my presence. I had started from Chattanooga with the intention of
+going once more to Missionary Ridge, which just now offered peculiar
+attractions to a stranger of ornithological proclivities. But the car
+was full of laughing, smartly dressed colored people; they were bound
+for the same place, it appeared, on their annual picnic; and, being
+in a quiet mood, I took the hint and dropped out by the way.
+
+There was much to feel but little to see at Orchard Knob; and yet
+I recall two plants that I found there for the first time; a low
+gromwell (_Lithospermum canescens_), with clustered bright yellow
+flowers, and an odd and homely greenish milkweed (_Asclepias
+obovata_). The yarrow-leaved ragwort was there also, and the tall
+blue baptisia; but as well as I can recollect, not one dainty and
+modest nosegay-blossom; not even the houstonia, which seemed to grow
+everywhere, though after a strangely sparse and depauperate fashion.
+As I said to begin with, the Knob is a desolate place. It made me
+think of the Scriptural phrase about "the besom of destruction." I
+can imagine that mourners of the "Lost Cause," if such there still
+be, might see upon it the signs of a place accursed.
+
+Far otherwise is it with the national cemetery. That is a spot
+of which the nation takes care. Here are shaven lawns, which,
+nevertheless, you are permitted to walk over; and shrubbery and
+trees, both in grateful profusion, but not planted so thickly as to
+make the inclosure either a wood or a garden; and where the ledge
+crops out, it is pleasingly and naturally draped with vines of the
+Virginia creeper. One thing I noticed upon the instant; there were
+no English sparrows inside the wall. The city is overrun with them
+beyond anything I have seen elsewhere; within two hundred feet of
+the cemetery gate, as I passed out, there were at least two hundred
+sparrows; but inside, on three visits, I saw not one! How this
+exemption had been brought about, I did not learn; but it makes of
+the cemetery a sort of heavenly place. I felt the silence as the
+sweetest of music (it was a Sunday afternoon), and thought instantly
+of Comus and his "prisoned soul" lapped in Elysium. If I knew whom to
+thank, I would name him.
+
+A mocking-bird, aloft upon the topmost twig of a tall willow near the
+entrance, was pouring forth a characteristic medley, in the midst
+of which he suddenly called _wick-a-wick_, _wick-a-wick_, in the
+flicker's very happiest style. "So flickers must now and then come to
+Chattanooga," I said to myself, for up to that time I had seen none.
+It was a pleasure to hear this great songster of the South singing
+above these thousands of Northern graves. It seemed _right_; for time
+and the event will prove, if, indeed, they have not proved already,
+that the South, even more than the North, has reason to be glad of
+the victory which these deaths went far to win.
+
+A tablet on one of the cannons which stand upright on the highest
+knoll informs visitors that the cemetery was "established" in 1863.
+The number of burials is given as 12,876, of which nearly five
+thousand are of bodies unidentified. A great proportion of the
+stones bear nothing but a number. On others is a name, or part of a
+name, with the name of the State underneath. One I noticed that was
+inscribed:--
+
+        JOHN
+
+        N. Y.
+
+An attendant of whom I inquired if any New England men were
+here, answered that there were a few members of the Thirty-third
+Massachusetts. I hope the New Englanders resident in Chattanooga do
+not forget them on Memorial Day.
+
+Twice in the year, at least, the place has many Northern visitors.
+They arrive on wings, mostly by night, and such of them as came under
+my eye acted as if they appreciated the quiet of the inclosure,
+a quiet which their own presence made but the more appreciable.
+Scattered over the lawns were silent groups of white-throated
+sparrows,--on their way to New Hampshire, perhaps, or it might be to
+upper Michigan; and not far from the entrance, and almost directly
+under the mocking-bird, were two or three white-crowned sparrows,
+the only ones found in Tennessee. On an earlier visit (April 29)
+I saw here my only Tennessee robins--five birds; and most welcome
+they were. Months afterward, a resident of Missionary Ridge wrote
+to me that a pair had nested in the cemetery that year, though to
+his great regret he did not know of it till too late. He had never
+seen a robin's nest, he added, and was acquainted with the bird only
+as a migrant. Such are some of the deprivations of life in eastern
+Tennessee. May and June without robins or song sparrows!
+
+On the last of my three visits, a small flock of black-poll warblers
+were in the trees, and two of them gave me a pleasant little
+surprise by dropping to the ground, and feeding for a long time
+upon the lawn. That was something new for black-polls, so far as my
+observation had gone, and an encouraging thing to look at: another
+sign, where all signs are welcome, that the life of birds is less
+strictly instinctive--less a matter of inherited habit, and more
+a matter of personal intelligence--than has commonly been assumed.
+In general, no doubt, like human beings, they do what their fathers
+did, what they themselves have done heretofore. So much is to be
+expected, since their faculties and desires remain the same, and they
+have the same world to live in; but when exceptional circumstances
+arise, their conduct becomes exceptional. In other words, they do
+as a few of the quicker-witted among men do--suit their conduct to
+altered conditions. A month ago I should have said, after years of
+acquaintance, that no birds could be more strictly arboreal than
+golden-crowned kinglets. But recently, I happened upon a little group
+of them that for a week or more fed persistently on the ground in
+a certain piece of wood. Then and there, for some reason, food was
+plentiful on the snow and among the dead leaves; and the kinglets had
+no scruples about following where duty called them.
+
+At the same time a friend of mine, a young farmer, was at his
+winter's work in the woods; and being alone, and a lover of birds,
+he had taken a fancy to experiment with a few chickadees, to see
+how tame a little encouragement would make them. A flock of five
+came about him day after day, at luncheon-time, and by dint of
+sitting motionless he soon had two of them on terms of something like
+intimacy; so that they would alight on his hand and help themselves
+to a feast. He was not long in discovering, and reporting to me, that
+they carried much of the food to the trees round about, and packed it
+into crannies of the bark.
+
+"Are you sure of that?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, yes," he answered; "I saw them do it, and then I went to the
+trees and found the crumbs."
+
+Did any one ever suspect the chickadee of such providence? If so, I
+never heard of it; and it is more likely, I think, that the birds had
+never before done anything of the sort; but now, finding suddenly a
+supply far in excess of the demand (one day they ate and carried away
+half a doughnut), they had sense enough to improve the opportunity.
+What they had done, or had not done, in times past, was nothing to
+the point, since they were creatures not of memory alone, but of
+intelligence and a measure of reason.
+
+Beside the unmistakable migrants,--white-throats, white-crowns,
+and black-polls,--there were numbers of more southern birds in the
+national cemetery. Among them I noticed a yellow-billed cuckoo, crow
+blackbirds, orchard orioles, summer tanagers, catbirds, a thrasher,
+a bluebird, wood pewees, chippers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, yellow
+warblers, wood thrushes, and chats. All these looked sufficiently at
+home except the chats; and it helps to mark the exceeding abundance
+of these last in the Chattanooga region that they should show
+themselves without reserve in a spot so frequented and so wanting in
+close cover. One of the orioles sang in the manner of a fox sparrow,
+while one that sang daily under my window, on Cameron Hill, never
+once suggested that bird, but often the purple finch. The two facts
+offer a good idea of this fine songster's quality and versatility.
+The organ tones of the yellow-throated vireo and the minor whistle of
+the wood pewee were sweetly in harmony with the spirit of the place,
+a spirit hard fully and exactly to express, a mingling of regret
+and exultation. What mattered it that all these men had perished,
+as it seemed, before their time?--that so many of them were lying
+in nameless graves? We shall all die; few of us so worthily; and
+when we are gone, of what use will be a name upon a stone, a name
+which, after a few years at the most, no passer-by will be concerned
+to read? Happy is he who dies to some purpose. It would have been
+good, I thought, to see over the cemetery gate the brave old Latin
+sentence, _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_.
+
+The human visitors, of whom one day there might have been a hundred,
+were largely people of color. All were quiet and orderly, in couples
+and family groups. Most of them, I remarked, went to look at the
+only striking monument in the grounds, a locomotive and tender (the
+"General") on a pedestal of marble--"Ohio's Tribute to the Andrews
+Raiders, 1862." On three faces of the pedestal are lists of the
+"exchanged," the "executed," and the "escaped."
+
+One thing, one only, grated upon my feelings. In a corner of
+the inclosure is the Superintendent's house, with a stable and
+out-buildings; and at the gate the visitor is suddenly struck in
+the face with this notice in flaring capitals: KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS
+YOU! That is brutality beyond excuse. But perhaps it answers its
+purpose. For my own part, I got out of the neighborhood as quickly as
+possible. I liked better the society of the graves; at such a price a
+dead soldier was better than a live superintendent; and to take the
+unpleasant taste out of my mouth I stopped to read again a stanza on
+one of the metal tablets set at intervals along the driveway:--
+
+    "On Fame's eternal camping ground
+        Their silent tents are spread,
+    And Glory guards, with solemn round,
+        The bivouac of the dead."
+
+Far be the day when these Southern fields of Northern graves shall
+fall into forgetfulness and neglect.
+
+
+
+
+AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER.
+
+
+To an idler desirous of seeing wild life on easy terms Chattanooga
+offers this advantage, that electric cars take him quickly out of the
+city in different directions, and drop him in the woods. In this way,
+on an afternoon too sultry for extended travel on foot, I visited a
+wooded hillside on the further bank of the Tennessee, a few miles
+above the town.
+
+The car was still turning street corner after street corner, making
+its zigzag course toward the bridge, when I noticed a rustic old
+gentleman at my side looking intently at the floor. Apparently he
+suspected something amiss. He was unused to the ways of electricity,
+I thought,--a verdancy by no means inexcusable. But as he leaned
+farther forward, and looked and listened with more and more
+absorption, the matter--not his ignorance, but his simple-hearted
+betrayal of it--began to seem amusing. For myself, to be sure, I knew
+nothing about electricity, but I had wit enough to sit still and
+let the car run; a degree of sophistication which passes pretty well
+as a substitute for wisdom in a world where men are distinguished
+from children not so much by more knowledge as by less curiosity.
+In the present instance, however, as the event proved, the dunce's
+cap belonged on the other head. My countryman's stare was less
+verdant than his next neighbor's smile; for in a few minutes the
+conductor was taking up a trap door at our feet, to get at the works,
+some part of which had fallen out of gear, though they were still
+running. Twice the car was stopped for a better examination into the
+difficulty, and at last a new wedge, or something else, was inserted,
+and we proceeded on our way, while the motorman who had done the job
+busied himself with removing from his coat, as best he could, the oil
+with which it had become besmeared in the course of the operation.
+It was rather hard, he thought, to have to spoil his clothes in
+repair-shop work of that kind, especially as he was paid nothing for
+it, and had to find himself. As for my rustic-looking seatmate, he
+was an old hand at the business, it appeared, and his practiced ear
+had detected a jar in the machinery.
+
+We left the car in company, he and I, at the end of the route,
+and pretty soon it transpired that he was an old Union soldier,
+of Massachusetts parentage, but born in Canada and a member of a
+Michigan regiment. Just how these autobiographical details came to
+be mentioned I fail now to remember, but in that country, where so
+much history had been made, it was hard to keep the past out of
+one's conversation. He had been in Sheridan's force when it stormed
+Missionary Ridge. As they went up the heights, he said, they were
+between two fires; as much in danger from Federal bullets as from
+Confederate; "but Sheridan kept right on." An old woman who lived on
+the Ridge told him that she asked General Bragg if the Yankees would
+take the hill. "Take the hill!" said Bragg; "they could as well fly."
+Just then she saw the blue-coats coming, and pointed them out to the
+General. He looked at them, put spurs to his horse, "and," added the
+woman, "I ain't seen him since." All of which, for aught I know, may
+be true.
+
+The talkative veteran was now on his way to find an old friend of his
+who lived somewhere around here, he didn't know just where; and as
+my course lay in the same general direction we went across lots and
+up the hill together, he rehearsing the past, and I gladly putting
+myself to school. In my time history was studied from text-books;
+but the lecture system is better. By and by we approached a solitary
+cabin, on the dilapidated piazza of which sat the very man for whom
+my companion was looking. "Very sick to-day," he said, in response
+to a greeting. His appearance harmonized with his words,--and with
+the piazza; and his manners were pitched on the same key; so that
+it was in a downright surly tone that he pointed out a gate through
+which I could make an exit toward the woods on the other side of
+the house. I had asked the way, and was glad to take it. Not that
+I was greatly offended. A sick man on one of his bad days has some
+excuse for a little impatience; a far better excuse than I should
+have for alluding to the matter at this late date, if I did not
+improve the occasion to add that this was the only bit of anything
+like incivility that I have ever received at the South, where I have
+certainly not been slow to ask questions of all sorts of people.
+
+A little jaunt along a foot-path brought me unexpectedly to a second
+cabin, uninhabited. It was built of boards, not logs, with the
+usual outside chimney at one end, a broad veranda, a door, and no
+window; a house to fill a social economist with admiration at the
+low terms to which civilized life can be reduced. Thoreau himself
+was outdone, though the veranda, it must be confessed, seemed a
+dispensable bit of fashionable conformity, with forest trees on all
+sides crowding the roof. Half the floor had fallen away; yet the
+house could not have been long unoccupied, for at one end the wall
+was hung with newspapers, among which was a Boston "weekly" less than
+two years old. From it looked the portrait of a New England college
+president, and at the head of the page stood a list of "eminent
+contributors." I ran the names over, but somehow, in these wild and
+natural surroundings, they did not seem so very impressive. I think
+it has been said before, perhaps by Thoreau, that most of what we
+call literature wears an artificial and unimportant look when taken
+out-of-doors.
+
+Near this cabin I struck a road ("a sort of road," according to
+my notebook) through the woods, following which I shortly came to
+a grave-yard, or rather to a bunch of graves, for there was no
+inclosure, nor even a clearing. One grave--or it may have been a
+tiny family lot--was surrounded by a curb of stone. The others, with
+a single exception, were marked only by low mounds of gravel. The
+one exception was a grave with a head-board,--the grave of "Little
+Theodosia," a year and some months old. "Theodosia!"--even into a
+windowless cabin a baby brings romance. Under the name and the two
+dates was this legend: "She is happy." Of ten inscriptions on marble
+monuments nine will be found less simply appropriate.
+
+By a circuitous course the wood road brought me to a larger cabin, in
+a larger clearing. Here a pleasant-spoken, neighborly woman, with a
+child in her arms, called off her dog, and pointed out a path beyond
+a pair of bars. That path, she said, would carry me to the river,--to
+the water's edge. And so it did, down a pleasant wooded hillside,
+which an unwonted profusion of bushes and ferns made exceptionally
+attractive. At the end of the path a lordly elm and a lordlier
+buttonwood, both of them loaded with lusty vines (besides clusters of
+mistletoe, I believe), gave me shelter from the sun while I sat and
+gazed at the strong eager current of the Tennessee hurrying onward
+without a ripple. As my foot touched the beach a duck--I could not
+tell of what kind--sprang out of the water and went dashing off.
+She had learned her lesson. In the duck's primer one of the first
+questions is: "What is a man?" and the answer follows: "Man is a
+gun-bearing animal." In the treetops a golden warbler and a redstart
+were singing. Then I heard a puffing of steam, and by and by a tug
+came round a turn, pushing laboriously up stream a loaded barge. It
+was the Ocoee of Chattanooga, and the two or three mariners on board
+seemed to find the sight of a stranger in that unlooked-for place a
+welcome break in the monotony of their inland voyage.
+
+On the bushy, ferny slope, as I returned, two Kentucky warblers were
+singing in opposite directions. So I called them, at all events. But
+they were too far away to be gone after, as my mood then was, and
+soon I began to wonder whether I might not be mistaken. Possibly they
+were Carolina wrens, whose _cherry_ is not altogether unlike the
+Kentucky's _klurwee_. The question will perhaps seem unreasonable to
+readers long familiar with the two birds; but let them put themselves
+in a stranger's place, remembering that this was only his third or
+fourth hearing of the Kentucky's music. As the doubt grew on me (and
+nothing grows faster than doubt) I sat down and listened. Yes, they
+were Kentuckies; but anon the uncertainty came back, and I kept my
+seat. Then a sound of humming-bird wings interrupted my cogitations,
+and in another moment the bird was before me, sipping at a scarlet
+catchfly,--battlefield pink. I caught the flash of his throat. It
+was as red as the flower--beyond which there is nothing to be said.
+Then he vanished (rather than went away), as humming-birds do; but in
+ten minutes he was there again. I was glad to see him. Birds of his
+kind were rare about Chattanooga, though afterwards, in the forests
+of Walden's Ridge, they became as common as I ever saw them anywhere.
+The two invisible Kentuckies wore out my patience, but as I came to
+the bars another sang near me. Him, by good luck, I saw in the act,
+and for the time, at least, my doubts were quieted.
+
+In the woods and thickets, as I sauntered along, I heard blue
+golden-winged warblers, two more Kentuckies, a blue-gray gnatcatcher,
+a Bachman's finch, a wood pewee, a quail, and the inevitable chats,
+indigo-birds, prairie warblers, and white-eyed vireos. Then, as
+I drew near the car track, I descended again to the river-bank
+and walked in the shade of lofty buttonwoods, willows, and white
+maples, with mistletoe perched in the upper branches, and poison ivy
+climbing far up the trunks; the whole standing in great contrast to
+the comparatively stunted growth, mainly oak,--and largely black
+jack,--on the dry soil of the hillside. Across the river were broad,
+level fields, brown with cultivation, in which men were at work, and
+from the same direction came loud rasping cries of batrachians of
+some kind. For aught that my ear could detect, they might be common
+toads uttering their mysterious, discordant midsummer screams in
+full chorus. Here were more indigo-birds, with red-eyes, white-eyes,
+lisping black-poll warblers, redstarts, a yellow-billed cuckoo
+(furtive as ever, like a bird with an evil conscience), catbirds, a
+thrasher, a veery in song (a luxury in these parts), orchard orioles,
+goldfinches, and chippers. A bluebird was gathering straws, and a
+carrion crow, one of two seen in Tennessee, was soaring high over the
+river.
+
+The "pavilion," at the terminus of the car route, was deserted, and I
+sat on the piazza enjoying the really beautiful prospect--the river,
+the woods, and the cultivated fields. The land hereabout was all in
+the market. In truth, the selling of building lots seemed to be one
+of the principal industries of Chattanooga; and I was not surprised
+to find the good-humored young fellow behind the counter--with its
+usual appetizing display of cigars, drinks, and confectionery--full
+of the glories and imminent possibilities of this particular
+"suburb." He believed in the river. Folks would come this way, where
+it was high and cool. (On that particular afternoon, to be sure, it
+was neither very high nor very cool, but of course the weather isn't
+always good anywhere.) "Lookout Mountain ain't what it used to be,"
+he said, in a burst of confidence. "It's done seen its best days.
+Yes, sir, it's done seen its best days." It was not for a stranger,
+with no investment in view, to take sides in such competitions and
+rivalries. I believed in the river and the mountain both, and hoped
+that both would survive their present exploitation. I liked his talk
+better when it turned upon himself. Nothing is more exhilarating than
+an honest bit of personal brag. He was never sick, he told me. He
+knew nothing of aches or pains. He could do anything without getting
+tired. Save for his slavery to the counter, he seemed almost as well
+off as the birds.
+
+
+
+
+A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS.
+
+
+The electric car left me near the Tennessee,--at "Riverview,"--and
+thence I walked into the woods, meaning to make a circuit among the
+hills, and at my convenience board an inward-bound car somewhere
+between that point and the city. The weather was of the kind that
+birds love: warm and still, after heavy showers, with the sun now
+and then breaking through the clouds. The country was a suburb in
+its first estate: that is to say, a land company had laid out miles
+of streets, but as yet there were no houses, and the woods remained
+unharmed. That was a very comfortable stage of the business to a man
+on my errand. The roads gave the visitor convenience of access,--a
+ready means of moving about with his eyes in the air,--and at the
+same time, by making the place more open, they made it more birdy;
+for birds, even the greater part of wood birds, like the borders of a
+forest better than its darker recesses.
+
+One thing I soon perceived: the rain had left the roads in a
+condition of unspeakable adhesiveness. The red clay balled up my
+heels as if it had been moist snow, till I pitched forward as I
+walked. I fancied that I understood pretty well the sensations of
+a young lady in high-heeled shoes. One moment, too, my feet were
+weighted with lead; then the mass fell off in a sudden big lump, and
+my next few steps were on air. A graceful, steady, self-possessed
+gait was out of the question. As for abstaining from all appearance
+of evil--well, as another and more comfortable Scripture says, "There
+is a time for everything." However, I was not disposed to complain.
+We read much about the tribulations of Northern soldiers on the march
+in Virginia,--of entire armies mud-bound and helpless. Henceforth I
+shall have some better idea of what such statements mean. In that
+part of the world, I am assured, rubber overshoes have to be tied
+on the feet with strings. Mother Earth does not believe in such
+effeminacies, and takes it upon herself to pull them off.
+
+The seventeen-year locusts made the air ring. Heard at the right
+distance, the sound has a curious resemblance, noticed again and
+again, to the far-away, barely audible buzz of an electric car. For
+a week the air of the valley woods had been full of it. I wondered
+over it for a day or two, with no suspicion of its origin. Then, as I
+waited for a car at the base of Missionary Ridge, a colored man who
+stood beside me on the platform gave me, without meaning it, a lesson
+in natural history.
+
+"The locuses are goin' it, this mornin', ain't they?" he said.
+
+"The locuses?" I answered, in a tone of inquiry.
+
+"Yes. Don't you hear 'em?"
+
+He meant my mysterious universal hum, it appeared. But even then I
+did not know that he spoke of the big, red-eyed cicada that I had
+picked off a fence a day or two before and looked at for a moment
+with ignorant curiosity. And even when, by dint of using my own eyes,
+I learned so much, I was still unaware that this cicada was the
+famous seventeen-year locust. Here in the north woods I more than
+once passed near a swarm of the insects. At short range the noise
+loses its musical character; so that it would be easy to hear it
+without divining any connection between it and the grand pervasive
+hum of the universal chorus.
+
+One of the first birds at which I stopped to look was a Kentucky
+warbler, walking about the ground and pausing now and then to sing;
+one of six or seven seen and heard during the forenoon. Few birds are
+more freely and easily observed. I mean in open woodlands with clear
+margins, such as I was now exploring. In a mountain forest, where
+they haunt brookside jungles of laurel and rhododendron, the story is
+different, as a matter of course. How it happens that the same bird
+is equally at home in surroundings so dissimilar is a question I make
+no attempt to answer.
+
+All the hill woods, mostly oak, were dry and stony; but after a
+while I came unexpectedly to a valley, a place of another sort;
+not moist, to be sure, but looking as if it had been moist at some
+time or other; and with pleasant grassy openings and another set
+of trees--red maples, persimmons, and sweet-gums. Here was a fine
+bunch of birds, including many migrants, and I went softly hither
+and thither, scanning the branches of one tree after another, as a
+note or the stirring of a leaf attracted me, ready every minute for
+the sight of something new and wonderful. I found nothing,--nothing
+new and wonderful, I mean,--but I had all the exhilaration of
+the chase. In the company, nearly all of them in song, were wood
+thrushes, a silent palm warbler (red-poll), a magnolia warbler, three
+Canadian flycatchers, many black-polls, one or two redstarts, a
+chestnut-sided warbler, a black-and-white creeper, a field sparrow,
+a yellow-throated vireo, a wood pewee, an Acadian flycatcher, and
+two or more yellow-billed cuckoos. The red-poll was of a very pale
+complexion (but I assert nothing as to its exact identity, specific
+or sub-specific), and seemed to me unreasonably late. It was the 11th
+of May, and birds of its kind had been passing through Massachusetts
+by the middle of April. Chestnut-sides were scarce enough to be
+interesting, and it was good to hear this lover of berry fields and
+the gray birch singing from a sweet-gum.
+
+When at last I turned away from the grassy glade,--where cattle were
+pasturing, as I now remember,--and went back among the dry hills
+(through the powdery soil of which the almost daily showers seemed
+to run as through a sieve), I presently caught sight of a scarlet
+tanager,--a beauty, and, except on the mountains, a rarity. Then I
+stopped--on a street corner!--to admire the singing of a Bachman's
+finch, wishing also to compare his plumage with that of a bird seen
+and greatly enjoyed a few days before at Chickamauga. To judge from
+my limited observation, this is one of the sparrows--the song sparrow
+being another--which exhibit a strange diversity of individual
+coloration; as if the fashion were not yet fully set, or perhaps
+were being outgrown. The bird here in the north woods, so far as
+color and markings went, might well enough have been of a different
+species from that of the Chickamauga singer, yet there was no reason
+to suspect the presence of more than one variety of _PeucÊa_, so far
+as I knew, and the music of the two birds was precisely the same. A
+wonderfully sweet and various tune it is; with sometimes a highly
+ventriloquial effect, as if the different measures or phrases came
+from different points. It opens like the song heard in the Florida
+flat-woods, but is even more varied, both in voice and in musical
+form. So it seemed to me, I mean to say; but hearing the two a year
+apart, I cannot speak without reserve. It is pleasanter--as well as
+safer--to praise both singers than to exalt one to the pulling down
+of the other. In appearance, Bachman's finch is one of the dullest,
+dingiest, least prepossessing members of its great family; but its
+voice and musical genius make it a treasure, especially in this
+comparatively sparrowless country of eastern Tennessee.
+
+I have remarked that I found this bird upon a street corner.
+Unhappily my notes do not enable me to be more specific. It may have
+been at the corner of Court and Tremont Streets, or, possibly, at the
+junction of Tremont and Dartmouth Streets. All these names appear in
+my memoranda. Boston people should have had a hand in this business,
+I said to myself. It was on Federal Street (so much I put down) that
+I saw my only Tennessee rose-breasted grosbeak. He, or rather she,
+was the most interesting bird of the forenoon, and matched the one
+Baltimore oriole seen at Chickamauga. I heard the familiar _click_,
+as of rusty shears, and straightway took chase. For some minutes
+my search was in vain, and once I feared I had been fooled. A bird
+flew out of the right tree, as I thought, but showed yellow, and the
+next moment set up the _clippiticlip_ call of the summer tanager.
+Could that bird have also a note like the rose-breast's? It was not
+impossible, of course, for one does not exhaust the vocabulary of
+a bird in a month's acquaintance; but I could not think it likely,
+thick as tanagers had been about me; and soon the _click_ was
+repeated, and this time I put my eye on its author,--a feminine
+rose-breast. Perhaps it was nothing more than an accident that she
+was my only specimen; but so showy a bird, with so lovely a song and
+so distinctive a signal, could hardly have escaped notice had it been
+in any degree common.
+
+Wood thrushes sang on all sides. They had need to be abundant
+and free-hearted, since they stand in that region for the whole
+thrush family. Blue golden-winged warblers, too, were generously
+distributed, and, as happens to me now and then in Massachusetts,
+I found one with a song so absurdly peculiar that I spent some time
+in making sure of its author. It is to be hoped that this tendency
+to individual variation will persist and increase in the case of
+this species till something more melodious than its present sibilant
+monotony is evolved; till beauty and art are mated, as they ought
+to be. Who would not love to hear the music of all our birds a few
+millions of years hence? What a singer the hermit thrush will be,
+for example, when his tune is equal to his voice! Indigo-birds,
+white-eyed vireos and prairie warblers abounded. As for the chats,
+they saluted me on the right and on the left, till I said, "Chats,
+Chattanooga," and felt almost as if Nature had perpetrated a huge
+fantastic pun on her own account. If I could have had the ear of the
+enterprising owners of this embryo suburb,--a syndicate, I dare say
+they call themselves,--I would have suggested to them to name it
+"Chat City."
+
+I wandered carelessly about, now following a bird over a rounded
+hill (one, I remember, was covered literally from end to end with
+the common brake,--_Pteris_,--which will give the reader an idea of
+its sterility), now keeping to the road. In such a soil flowers were
+naturally scarce; but I noticed houstonia, phlox, hieracium, senecio,
+pentstemon, and specularia. Like the brake, the names are suggestive
+of barrenness. The senecio (ragwort), a species with finely cut
+leaves (_S. millefolium_), was first seen on Missionary Ridge. There,
+as here, it had a strange, misplaced appearance in my eyes, looking
+much like our familiar _S. aureus_, but growing in dry woods!
+
+So the morning passed. The hours were far too brief, and I would
+have stretched them into the afternoon, but that my trunk was packed
+for Walden's Ridge. It was necessary to think of getting back to the
+city, and I took a quicker pace. Two more Kentucky warblers detained
+me for a moment; a quail sprang up from under my feet; and on the
+other side of the way an oven-bird sang--the only one found in the
+valley. Then I came to the car-track; but somehow things wore an
+unexpected look, and a preacher, very black, solemn, and shiny, gave
+me to understand, in answer to a question, that the city lay not
+where I thought, but in an opposite direction. Instead of making a
+circuit I had cut straight across the country (an unusual form of
+bewilderment), and had come to another railway. But no harm was done.
+In that corner of the world all roads lead to Chattanooga.
+
+
+
+
+A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE.
+
+
+I.
+
+Throughout my stay in Chattanooga I looked often and with desire at
+a long, flat-topped, perpendicular-sided, densely wooded mountain,
+beyond the Tennessee River. Its name was Walden's Ridge, I was told;
+the top of it was eighty miles long and ten or twelve miles wide;
+if I wanted a bit of wild country, that was the place for me. Was
+it accessible? I asked. And was there any reasonable way of living
+there? Oh yes; carriages ran every afternoon from the city, and there
+were several small hotels on the mountain. So it happened that I
+went to Walden's Ridge for my last week in Tennessee, and have ever
+since thanked my stars--as New England Christians used to say, in my
+boyhood--for giving me the good wine at the end of the feast.
+
+The wine, it is true, was a little too freely watered. I went up the
+mountain in a rain, and came down again in a rain, and of the seven
+intervening days five were showery. The showers, mostly with thunder
+and lightning, were of the sort that make an umbrella ridiculous,
+and my jaunts, as a rule, took me far from shelter. Yet I had little
+to complain of. Now and then I was put to my trumps, as it were; my
+walk was sometimes grievously abbreviated, and my pace uncomfortably
+hurried, but by one happy accident and another I always escaped a
+drenching. Worse than the water that fell--worse, and not to be
+escaped, even by accident---was that which saturated the atmosphere,
+making every day a dog-day, and the week a seven-day sweat. And
+then, as if to even the account, on the last night of my stay I
+was kept awake for hours shivering with cold; and in the morning,
+after putting on all the clothing I could wear, and breakfasting
+in a snowstorm, I rode down the mountain in a state suggestive of
+approaching congelation. "My feet are frozen, I know they are," said
+the lady who sat beside me in the wagon; but she was mistaken.
+
+This sudden drop in the temperature seemed to be a trial even to the
+natives. As we drove into Chattanooga, it was impossible not to
+smile at the pinched and woebegone appearance of the colored people.
+What had they to do with weather that makes a man hurry? And the next
+morning, when an enterprising, bright-faced white boy ran up to me
+with a "'Times,' sir? Have a 'Times'?" I fear he quite misapprehended
+the more or less quizzical expression which I am sure came into my
+face. I was looking at his black woolen mittens, and thinking how
+well he was mothered. It was the 19th of May; for at least three
+weeks, to my own knowledge, the city had been sweltering under the
+hottest of midsummer heats,--94° in the shade, for example; and now,
+mittens and overcoats!
+
+I should be sorry to exaggerate, or leave a false impression. In
+this day of literary conscientiousness, when writers of fiction
+itself are truth-tellers first, and story-tellers afterwards,--if
+at all,--it behooves mere tourists and naturalists to speak as
+under oath. Be it confessed, then, that the foregoing paragraphs,
+though true in every word, are not to be taken too seriously. If the
+weather, "the dramatic element in scenery," happened not to suit the
+convenience of a naturally selfish man, now ten times more selfish
+than usual--as is the rule--because he was on his annual vacation, it
+does not follow that it was essentially bad. The rains were needed,
+the heat was to have been expected, and the cold, unseasonable and
+exceptional, was not peculiar to Tennessee. As for the snow, it was
+no more than I have seen before now, even in Massachusetts,--a week
+or two earlier in the month; and it lent such a glory to the higher
+Alleghanies, as we passed them on our way homeward, that I might
+cheerfully have lain shivering for _two_ nights in that unplastered
+bedroom, with its window that no man could shut, rather than miss the
+spectacle. Eastern Tennessee, I have no doubt, is a most salubrious
+country; properly recommended by the medical fraternity as a refuge
+for consumptive patients. If to me its meteorological fluctuations
+seemed surprisingly wide and sudden, it was perhaps because I had
+been brought up in the equable climate of New England. It would be
+unfair to judge the world in general by that favored spot.
+
+The road up the mountain--the "new road," as it is called--is a
+notable piece of work, done, I was told, by the county chain-gangs.
+The pleasure of the ascent, which naturally would have been great,
+was badly diminished by the rain, which made it necessary to keep the
+sides of the wagon down; but I was fortunate in my driver. At first
+he seemed a stolid, uncommunicative body, and when we came to the
+river I made sure he could not read. As we drove upon the bridge,
+where straight before his eyes was a sign forbidding any one to drive
+or ride over the bridge at a pace faster than a walk, under a penalty
+of five dollars for each offense, he whipped up his horse and his
+mule (the mule the better horse of the two), and they struck into a
+trot. Halfway across we met another wagon, and its driver too had let
+his horses out. Illiteracy must be pretty common in these parts, I
+said to myself. But whatever my driver's educational deficiencies, it
+did not take long to discover that in his own line he was a master.
+He could hit the ear of his mule with the end of his whip with a
+precision that was almost startling. In fact, it _was_ startling--to
+the mule. For my own part, as often as he drew back his hand and let
+fly the lash, my eye was glued to the mule's right ear in spite of
+myself. Had my own ears been endowed with life and motion, instead
+of fastened to my head like blocks of wood, I think they too would
+have twitched. I wondered how long the man had practiced his art. He
+appeared to be not more than forty-five years old. Perhaps he came of
+a race of drivers, and so began life with some hereditary advantages.
+At all events, he was a specialist, with the specialist's motto,
+"This one thing I do."
+
+We were hardly off the bridge and in the country before I began
+plying him with questions about this and that, especially the wayside
+trees. He answered promptly and succinctly, and turned out to be
+a man who had kept his eyes open, and, better still, knew how to
+say, "No, suh," as well as, "Yes, suh." (There is no mark in the
+dictionaries to indicate the percussive brevity of the vowel sound
+in "suh" as he pronounced it.) The big tupelo he recognized as the
+"black-gum." "But isn't it ever called 'sour-gum'?" "No, suh." He
+knew but one kind of tupelo, as he knew but one kind of "ellum."
+There were many kinds of oaks, some of which he named as we passed
+them. This botanical catechism presently waked up the only other
+passenger in the wagon, a modest girl of ten or twelve years. She
+too, it appeared, had some acquaintance with trees. I had asked the
+driver if there were no long-leaved pines hereabout. "No, suh,"
+he said. "But I think I saw some at Chickamauga the other day,"
+I ventured. (It was the only place I did see them, as well as I
+remember.) "Yes, sir," put in the girl, "there are a good many
+there." "Good for you!" I was ready to say. It was a pretty rare
+schoolgirl who, after visiting a battlefield, could tell what kind of
+pines grow on it. Persimmons? Yes, indeed, the girl had eaten them.
+There was a tree by the fence. Had I never eaten them? She seemed to
+pity me when I said "No," but I fancied she would have preferred to
+see me begin with one a little short of ripe.
+
+As for the birds of Walden's Ridge, the driver said, there were
+partridges, pheasants, and turkeys. He had seen ravens, also, but
+only in winter, he thought, and never in flocks. His brother had
+once shot one. About smaller birds he could not profess to speak.
+By and by he stopped the carriage. "There's a bird now," he said,
+pointing with his whip. "What do you call that?" It was a summer
+tanager, I told him, or summer redbird. Did he know another redbird,
+with black wings and tail? Yes, he had seen it; that was the male,
+and this all-red one was the female. Oh no, I explained; the birds
+were of different species, and the females in both cases were yellow.
+He did not insist,--it was a case of a driver and his fare; but he
+had always been told so, he said, and I do not flatter myself that
+I convinced him to the contrary. It is hard to believe that one man
+can be so much wiser than everybody else. A Massachusetts farmer once
+asked me, I remember, if the night-hawk and the whippoorwill were
+male and female of the same bird. I answered, of course, that they
+were not, and gave, as I thought, abundant reason why such a thing
+could not be possible. But I spoke as a scribe. "Well," remarked the
+farmer, when I had finished my story, "some folks _say_ they be, but
+I guess they _ain't_."
+
+With such converse, then, we beguiled the climb to the "Brow,"--the
+top of the cliffs which rim the summit of the mountain, and give it
+from below a fortified look,--and at last, after an hour's further
+drive through the dripping woods, came to the hotel at which I was to
+put up--or with which I was to put up--during my stay on the Ridge.
+
+I had hardly taken the road, the next morning, impatient to see
+what this little world on a mountain top was like, before I came to
+a lovely brook making its devious course among big boulders with
+much pleasant gurgling, in the shadow of mountain laurel and white
+azalea,--a place highly characteristic of Walden's Ridge, as I was
+afterwards to learn. Just now, naturally, there was no stopping so
+near home, though a Kentucky warbler, with his cool, liquid song, did
+his best to beguile me; and I kept on my way, past a few houses, a
+tiny box of a post-office, a rude church, and a few more houses, till
+just beyond the last one the road dropped into the forest again, as
+if for good. And there, all at once I seemed to be in New Hampshire.
+The land fell away sharply, and at one particular point, through a
+vista, the forest could be seen sloping down on either side to the
+gap, beyond which, miles away, loomed a hill, and then, far, far in
+the distance, high mountains dim with haze. It was like a note of
+sublimity in a poem that till now had been only beautiful.
+
+From the bottom of the valley came a sound of running water, and
+between me and the invisible stream a chorus of olive-backed thrushes
+were singing,--the same simple and hearty strains that, in June and
+July, echo all day long through the woods of the Crawford Notch. The
+birds were on their way from the far South, and were happy to find
+themselves in so homelike a place. Then, suddenly, amid the golden
+voices of the thrushes, I caught the wiry notes of a warbler. They
+came from the treetops in the valley, and--so I prided myself upon
+guessing--belonged to a cerulean warbler, a bird of which I had seen
+my first and only specimen a week before, on Lookout Mountain. Down
+the steep hillside I scrambled,--New Hampshire clean forgotten,--and
+was just bringing my glass into play when the fellow took wing, and
+began singing at the very point I had just left. I hastened back; he
+flew again, farther up the hill, and again I put myself out of breath
+with pursuing him. Again and again he sang, now in this tree, now in
+that, but there was no getting sight of him. The trees should have
+been shorter, or the bird larger. Straight upward I gazed, till the
+muscles of my neck cried for mercy. At last I saw him, flitting amid
+the dense foliage, but so far above me, and so exactly between me and
+the sun, that I might as well not have seen him at all.
+
+It was a foolish half-hour. The bird, as I afterwards discovered, was
+nothing but a blue yellow-back, with an original twist to his song.
+In Massachusetts, I should not have listened to it twice, but on new
+hunting-grounds a man is bound to look for new game; else what would
+be the use of traveling? It was a foolish half-hour, I say; but I
+wish some moralist would explain, in a manner not inconsistent with
+the dignity of human nature, how it happens that foolish half-hours
+are commonly so much more enjoyable at the time, and so much
+pleasanter in the retrospect, than many that are more reasonably
+employed.
+
+I swallowed my disappointment, and presently forgot it, for at the
+first turn in the road I found myself following the course of a brook
+or creek, between which and myself was a dense thicket of mountain
+laurel and rhododendron, with trees and other shrubs intermingled.
+The laurel was already in full bloom, while the rhododendrons held
+aloft clusters of gorgeous rose-purple buds, a few of which, the
+middle ones of the cluster, were just bursting into flower. Here
+was beauty of a new order,--such wealth and splendor of color in
+surroundings so romantic. And the place, besides, was alive with
+singing birds: hooded warblers, Kentucky warblers, a Canadian
+warbler, a black-throated blue, a black-throated green, a blue
+yellow-back, scarlet tanagers, wood pewees, wood thrushes, a field
+sparrow (on the hillside beyond) a cardinal, a chat, a bunch of
+white-throated sparrows, and who could tell what else? It was an
+exciting moment. Luckily, a man can look and listen both at once.
+Here was a fringe-tree, a noble specimen, hung with creamy-white
+plumes; here was a magnolia, with big leaves and big flowers; and
+here was a flowering dogwood, not to be put out of countenance in
+any company; but especially, here were the rhododendrons! And all
+the while, deep in the thickest of the bushes, some unknown bird was
+singing a strange, breathless jumble of a song, note tripping over
+note,--like an eager churchman with his responses, I kept saying to
+myself, with no thought of disrespect to either party. It cost me a
+long vigil and much patient coaxing to make the fellow out, and he
+proved to be merely a Wilson's blackcap, after all; but he was the
+only bird of his kind that I saw in Tennessee.
+
+On this first visit I did not get far beyond the creek, through the
+bed of which the road runs, with a single log for foot-passengers.
+I had spent at least an hour in going a hundred rods, and it was
+already drawing near dinner time. But I returned to the spot that
+very afternoon, and half a dozen times afterward. So poor a traveler
+am I, so ill fitted to explore a new country. Whenever nothing in
+particular offered itself, why, it was always pretty down at Falling
+Water Creek. There I saw the rhododendrons come into exuberant
+bloom, and there I oftenest see them in memory, though I found them
+elsewhere in greater abundance, and in a setting even more romantic.
+
+More romantic, perhaps, but hardly more beautiful. I remember, just
+beyond the creek, a bank where sweet bush (_Calycanthus_), wild
+ginger (_Asarum_), rhododendron, laurel, and plenty of trailing
+arbutus (the last now out of flower) were growing side by side,--a
+rare combination of beauty and fragrance. And within a few rods
+of the same spot I sat down more than once to take a long look at
+a cross-vine covering a dead hemlock. The branches of the tree,
+shortening regularly to the top, were draped heavily with gray
+lichens, while the vine, keeping mostly near the trunk and climbing
+clean to the tip,--fifty feet or more, as I thought,--was hung
+throughout with large, orange-red, gold-lined bells. Their numbers
+were past guessing. Here and there a spray of them swung lightly from
+the end of a branch, as if inviting the breeze to lend them motion
+and a voice. The sight was worth going miles to see, and yet I passed
+it three times before it caught my eye, so full were the woods of
+things to look at. After all, _is_ it a poor traveler who turns again
+and again into the same path? Whether is better, to read two good
+books once, or one good book twice?
+
+A favorite shorter walk, at odd minutes,--before breakfast and
+between showers,--was through the woods for a quarter of a mile to a
+small clearing and a cabin. On a Sunday afternoon I ventured to pass
+the gate and make a call upon my neighbors. The doors of the house
+stood open, but a glance inside showed that there was no one there,
+and I walked round it, inspecting the garden,--corn, beans, and
+potatoes coming on,--till, just as I was ready to turn back into the
+woods, I descried a man and woman on the hillside not far away; the
+man leading a mule, and the woman picking strawberries. At sight of
+a stranger the woman fell behind, but the man kept on to the house,
+greeted me politely, and invited me to be seated under the hemlock,
+where two chairs were already placed. After tying the mule he took
+the other chair, and we fell into talk about the weather, the crops,
+and things in general. When the wife finally appeared, I rose, of
+course; but she went on in silence and entered the house, while the
+husband said, "Oh, keep your seat." We continued our conversation
+till the rain began to fall. Then we picked up our chairs and
+followed the woman inside. She sat in the middle of the room (young,
+pretty, newly married, and Sunday-dressed), but never once opened her
+lips. Her behavior was in strict accordance with local etiquette, I
+was afterward assured (as if _all_ etiquette were not local); but
+though I admire feminine modesty as much as any man, I cannot say
+that I found this particular manifestation of it altogether to my
+liking. Silence is golden, no doubt, and gold is more precious than
+silver, but in cases of this figurative sort I profess myself a
+bimetallist. A _little_ silver, I say; enough for small change, at
+any rate; and if we can have a pretty free coinage, why, so much the
+better, though as to that, it must be admitted, a good deal depends
+upon the "image and superscription." However, my hostess followed her
+lights, and reserved her voice--soft and musical let us hope--for
+her husband's ear.
+
+They had not lived in the house very long, he told me, and he did
+not know how many years the land had been cleared. There was a fair
+amount of game in the woods,--turkeys, squirrels, pheasants, and so
+on,--and in winter the men did considerable hunting. Formerly there
+were a good many deer, but they had been pretty well killed off.
+Turkeys still held out. They were gobbling now. His father had been
+trying for two or three weeks, off and on, to shoot a certain old
+fellow who had several hens with him down in the valley. His father
+could call with his mouth better than with any "caller," but so far
+the bird had been too sharp for him. The son laughed good-naturedly
+when I confessed to an unsportsmanlike sympathy with the gobbler.
+
+The cabin, built of hewn logs, with clay in the chinks, was neatly
+furnished, with beds in two corners of the one room, a stone chimney,
+two doors directly opposite each other, and no window. The doors,
+it is understood, are always to be open, for ventilation and light.
+Such is the custom; and custom is nowhere more powerful than in
+small rustic communities. If a native, led away by his wife, perhaps,
+puts a window into his new cabin, the neighbors say, "Oh, he is
+building a glass house, isn't he?" It must be an effeminate woman,
+they think, who cannot do her cooking and sewing by the light of
+the door. None the less, in a climate where snow is possible in the
+middle of May, such a Spartan arrangement must sometimes be found
+a bit uncomfortable by persons not to the manner born. A preacher
+confided to me that in his pastoral calls he had once or twice made
+bold to push to a door directly at his back, when the wind was cold;
+but the innovation was ill received, and the inmates of the house,
+doubtless without wishing to hurt their minister's feelings,--since
+he had meant no harm, to be sure, but was simply unused to the ways
+of the world,--speedily found some excuse for rectifying his mistake.
+Probably there is no corner of the world where the question of fresh
+air and draughts is not available for purposes of moral discipline.
+
+Beside the path to the cabin, on the 13th of May, was a gray-cheeked
+thrush, a very gray specimen, sitting motionless in the best of
+lights. "Look at me," he seemed to say. "I am no olive-back. My
+cheeks are not sallow." On the same day, here and in another place,
+I saw white-throated sparrows. Their presence at this late hour was
+a great surprise, and suggested the possibility of their breeding
+somewhere in the Carolina mountains, though I am not aware that such
+an occurrence has ever been recorded. Another recollection of this
+path is of a snow-white milkweed (_Asclepias variegata_),--white with
+the merest touch of purple to set it off,--for the downright elegance
+of which I was not in the least prepared. The queen of all milkweeds,
+surely.
+
+After nightfall the air grew loud with the cries of batrachians and
+insects, an interesting and novel chorus. On my first evening at the
+hotel I was loitering up the road, with frequent auditory pauses,
+thinking how full the world is of unseen creatures which find their
+day only after the sun goes down, when in a woody spot I heard behind
+me a sound of footsteps. A woman was close at my heels, fetching a
+pail of water from the spring. I remarked upon the many voices. She
+answered pleasantly. It was the big frogs that I heard, she reckoned.
+
+"Do you have whippoorwills here?" I asked.
+
+"Plenty of 'em," she answered, "plenty of 'em."
+
+"Do you hear them right along the road?"
+
+"Yes, sir; oh yes."
+
+We had gone hardly a rod further before we exclaimed in the same
+breath, "There is one now!"
+
+I inquired if there was another bird here, something like the
+whippoorwill, meaning the chuck-will's-widow. But she said no; she
+knew of but one.
+
+"How early does the whippoorwill get here?" said I.
+
+"Pretty early," she answered.
+
+"By the first of April, should you say?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I think about then. I know the timber is just beginning to
+put out when they begin to holler."
+
+This mannerly treatment of a stranger was more Christian-like than
+the stately silence of my lady of the cabin, it seemed to me. I
+liked it better, at all events. I had learned nothing, perhaps; but
+unless a man is far gone in philosophy he need not feel bound to
+increase in wisdom every time a neighbor speaks to him; and anyhow,
+that expression about the "putting out of the timber" had given me
+pleasure. Hearing it thus was better than finding it upon a page
+of Stevenson, or some other author whose business in life is the
+picking of right words. Let us have some silver, I repeat. I am ready
+to believe, what I have somewhere read, that men will have to give
+account not only for every idle word, but for every idle silence.
+
+The summit of the Ridge, as soon as one leaves its precipitous rocky
+edge,--the Brow, so called,--is simply an indefinite expanse of
+gently rolling country, thin-soiled, but well watered, and covered
+with fine open woods, rambling through which the visitor finds little
+to remind him of his elevation above the world. I heard a resident
+speak of going to the "top of the mountain," however, and on inquiry
+learned that a certain rocky eminence, two miles, more or less, from
+Fairmount (the little "settlement" where I was staying), went by
+that name, and was supposed to be the highest point of the Ridge.
+My informant kindly made me a rough map of the way thither, and one
+morning I set out in that direction. It would be shameful to live for
+a week on the "summit" of a mountain, and not once go to the "top."
+
+The glory of Walden's Ridge, as compared with Lookout Mountain,--so
+the dwellers there say,--is its streams and springs; and my morning
+path soon brought me to the usual rocky brook bordered with mountain
+laurel, holly, and hemlock. To my New England eyes it was an odd
+circumstance, the hemlocks growing always along the creeks in the
+valley bottoms. Beyond this point I passed an abandoned cabin,--no
+other house in sight,--and by and by a second one, near which, in the
+garden (better worth preserving than the house, it appeared), a woman
+and two children were at work. Yes, the woman said, I was on the
+right path. I had only to keep a straight course, and I should bring
+up at the "top of the mountain." A little farther, and my spirits
+rose at the sight of a circular, sedgy, woodland pond, such a place
+as I had not seen in all this Chattanooga country. It ought to yield
+something new for my local ornithological list, which up to this
+time included ninety species, and not one of them a water-bird. I did
+my best, beating round the edge and "squeaking," but startled nothing
+rarer than a hooded warbler and a cardinal grosbeak.
+
+Next I traversed a long stretch of unbroken oak woods, with single
+tall pines interspersed; and then all at once the path turned to
+the right, and ran obliquely downhill to a clearing in which stood
+a house,--not a cabin,--with a garden, orchard trees, and beehives.
+This should be the German shoemaker's, I thought, looking at my
+map. If so, I was pretty near the top, though otherwise there was
+no sign of it; and if I had made any considerable ascent, it had
+been as children increase in stature,--and as the good increase in
+goodness,--unconsciously. A woman of some years was in the garden,
+and at my approach came up to the fence,--a round-faced, motherly
+body. Yes, the top of the mountain was just beyond. I could not miss
+it.
+
+"You do not live here?" she asked.
+
+No, I explained; I was a stranger on the Ridge,--a stranger from
+Boston.
+
+"From Washington?"
+
+"No, from Boston."
+
+"Oh! from Boston!--Massachusetts!--Oh-h-h!"
+
+She would go part way with me, she said, lest I should miss the path.
+Perhaps she wished to show some special hospitality to a man from
+Massachusetts; or possibly she thought I must be more in danger of
+getting bewildered, being so far from home. But I could not think of
+troubling her. Was there a spring near by, where I could drink?
+
+"I have water in the house," she answered.
+
+"But isn't there a creek down in the valley ahead?"
+
+Oh yes, there was a creek; but had I anything to drink out of? I
+thanked her. Yes, I had a cup. "My husband will be at home by the
+time you come back," she said, as I started on, and I promised to
+call.
+
+The scene at the brook, halfway between the German's house and the
+top, would of itself have paid me for my morning's jaunt. I stood on
+a boulder in mid-current, in the shadow of overhanging trees, and
+drank it in. Such rhododendrons and laurel, now in the perfection of
+their beauty! One rhododendron bush was at least ten feet high, and
+loaded with blooms. Another lifted its crown of a dozen rose-purple
+clusters amid the dark foliage of a hemlock. A magnolia-tree
+stood near; but though it was much taller than the laurel or the
+rhododendron, and had much larger flowers, it made little show beside
+them. Birds were singing on all hands, and numbers of gay-colored
+butterflies flitted about, sipping here and there at a blossom. I
+remember especially a fine tiger swallow-tail; the only one I saw
+in Tennessee, I believe. I remember, too, how well the rhododendron
+became him. Here, as in many other places, the laurel was nearly
+white; a happy circumstance, as it and the rhododendron went the
+more harmoniously together. Even in this high company, some tufts of
+cinnamon fern were not to be overlooked; the fertile cinnamon-brown
+fronds were now at their loveliest, and showed as bravely here, I
+thought, as in the barest of Massachusetts swamp-lands.
+
+A few rods more, up a moderate slope, and I was at the top of the
+mountain,--a wall of out-cropping rocks, falling off abruptly on the
+further side, and looking almost like an artificial rampart. Beyond
+me, to my surprise, I heard the hum of cicadas,--seventeen-year
+locusts,--a sound of which the lower country had for some time been
+full, but of which, till this moment, I had heard nothing on the
+Ridge.
+
+As for the prospect, it was far reaching, but only in one direction,
+and through openings among the trees. Directly before me, some
+hundreds of feet below, was a piece of road, with a single cabin
+and a barn; and much farther away were other cabins, each with its
+private clearing. Elsewhere the foreground was an unbroken forest.
+For some time I could not distinguish the Ridge itself from the
+outlying world. Mountains and hills crowded the hazy horizon, range
+beyond range. Moving along the rocks, I found a vista through which
+Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain were visible. Another change, and
+a stretch of the Tennessee River came into sight, and, beyond it,
+Missionary Ridge with its settlements and its two observatories.
+Evidently I was considerably above the level of the Brow; but whether
+this was really the top of the mountain--reached, in some mysterious
+way, without going uphill--was more than I could say.[2]
+
+Nor did it matter. I was glad to be there. It was a pleasant place
+and a pleasant hour, with an oak root for a seat, and never an insect
+to trouble me. That, by the way, was true of all those Tennessee
+forests,--when I was there, I mean; from what I heard, the ticks
+and jiggers must be bad enough later in the season. As men do at
+such times,--for human nature is of noble origin, and feels no
+surprise at being well treated,--I took my immunity as a matter of
+course, and only realized how I had been favored when I got back to
+Massachusetts, where, on my first visit to the woods, I was fairly
+driven out by swarms of mosquitoes.
+
+The shoemaker was at home when I reached his house on my return, and
+at the urgent invitation of himself and his wife I joined them on
+the piazza for a bit of neighborly chat. I found him a smallish man,
+not German in appearance, but looking, I thought, like Thoreau,
+only grown a little older. He had been on Walden's Ridge for fifteen
+years. Before that he was in South Carolina, but the yellow fever
+came along and made him feel like getting out. Yes, this was a
+healthy country. He had nothing to complain of; he was sixty-two
+years old and his doctors' bills had never amounted to "five dollar."
+
+"Do _you_ like living here?" I asked his wife.
+
+"No," she answered promptly; "I never did. But then," she added, "we
+can't help it. If you own something, you know, you have to stay."
+
+The author of Walden would have appreciated that remark. There was no
+shoemaking to be done here, the man said, his nearest neighbor being
+half a mile distant through the woods; and there was no clover, so
+that his bees did not do very well; and the frost had just killed
+all his peach-trees; but when I asked if he never felt homesick for
+Germany, the answer came like a pistol shot,--"No."
+
+I inquired about a cave, of which I had heard reports. Yes, it was
+a good cave, they said; I could easily find it. But their directions
+conveyed no very clear idea to my mind, and by and by the woman
+began talking to her husband in German. "She is telling him he ought
+to go with me and show me the way," I said to myself; and the next
+moment she came back to English. "He will go with you," she said. I
+demurred, but he protested that he could do it as well as not. "Take
+up a stick; you might see a snake," his wife called after him, as we
+left the house. He smiled, but did not follow her advice, though I
+fancied he would have done so had she gone along with us. A half-mile
+or so through the pathless woods brought us to the cave, which might
+hold a hundred persons, I thought. The dribbling "creek" fell over it
+in front. Then the man took me to my path, pointed my way homeward,
+and, with a handshake (the silver lining of which was not refused,
+though I had been troubled with a scruple), bade me good-by. First,
+however, he told me that if I found any one in Boston who wanted
+to buy a place on Walden's Ridge, he would sell a part of his or
+the whole of it. I remember him most kindly, and would gladly do
+him a service. If any reader, having a landed investment in view,
+should desire my intervention in the premises, I am freely at his
+command; only let him bear in mind the terms of the deed: "If you own
+something, you know, you have to stay."
+
+
+II.
+
+Fairmount, as has already been said, is but a clearing in the forest.
+Instead of a solitary cabin, as elsewhere, there are perhaps a dozen
+or two of cabins and houses scattered along the road, which emerges
+from the woods at one end of the settlement, and, after a mile or so
+in the sun, drops into them again at the other end. The glory of the
+place, and the reason of its being, as I suppose, is a chalybeate
+spring in a woody hollow before the post-office. There may be a
+shop of some kind, also, but memory retains no such impression. One
+building, rather larger than most of its neighbors, and apparently
+unoccupied, I looked at more than once with a measure of that
+curiosity which is everywhere the stranger's privilege. It sat
+squarely on the road, and boasted a sort of portico or piazza,--it
+puzzled me what to call it,--but there was no vestige of a chimney.
+One day a ragged, bright-faced boy met me at the right moment, and I
+asked, "Did some one use to live in that house?" "That?" said he, in
+a tone I shall never forget. "That's a barn. That over there is the
+dwelling." My ignorance was fittingly rebuked, and I had no spirit to
+inquire about the piazza. Probably it was nothing but a lean-to. Even
+in my humiliation, however, it pleased me to hear what I should have
+called that good literary word "dwelling" on such lips. A Yankee boy
+might have said "dwelling-house," but no Yankee of any age, or none
+that I have ever known, would have said "dwelling," though he might
+have read the word in books a thousand times. I thought of a spruce
+colored waiter in Florida, who, when I asked him at breakfast how the
+day was likely to turn out, answered promptly, "I think it will be
+inclement." It may reasonably be counted among the minor advantages
+of travel that it enriches one's every-day vocabulary.
+
+Another Fairmount building (an unmistakable house, this time) is
+memorable to me because on the doorstep, day after day, an old
+gentleman and a younger antagonist--they might have been grandfather
+and grandson--were playing checkers. "I hope you are beating the
+young fellow," I could not help saying once to the old gentleman.
+He smiled dubiously, and made some halting reply suggestive of
+resignation rather than triumph; and it came to me with a kind of
+pang, as I passed on, that if growing old is a bad business, as most
+of us think, it is perhaps an unfavorable symptom when a man finds
+himself, not out of politeness, but as a simple matter of course,
+taking sides with the aged.
+
+Fairmounters, living in the woods, have no outlook upon the world.
+If they wish to see off, they must go to the Brow, which, by a
+stroller's guess, may be two miles distant. My first visit to it
+was the pleasanter--the more vacational, so to speak--for being an
+accident. I sauntered aimlessly down the road, past the scattered
+houses and orchards (the raising of early apples seemed to be a
+leading industry on the Ridge, though a Chattanooga gentleman had
+assured me that the principal crops were blackberries and rabbits),
+and almost before I knew it, was in the same delightful woods that
+had welcomed me wherever I had gone. And in the same woods the same
+birds were singing. My notes make particular record of hooded and
+Kentucky warblers, these being two of my newer acquaintances, as well
+as two of the commoner Ridge songsters; but I halted for some time,
+and with even a livelier interest, to listen to an old friend (no
+acquaintance, if you please),--a black-throated green warbler. It was
+one of the queerest of songs: a bar of five or six notes, uniform
+in pitch, and then at once, in perfect form and voice,--the voice
+being a main part of the music in the case of this warbler,--the
+familiar _trees_, _trees_, _murmuring trees_. Where could the
+fellow have picked up such a ditty? No doubt there was some story
+connected with it. Nothing is born of itself. A dozen years ago, in
+the Green Mountains,--at Bread-Loaf Inn,--I heard from the forest by
+the roadside a song utterly strange, and hastened in search of its
+author. After much furtive approach and diligent scanning of the
+foliage, I had the bird under my opera-glass,--a black-throated blue
+warbler! With my eye still upon him, he sang again and again, and
+the song bore no faintest resemblance to the _kree_, _kree_, _kree_,
+which all New England bird-lovers know as the work of _Dendroica
+cÊrulescens_. In what private school he had been educated I have no
+idea; but I believe that every such extreme eccentricity goes back to
+something out of the common in the bird's early training.
+
+I felt in no haste. Life is easy in the Tennessee mountains. A
+pile of lumber, newly unloaded near the road,--in the woods, of
+course,--offered a timely seat, and I took it. Some Chattanooga
+gentleman was planning a summer cottage for himself, I gathered. May
+he enjoy it for twenty years as much as I did for twenty minutes. Not
+far beyond, near a fork in the road, a man of twenty-five or thirty,
+a youth of sixteen or seventeen, and a small boy were playing marbles
+in a cabin yard. I interrupted the sport long enough to inquire
+which road I had better take. I was going nowhere in particular, I
+explained, and wanted simply a pleasant stroll. "Then I would go
+to the Brow, if I were you," said the man. "Keep a straight road.
+It isn't far." I thanked him, and with a cheery "Come on!" to his
+playmates he ran back, literally, to the ring. Yes, life is easy
+in the Tennessee mountains. It is not to be assumed, nevertheless,
+that the man was a do-nothing: probably he had struck work for a
+few minutes only; but, like a sensible player, he was enjoying the
+game while it lasted. Perhaps it is a certain inborn Puritanical
+industriousness, against which I have never found the courage
+effectually to rebel, that makes me look back upon this dooryard
+comedy as one of the brightest incidents of my Tennessee vacation.
+Fancy a Massachusetts farmer playing marbles at nine o'clock in the
+forenoon!
+
+At that moment, it must be owned, a rebuke of idleness would have
+fallen with a poor grace from my Massachusetts lips. If the player of
+marbles had followed his questioner round the first turn, he would
+have seen him standing motionless beside a swamp, holding his head on
+one side as if listening,--though there was nothing to be heard,--or
+evoking ridiculous squeaking noises by sucking idiotically the back
+of his hand. Well, I was trying to find another bird, just as he was
+trying to knock another marble out of the ring.
+
+The spot invited such researches,--a bushy swamp, quite unlike the
+dry woods and rocky woodland brooks which I had found everywhere
+else. I had seen my first cerulean warbler on Lookout Mountain, my
+first Cape May warbler on Cameron Hill, my first Kentucky warbler
+on Missionary Ridge, and my first blue-winged yellow warbler at the
+Chickamauga battlefield. If Walden was to treat me equally well, as
+in all fairness it ought, now was the time. Looking, listening, and
+squeaking were alike unrewarded, however, till I approached the same
+spot on my return. Then some bird sang a new song. I hoped it was a
+prothonotary warbler, a bird I had never seen, and about whose notes
+I knew nothing. More likely it was a Louisiana water-thrush, a bird
+I had seen, but had never heard sing. Whichever it was, alas, it
+speedily fell silent, and no beating of the bush proved of the least
+avail.
+
+Meanwhile I had been to the Brow, where I had sat for an hour or more
+on the edge of the mountain, gazing down upon the world. The sky was
+clouded, but here and there were fugitive patches of sunshine, now
+on Missionary Ridge, now on the river, now glorifying the smoke of
+the city. Southward, just across the valley and over Chattanooga,
+was Lookout Mountain; eastward stretched Missionary Ridge, with
+many higher hills behind it; and more to the north, and far in the
+distance, loomed the Great Smoky Mountains, in all respects true
+to their name. The valley at my feet was beautiful beyond words:
+green forests interspersed with green clearings, lonely cabins,
+and bare fields of red earth. At the north, Walden's Ridge made a
+turn eastward, narrowing the valley, but without ending it. Chimney
+swifts were cackling merrily, and the air was full of the hum of
+seventeen-year locusts,--miles and miles of continuous sound. From
+somewhere far below rose the tinkle of cow-bells. Even on that
+cloudy and smoky day it was a glorious landscape; but it pleased me
+afterward to remember that the eye returned of itself again and again
+to a stretch of freshly green meadow along a slender watercourse,--a
+valley within the valley. Of all the fair picture, that was the most
+like home.
+
+Meanwhile there was no forgetting that undiscovered stranger in the
+swamp. Whoever he was, he must be made to show himself; and the
+next day, when the usual noonday deluge was past, I looked at the
+clouds, and said: "We shall have another, but in the interval I can
+probably reach the Brow. There I will take shelter on the piazza of
+an unoccupied cottage, and, when the rain is over, go back to the
+swamp, see my bird, and thence return home." So it turned out--in
+part. The clouds hurried me, but I reached the Brow just in season,
+climbed the cottage fence, the gate being padlocked, and, thoroughly
+heated as I was, paced briskly to and fro on the piazza in a chilling
+breeze for an hour or more, the flood all the while threatening to
+fall, and the thunder shaking the house. There was plenty to look at,
+for the cottage faced the Great Smokies, and though we were under the
+blackest of clouds, the landscape below was largely in the sun. The
+noise of the locusts was incessant. Nothing but the peals of thunder
+kept it out of my ears.
+
+So far, then, my plans had prospered; but to find the mysterious
+bird,--that was not so easy. The swamp was silent, and I was at once
+so cold and so hot, and so badly under the weather already, that I
+dared not linger.
+
+In the woods, nevertheless, I stopped long enough to enjoy the
+music of a master cardinal,--a bewitching song, and, as I thought,
+original: _birdy_, _birdy_, repeated about ten times in the sweetest
+of whistles, and then a sudden descent in the pitch, and the same
+syllables over again. At that instant, a Carolina wren, as if
+stirred to rivalry, sprang into a bush and began whistling _cherry_,
+_cherry_, _cherry_ at his loudest and prettiest. It was a royal
+duet. The cardinal was in magnificent plumage, and a scarlet tanager
+near by was equally handsome. If the tanager could whistle like the
+cardinal, our New England woods would have a bird to brag of.
+
+Not far beyond these wayside musicians I came upon a boy sitting
+beside a wood-pile, with his saw lying on the ground. "It is easier
+to sit down than to saw wood, isn't it?" said I. Possibly he was
+unused to such aphoristic modes of speech. He took time to consider.
+Then he smiled, and said, "Yes, sir." The answer was all-sufficient.
+We spoke from experience, both of us; and between men who _know_,
+whatever the matter in hand, disagreement is impossible and
+amplification needless.
+
+Three days later--my last day on the Ridge--I had better luck at the
+swamp. The stranger was singing on the nearer edge as I approached,
+and I had simply to draw near and look at him,--a Louisiana
+water-thrush. He sang, and I listened; and farther along, at the
+little bridge where I had first heard the song, another like him was
+in tune. The strain, as warbler songs go ("water-thrushes" being not
+thrushes, but warblers), is rather striking,--clear, pretty loud,
+of about ten notes, the first pair of which are longest and best.
+I speak of what I heard, and give, of course, my own impression.
+Audubon pronounces the notes "as powerful and mellow, and at times
+as varied," as those of the nightingale, and Wilson waxes almost
+equally enthusiastic in his praise of the "exquisitely sweet and
+expressive voice." Here, as in Florida, I was interested to perceive
+how instantly the bird's appearance and carriage distinguished it
+from its Northern relative, although the descriptions of the two
+species, as given in books, sound confusingly alike. It is matter for
+thankfulness, perhaps, that language is not yet so all-expressive as
+to render individual eyesight superfluous.
+
+I kept on to the Brow, and some time afterward was at Mabbitt's
+Spring, quenching my thirst with a draught of liquid iron rust, when
+a third songster of the same kind struck up his tune. The spring,
+spurting out of the rock in a slender jet, is beside the same
+stream--Little Falling Water--that makes through the swamp; and along
+its banks, it appeared, the water-thrushes were at home. I was glad
+to have heard the famous singer, but my satisfaction was not without
+alloy. Walden, after all, had failed to show me a new bird, though it
+had given me a new song.
+
+The most fatiguing, and perhaps the most interesting of my days on
+the Ridge was the one day in which I did not travel on foot. Passing
+through the village, on my return from one of my earlier visits to
+Falling Water, I stopped a nice-looking man (if he will pardon the
+expression, copied from my notes), driving a horse with a pair of
+clothes-line reins. He had an air of being at home, and naturally I
+took him for a native. Would he tell me something about the country,
+especially about the roads, so that I might improve my scanty time
+to the best advantage? Very gladly, he answered. He had walked and
+driven over the mountain a good deal, surveying, and if I would call
+at his house, a short distance down the road,--the house with the big
+barn,--he would make me a rough map, such as would answer my purpose.
+At the same time he mentioned two or three shorter excursions which
+I ought not to miss; and when I had thanked him for his kindness, he
+gathered up the reins and drove on. Intending no disrespect to the
+inhabitants of the Ridge, I may perhaps be allowed to say that I was
+considerably impressed by a certain unexpected propriety, and even
+elegance, of diction, on the part of my new acquaintance. I remember
+in particular his description of a pleasant cold spring as being
+situated not far from the "confluence" of two streams. _Con-fluens_,
+I thought, flowing together. Having always something else to do, I
+omitted to call at his house, and one day, when we met again in the
+road, I apologized for my neglect, and asked another favor. He was
+familiar with the country, and kept a horse. Could he not spare a day
+to take me about? If he thought this proposal a bit presumptuous,
+courtesy restrained him from letting the fact be seen, and, after a
+few minutes of deliberation,--his hands being pretty full just then,
+he explained,--he promised to call for me two mornings later, at
+seven o'clock. We would take a luncheon along, and make a day of it.
+
+He appeared at the gate in due season, and in a few minutes we were
+driving over a road new to me, but through the same spacious oak
+woods to which I had grown accustomed. We went first to Burnt Cabin
+Spring, one of the famous chalybeate springs of the mountain,--a
+place formerly frequented by picnic parties, but now, to all
+appearance, fallen into neglect. We stretched our legs, drank of the
+water, admired the flowers and ferns, talking all the while (it was
+here that my companion told a story of a young theologian from Grant
+University, who, in a solemn discourse, spoke repeatedly of Jacob as
+having "euchred his brother out of his birthright"), and then, while
+a "pheasant" drummed near by, took our places again in the buggy.
+
+Another stage, still through the oak woods, and we were at Signal
+Point, famous--in local tradition, at least--as the station from
+which General Sherman signaled encouragement to the Union army
+beleaguered in Chattanooga, in danger of starvation or surrender.
+I had looked at the bold, jutting crags from Lookout Mountain and
+elsewhere, and rejoiced at last to stand upon them.
+
+It would have been delightful to spend a long day there, lying
+upon the cliffs and enjoying the prospect, which, without being so
+far-reaching as from Point Lookout, or even from the eastern brim
+of Walden, is yet extensive and surpassingly beautiful. The visitor
+is squarely above the river, which here, in the straitened valley
+between the Ridge and Raccoon Mountain, grows narrower and narrower
+till it rushes through the "Suck." Even at that elevation we could
+hear the roar of the rapids. A short distance above the Suck, and
+almost at our feet, lay Williams Island. A farmer's Eden it looked,
+with its broad, newly planted fields, and its house surrounded by
+out-buildings and orchard-trees. The view included Chattanooga,
+Missionary Ridge, and much else; but its special charm was its
+foreground, the part peculiar to itself,--the valley, the river,
+and Raccoon Mountain. Along the river-banks were small clearings,
+each with its one cabin, and generally a figure or two ploughing or
+planting. A man in a strangely long boat--a dugout, probably--was
+making his difficult way upstream with a paddle. The Tennessee, in
+the neighborhood of Chattanooga, at all events, is too swift for
+pleasure-boating. Seen from above, as I commonly saw it, it looked
+tranquil enough; but when I came down to its edge, now and then, the
+speed and energetic sweep of the smooth current laid fast hold upon
+me. From the mountains to the sea is a long, long journey, and no
+wonder the river felt in haste.
+
+I had gone to Signal Point not as an ornithologist, but as a patriot
+and a lover of beauty; but, being there, I added one to my list of
+Tennessee birds,--a red-tailed hawk, one of the very few hawks seen
+in all my trip. Sailing below us, it displayed its rusty, diagnostic
+tail, and put its identity at once beyond question.
+
+Our next start--far too speedy, for the day was short--was for
+Williams Point; but on our way thither we descended into the valley
+of Shoal Creek, down which, with the creek to keep it company, runs
+the old mountain road, now disused and practically impassable. Here
+we hitched the horse, and strolled downwards for perhaps half a mile.
+I was never in a lovelier spot. The mountain brook, laughing over
+the stones, is overhung with laurel and rhododendron, which in turn
+are overhung by precipitous rocks broken into all wild and romantic
+shapes, with here and there a cavern--"rock-house"--to shelter a
+score of travelers. The place was rich in ferns and other plants,
+which, unhappily, I had no time to examine, and all the particulars
+of which have faded out of my memory. We walked far enough to look
+over the edge of the mountain, and up to the Signal Point cliffs. If
+I could have stayed there two or three hours, it would have been a
+memorable season. As it was, the stroll was enlivened by one little
+adventure, at which I have laughed too many times ever to forget it.
+
+I had been growing rapturous over the beauty of things, when my
+companion said, "There are some people whom it is no pleasure to take
+into places like this. They can't keep their eyes off the ground,
+they are so bitten with the fear of snakes." He was a few paces ahead
+of me, as he spoke, and the sentence was barely finished before he
+shouted, "Look at that huge snake!" and sprang forward to snatch up
+a stone. "Get a stick!" he cried. "Get a stick!" From his manner I
+took it for granted that the creature was a rattlesnake, and a glance
+at it, lying motionless among the stones beside the road, did not
+undeceive me. I turned hurriedly, looking for a stick, but somehow
+could not find one, and in a moment more was recalled by shouts of
+"Come and help me! It will get away from us!" It was a question of
+life and death, I thought, and I ran forward and began throwing
+stones. "Look out! Look out! You'll bury it!" cried my companion;
+but just then one of my shots struck the snake squarely in the head.
+"That's a good one!" exclaimed the other man, and, picking up a dead
+stick, he thrust it under the disabled creature and tossed it into
+the road. Then he bent over it, and, with a stone, pounded its head
+to a jelly. Such a fury as possessed him! He might have been bruising
+the head of Satan himself, as no doubt he was--in his mind; for my
+surveyor was also a preacher, as had already transpired.
+
+"It isn't a venomous snake, is it?" I ventured to ask, when the work
+was done.
+
+"Oh, I think not," and he pried open its jaws to look for its fangs.
+
+"I don't generally kill innocent snakes," I ventured again, a little
+inopportunely, it must be confessed.
+
+"Well, _I_ do," said the preacher. "The very sight of a snake stirs
+my hatred to its depths."
+
+After that it was natural to inquire whether he often saw
+rattlesnakes hereabouts. (The driver who brought me up the mountain
+had said that they were not common, but that I "wanted to look out
+sharp for them in the woods.") My companion had never seen one, he
+answered, but his wife had once killed one in their dooryard. Then,
+by way of cooling off, after the fervor of the conflict, he told
+me about a gentleman and his little boy, who, having come to spend
+a vacation on the Ridge, started out in the morning for a stroll.
+They were quickly back again, and the boy, quite out of breath, came
+running into the garden.
+
+"Oh, Mr. M.," he cried, "we saw a rattlesnake, and papa fired off his
+pistol!"
+
+"A rattlesnake! Where is it? What did it look like?"
+
+"Why, we didn't see it, but we heard it."
+
+"What was the noise like?" asked Mr. M., and he took a pencil from
+his pocket and began tapping on a log.
+
+"That's it!" said the boy, "that's it!"
+
+They had heard a woodpecker drilling for grubs,--or drumming for
+love,--whereupon the man had fired his pistol, and for them there was
+no more walking in the woods.
+
+After our ramble along Shoal Creek we rested at the ford, near a
+brilliant show of laurel and rhododendron, and ate our luncheon to
+the music of the stream. I finished first, as my evil habit is, and
+was crossing the brook on natural stepping-stones when a bird--a
+warbler of some unknown kind--saluted me from the thicket. Making my
+companion a signal not to disturb us by driving into the stream, I
+gave myself up to discovering the singer; edging this way and that,
+while the fellow moved about also, always unseen, and sang again and
+again, now a louder song, now, with charming effect, a quieter and
+briefer one, till I was almost as badly beside myself as the preacher
+had been half an hour before. But my warfare was less successful than
+his, for, with all my pains, I saw not so much as a feather. There
+is nothing prettier than a jungle of laurel and rhododendron in full
+bloom, but there are many easier places in which to make out a bird.
+
+Williams Point, which we reached on foot, after driving as near it
+as the roughness of the unfrequented road would comfortably allow,
+is not in itself equal to Signal Point, but affords substantially
+the same magnificent prospect. Near it, in the woods, stood a newly
+built cabin, looking badly out of place with its glaring unweathered
+boards; and beside the cabin stood a man and woman in a condition of
+extreme disgust. The man had come up the mountain to work in some
+coal-mine, if I understood him correctly; but the tools were not
+ready, there was no water, his household goods were stranded down
+in the valley somewhere (the hens were starving to death, the woman
+added), and, all in all, the pair were in a sorry plight.
+
+Here, as at Signal Point, I made an addition to my local ornithology,
+and this time too the bird was a hawk. We were standing on the edge
+of the cliff, when a sparrow hawk, after alighting near us, took wing
+and hung for some time suspended over the abyss, beating against the
+breeze, and so holding itself steady,--a graceful piece of work,
+the better appreciated for being seen from above. Here, also, for
+the first time in my life, I was addressed as a "you-un." "Where
+be you-uns from?" asked the woman at the cabin, after the ordinary
+greetings had been exchanged. I believe, in my innocence, I had
+always looked upon that word as an invention of story-writers.
+
+Somewhere in this neighborhood we traversed a pine wood, in which
+my first Walden pine warbler was trilling. Then, for some miles, we
+drove along the Brow, with the glory of the world--valley, river,
+and mountain--outspread before us, and the Great Smokies looming in
+the background, barely visible through the haze. For seven miles, I
+was told, one could drive along that mountain rim. Surely the city
+of Chattanooga is happy in its suburbs. Here were many cottages, the
+greater number as yet unopened; and not far beyond the one under
+the piazza of which I had weathered the thunderstorm of the day
+before, the road entered the forest again. Then, as the way grew
+more and more difficult, we left the horse behind us, and by and by
+came to a foot-path. This brought us at last to Falling Water Fall,
+where Little Falling Water--after threading the swamp and passing
+Mabbitt's Spring, as before described--tumbles over a precipice
+which my companion, with his surveyor's eye, estimated to be one
+hundred and fifty feet in height. The slender stream, broken into
+jewels as it falls, strikes the bottom at some distance from the
+foot of the cliffs, which here form the arc of a circle, and are
+not perpendicular, but deeply hollowed. After enjoying the prospect
+from this point,--holding to a tree and leaning over the edge of the
+rocks,--we retraced our steps till we came to a steep, zigzag path,
+which took us to the foot of the precipice. Here, as well as above,
+were laurel and rhododendron in profusion. One big rhododendron-tree
+grew on the face of the cliff, thirty feet over our heads, leaning
+outward, and bearing at least fifty clusters of gorgeous rose-purple
+flowers; and a smaller one, in a similar position, was equally full.
+The hanging gardens of Babylon may have been more wonderful, but I
+was well content.
+
+From the point where we stood the ledge makes eastward for a long
+distance, almost at right angles, and the cliffs for a mile--or,
+more likely, for two or three miles--were straight before us, broken
+everywhere into angles, light gray and reddish-brown intermixed, with
+the late afternoon sun shining full upon them, and the green forest
+fringing them above and sweeping away from them below.
+
+It was a breathless clamber up the rocks again, tired and poorly off
+as I was, but I reached the top with one hand full of rhododendrons
+(it seemed a shame to pick them, and a shame to leave them), and in
+half an hour we were driving homeward, our day's work done; while my
+seatmate, who, besides being preacher, lawyer, surveyor, and farmer,
+was also a mystic and a saint,--though he would have refused the
+word,--fell into a strain of reminiscence, appropriate to the hour,
+about the inner life of the soul, its hopes, its struggles, and its
+joys. I listened in reverent silence. The passion for perfection is
+not yet so common as to have become commonplace, and one need not be
+certain of a theory in order to admire a practice. He had already
+told me who his father was, and I had ceased to wonder at his using
+now and then a choice phrase.
+
+My friend (he will allow me that word, I am sure) had given me a day
+of days, and with it a new idea of this mountain world; where the
+visitor finds hills and valleys, creeks and waterfalls, the most
+beautiful of forests, with clearings, isolated cabins, straggling
+settlements, orchards, and gardens, and where he forgets again and
+again that he is on a mountain at all. Even now I had seen but
+a corner of it, as I have seen but a corner of the larger world
+on which, for these few years back, I have had what I call my
+existence. And even of what I saw, much has gone undescribed: stately
+tulip-trees deep in the forest, with humming-birds darting from
+flower to flower among them; the flame-colored azalea; the ground
+flowers of the woods, including some tiny yellow lady's-slippers,
+too dainty for the foot of Cinderella herself; the road to Sawyer's
+Springs; and numbers of birds, whose names, even, I have omitted. It
+was a wonderful world; but if the hobbyist may take the pen for a
+single sentence, it may stand confessed that the greatest wonder of
+all was this,--that in all those miles of oak forest I found not one
+blue jay.
+
+Another surprising circumstance, which I do not remember to have
+noticed, however, till my attention was somewhat rudely called
+to it, was the absence of colored people. With the exception of
+three servants at the hotel, I saw none but whites. Walden's Ridge,
+although stanchly Union in war-time, and largely Republican now, as
+I was told, is a white man's country. I had gone to bed one night,
+and was fast asleep, when I was wakened suddenly by the noise of some
+one hurrying up the stairs and shouting, "Where's the gun? Where's
+the gun? Shorty's been shot!" "Shorty" was the colored waiter, and
+the speaker was a general factotum, an English boy. The colored
+people--Shorty, his wife, and the cook--had been out on the edge of
+the woods behind the house, when three men had fired at them, or
+pretended to do so. It was explained the next morning that this was
+only an attempt (on the part of some irresponsible young men, as the
+older residents said) to "run the niggers off the mountain,"--after
+what I understood to be a somewhat regular custom. "Niggers" did not
+belong there; their place was down below. If a Chattanooga cottager
+brought up a colored servant, he was "respectfully requested" to
+send him back, and save the natives the trouble of attending to the
+matter. In short, the Ridgites appeared to look upon "niggers" as
+Northern laborers look upon non-union men--"scabs."
+
+The hotel-keeper, an Englishman, with an Englishman's notions about
+personal rights, was naturally indignant. He would hire his own
+servants, or he would shut the house. In any event, the presence of
+"Whitecaps," real or imaginary, must affect his summer patronage.
+I fully expected to see the colored trio pack up and go back to
+Chattanooga, without waiting for further hints; but they showed no
+disposition to do anything of the sort, and, I must add, rose in my
+estimation accordingly.
+
+Of the feeling of the community I had a slight but ludicrous
+intimation a day or two after the shooting. I passed a boy whom I had
+noticed in the road, some days before, playing with a pig, lifting
+him by the hind legs and pitching him over forwards. "He can turn a
+somerset good," he had said to me, as I passed. Now, for the sake of
+being neighborly, I asked, "How's the pig to-day?" He smiled, and
+made some reply, as if he appreciated the pleasantry; but a more
+serious-looking playmate took up his parable, and said, "The pig'll
+be all right, if the folks up at the hotel don't shoot him." His tone
+and look were intended to be deeply significant. "Oh, I know you,"
+they implied: "you are up at the hotel, where they threaten to shoot
+white folks."
+
+For my last afternoon--wars and rumors of wars long since
+forgotten--I went to the place that had pleased me first, the valley
+of Falling Water Creek. The cross-vine on the dead hemlock had by
+this time dropped the greater part of its bells, but even yet many
+were hanging from the uppermost branches. The rhododendron was still
+at the height of its splendor. All the gardens were nothing to it,
+I said to myself. Crossing the creek on the log, and the branch on
+stepping-stones, I went to quench my thirst at the Marshall Spring,
+which once had a cabin beside it, and frequent visitors, but now was
+clogged with fallen leaves and seemingly abandoned. It was perhaps
+more beautiful so. Directly behind it rose a steep bank, and in front
+stood an oak and a maple, the latter leaning toward it and forming
+a pointed arch,--a worthy entrance. Mossy stones walled it in, and
+ferns grew luxuriantly about it. Just over them, an azalea still
+held two fresh pink flowers, the last till another May. In such a
+spot it would have been easy to grow sentimental; but there came a
+rumbling of thunder, the sky darkened, and, with a final hasty look
+about me, I picked up my umbrella and started homeward.
+
+My last walk had ended like many others in that showery, fragmentary
+week. But what is bad weather when the time is past? All those black
+clouds have left no shadow on Walden's Ridge, and the best of all my
+strolls beside Falling Water, a stroll not yet finished,
+
+    "The calm sense of seen beauty without sight,"
+
+suffers no harm. As Thoreau says, "It is after we get home that we
+really go over the mountain."
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[2] It was _not_ the top of the mountain; so I am now informed, on
+the best of authority. I followed the map, but misunderstood the man
+who drew it. It was a map of some other route, and I did not see the
+top of the mountain, after all.
+
+
+
+
+SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES.
+
+
+Whoever loves the music of English sparrows should live in
+Chattanooga; there is no place on the planet, it is to be hoped,
+where they are more numerous and pervasive. Mocking-birds are scarce.
+To the best of my recollection, I saw none in the city itself,
+and less than half a dozen in the surrounding country. A young
+gentleman whom I questioned upon the subject told me that they used
+to be common, and attributed their present increasing rarity to the
+persecution of boys, who find a profit in selling the young into
+captivity. Their place, in the city especially, is taken by catbirds;
+interesting, imitative, and in their own measure tuneful, but poor
+substitutes for mocking-birds. In fact, that is a rÃŽle which it is
+impossible to think of any bird as really filling. The brown thrush,
+it is true, sings quite in the mocking-bird's manner, and, to my
+ear, almost or quite as well; but he possesses no gift as a mimic,
+and furthermore, without being exactly a bird of the forest or the
+wilderness, is instinctively and irreclaimably a recluse. It would
+be hard, even among human beings, to find a nature less touched with
+urbanity. In the mocking-bird the elements are more happily mingled.
+Not gregarious, intolerant of rivalry, and, as far as creatures of
+his own kind are concerned, a stickler for elbow-room,--sharing with
+his brown relative in that respect,--he is at the same time a born
+citizen and neighbor; as fond of gardens and dooryard trees as the
+thrasher is of scrublands and barberry bushes. "Man delights me," he
+might say, "and woman also." He likes to be listened to, it is pretty
+certain; and possibly he is dimly aware of the artistic value of
+appreciation, without which no artist ever did his best. Add to this
+endearing social quality the splendor and freedom of the mocker's
+vocal performances, multifarious, sensational, incomparable, by turns
+entrancing and amusing, and it is easy to understand how he has come
+to hold a place by himself in Southern sentiment and literature.
+A city without mocking-birds is only half Southern, though black
+faces be never so thick upon the sidewalks and mules never so common
+in the streets. If the boys have driven the great mimic away from
+Chattanooga, it is time the fathers took the boys in hand. Civic
+pride alone ought to bring this about, to say nothing of the possible
+effect upon real estate values of the abundant and familiar presence
+of this world-renowned, town-loving, town-charming songster.
+
+From my window, on the side of Cameron Hill, I heard daily the
+singing of an orchard oriole--another fine and neighborly bird--and
+a golden warbler, with sometimes the _fidgety_, _fidgety_ of a
+Maryland yellow-throat. What could _he_ be fussing about in so
+unlikely a quarter? An adjoining yard presented the unnatural
+spectacle--unnatural, but, I am sorry to say, not unprecedented--of
+a bird-house occupied in partnership by purple martins and English
+sparrows. They had finished their quarrels, if they had ever had
+any,--which can hardly be open to doubt, both native and foreigner
+being constitutionally belligerent,--and frequently sat side by side
+upon the ridge-pole, like the best of friends. The oftener I saw
+them there, the more indignant I became at the martins' un-American
+behavior. Such a disgraceful surrender of the Monroe Doctrine was too
+much even for a man of peace. I have never called myself a Jingo, but
+for once it would have done me good to see the lion's tail twisted.
+
+With the exception of a few pairs of rough-wings on Missionary
+Ridge, the martins seemed to be the only swallows in the country
+at that time of the year; and though _Progne subis_, in spite of
+an occasional excess of good nature, is a most noble bird, it was
+impossible not to feel that by itself it constituted but a meagre
+representation of an entire family. Swallows are none too numerous in
+Massachusetts, in these days, and are pretty certainly growing fewer
+and fewer, what with the prevalence of the box-monopolizing European
+sparrow, and the passing of the big, old-fashioned, widely ventilated
+barn; for there is no member of the family, not even the sand martin,
+whose distribution does not depend in great degree upon human agency.
+Even yet, however, if a Massachusetts man will make a circuit of a
+few miles, he will usually meet with tree swallows, barn swallows,
+cliff swallows, sand martins, and purple martins. In other words, he
+need not go far to find all the species of eastern North America,
+with the single exception of the least attractive of the six; that
+is to say, the rough-wing. As compared with the people of eastern
+Tennessee, then, we are still pretty well favored. It is worth while
+to travel now and then, if only to find ourselves better off at home.
+
+It might be easy to suggest plausible reasons for the general
+absence of swallows from a country like that about Chattanooga;
+but the extraordinary scarcity of hawks, while many persons--not
+ornithologists--would account it less of a calamity, is more of a
+puzzle. From Walden's Ridge I saw a single sparrow hawk and a single
+red-tail; in addition to which I remember three birds whose identity
+I could not determine. Five hawks in the course of three weeks spent
+entirely out of doors, in the neighborhood of mountains covered
+with old forest! Taken by itself, this unexpected showing might
+have been ascribed to some queer combination of accidents, or to a
+failure of observation. In fact, I was inclined so to explain it
+till I noticed that Mr. Brewster had chronicled a similar state of
+things in what is substantially the same piece of country. Writing
+of western North Carolina, he says:[3] "The general scarcity--one
+may almost say absence--of hawks in this region during the breeding
+season is simply unaccountable. Small birds and mammals, lizards,
+snakes, and other animals upon which the various species subsist are
+everywhere numerous, the country is wild and heavily forested, and,
+in short, all the necessary conditions of environment seem to be
+fulfilled." Certainly, so far as my ingenuity goes, the mystery is
+"unaccountable;" but of course, like every other mystery, it would
+open quickly enough if we could find the key.
+
+Turkey vultures were moderately numerous,--much less abundant than
+in Florida,--and twice I saw a single black vulture, recognizable,
+almost as far as it could be seen (but I do not mean at a first
+glance, nor without due precaution against foreshortened effects),
+by its docked tail. Both are invaluable in their place,--useful,
+graceful, admirable, and disgusting. The vultures, the martins, and
+the swifts were the only common aerial birds. The swifts, happily,
+were everywhere,--jovial souls in a sooty dress,--and had already
+begun nest-building. I saw them continually pulling up against the
+twigs of a partially dead tree near my window. In them nature has
+developed the bird idea to its extreme,--a pair of wings, with just
+body enough for ballast; like a racing-yacht, built for nothing but
+to carry sail and avoid resistance. Their flight is a good visual
+music, as Emerson might have said; but I love also their quick,
+eager notes, like the sounds of children at play. And while it has
+nothing to do with Tennessee, I am prompted to mention here a bird
+of this species that I once saw in northern New Hampshire on the 1st
+of October,--an extraordinarily late date, if my experience counts
+for anything. With a friend I had made an ascent of Mount Lafayette
+(one of the days of a man's life), and as we came near the Profile
+House, on our return to the valley, there passed overhead a single
+chimney swift. What he could be doing there at that season was more
+than either of us could divine. It was impossible to feel any great
+concern about him, however. The afternoon was nearly done, but at the
+rate he was traveling it seemed as if he might be in Mexico before
+sunrise. And easily enough he may have been, if Mr. GÀtke is right in
+his contention that birds of very moderate powers of wing are capable
+of flying all night at the rate of four miles a minute!
+
+The comparative scarcity of crows about Chattanooga, and the amazing
+dearth of jays in the oak forest of Walden's Ridge, have been touched
+upon elsewhere. As for the jays, their absence must have been more
+apparent than real, I am bound to believe. It was their silent time,
+probably. Still another thing that I found surprising was the small
+number of woodpeckers. For the first four days I saw not a single
+representative of the family. It would be next to impossible to be
+so much out of doors in Massachusetts at any season of the year
+with a like result. During my three weeks in Tennessee I saw eight
+flickers, seven hairy woodpeckers, two red-heads, and two or three
+red-cockaded woodpeckers, besides which I heard one downy and one
+"logcock." The last-named bird, which is big enough for even the
+careless to notice, seemed to be well known to the inhabitants of
+Walden's Ridge, where I heard it. By what they told me, it should be
+fairly common, but I saw nothing of its "peck-holes." The first of
+my two red-headed woodpeckers was near the base of Missionary Ridge,
+wasting his time in exploring pole after pole along the railway. Did
+he mistake them for so many dead trees still standing on their own
+roots? Dry and seemingly undecayed, they appeared to me to offer
+small encouragement to a grub-seeker; but probably the fellow knew
+his own business best. On questions of economic entomology, I fear
+I should prove but a lame adviser for the most benighted woodpecker
+that ever drummed. And yet, being a man, I could not help feeling
+that this particular red-head was behaving uncommonly like a fool.
+Was there ever a man who did not take it as a matter of course that
+he should be wiser than the "lower animals"?
+
+Humming-birds cut but a small figure in my daily notes till I
+went to Walden's Ridge. There, in the forest, they were noticeably
+abundant,--for humming-birds, that is to say. It seemed to be the
+time of pairing with them; more than once the two sexes were seen
+together,--an unusual occurrence, unless my observation has been
+unfortunate, after the nest is built, or even while it is building.
+One female piqued my curiosity by returning again and again to the
+bole of an oak, hovering before it as before a flower, and more
+than once clinging to its rough upright surface. At first I took it
+for granted that she was picking off bits of lichen with which to
+embellish the outer wall of her nest; but after each browsing she
+alighted here or there on a leafless twig. If she had been gathering
+nest material, she would have flown away with it, I thought.
+
+At another time, in a tangle of shrubbery, I witnessed a most
+lively encounter between two humming-birds; a case of fighting or
+love-making,--two things confusingly alike to an outsider,--in the
+midst of which one of the contestants suddenly displayed so dazzling
+a gorget that for an instant I mistook it for a scarlet flower. I
+did not "wipe my eye," not being a poet, nor even a "rash gazer,"
+but I admired anew the wonderful flashing jewel, now coal-black,
+now flaming red, with which, perhaps, the male ruby-throat blinds
+his long-suffering mate to all his shameful treatment of her in her
+season of watchfulness and motherly anxiety. Does she never remind
+him, I wonder, that there are some things whose price is far above
+rubies? I had never seen the humming-bird so much a forest-dweller as
+here, and gladly confessed that I had never seen him when he looked
+so romantically at home and in place. The tulip-trees, in particular,
+might have been made on purpose for him.
+
+As the Chattanooga neighborhood was poorly supplied with hawks,
+woodpeckers, and swallows, so was it likewise with sparrows, though
+in a less marked degree. The common species--the only resident
+species that I met with, but my explorations were nothing like
+complete--were chippers, field sparrows, and Bachman sparrows; the
+first interesting for their familiarity, the other two for their
+musical gifts. In a comparison between eastern Tennessee--as I
+saw it--and eastern Massachusetts, the Bachman sparrow must be set
+against the song sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and the swamp sparrow.
+It is a brilliant and charming songster, one of the very finest; but
+it would be too costly a bargain to buy its presence with loss of the
+song sparrow's abounding versatility and high spirits, and the vesper
+sparrow's unfailing sweetness, serenity, and charm.
+
+So much for the sparrows, commonly so called. If we come to the
+family as a whole, the goodly family of sparrows and finches, we miss
+in Tennessee the rose-breasted grosbeak and the purple finch, two of
+our best esteemed Massachusetts birds, both for music and for beauty;
+to offset which we have the cardinal grosbeak, whose whistle is
+exquisite, but who can hardly be ranked as a singer above either the
+rose-breast or the linnet, to say nothing of the two combined.
+
+At the season of my visit,--in the latter half of the vernal
+migration,--the preponderance of woodland birds, especially of the
+birds known as wood warblers, was very striking. Of ninety-three
+species observed, twenty-eight belonged to the warbler family. In
+this list it was curious to remark the absence of the Nashville and
+the Tennessee. The circumstance is significant of the comparative
+worthlessness--except from a historical point of view--of locality
+names as they are applied to American birds in general. Here were
+Maryland yellow-throats, Cape May warblers, Canada warblers, Kentucky
+warblers, prairie warblers, palm warblers, Acadian flycatchers,
+but not the two birds (the only two, as well as I remember) that
+bear Tennessee names.[4] The absence of the Nashville was a matter
+of wonderment to me. Dr. Rives, I have since noticed, records it
+as only a rare migrant in Virginia. Yet by some route it reaches
+eastern New England in decidedly handsome numbers. Its congener,
+the blue golden-wing, surprised me in an opposite direction,--by
+its commonness, both in the lower country near the river and on
+Walden's Ridge. This, too, is a rare bird in Virginia; so much so
+that Dr. Rives has never met with it there. In certain places about
+Chattanooga it was as common as it is locally in the towns about
+Boston, where, to satisfy a skeptical friend, I once counted eleven
+males in song in the course of a morning's walk. That the Chattanooga
+birds were on their breeding grounds I had at the time no question,
+although I happened upon no proof of the fact.
+
+In the same way, from the manner in which the oven-birds were
+scattered over Walden's Ridge in the middle of May, I assumed, rather
+hastily, that they were at home for the summer. Months afterward,
+however, happening to notice their southern breeding limits as
+given by the best of authorities,--"breeding from ... Virginia
+northward,"--I saw that I might easily have been in error. I wrote,
+therefore, to a Chattanooga gentleman, who pays attention to birds
+while disclaiming acquaintance with ornithology, and he replied
+that if the oven-bird summered in that country he did not know it.
+The case seemed to be going against me, but I bethought myself
+of Mr. Brewster's "Ornithological Reconnaissance in Western North
+Carolina," and there I read,[5] "The open oak woodlands, so prevalent
+in this region, are in every way adapted to the requirements of
+the oven-bird, and throughout them it is one of the commonest and
+most characteristic summer birds." "Open oak woodlands" is exactly
+descriptive of the Walden's Ridge forest; and eastern Tennessee and
+western North Carolina being practically one, I resume my assured
+belief (personal and of no authority) that the birds I saw and heard
+were, as I first thought, natives of the mountain. Birds which are
+at home have, as a rule, an air of being at home; a certain manner
+hard to define, but felt, nevertheless, as a pretty strong kind of
+evidence--not proof--by a practiced observer.
+
+Several of the more northern species of the warbler family manifested
+an almost exclusive preference for patches of evergreens. I have
+elsewhere detailed my experience in a grove of stunted pines on
+Lookout Mountain. A similar growth is found on Cameron Hill,--in the
+city of Chattanooga,--one side of which is occupied by dwellings,
+while the other drops to the river so precipitously as to be almost
+inaccessible, and is even yet, I was told, an abode of foxes. On
+the day after my arrival I strolled to the top of the hill toward
+evening, and in the pines found a few black-polls and yellow-rumps.
+I was in a listless mood, having already taken a fair day's exercise
+under an intolerable sun, but I waked up with a start when my glass
+fell on a bird which at a second glance showed the red cheeks of a
+Cape May warbler. For a moment I was almost in poor Susan's case,--
+
+    "I looked, and my heart was in heaven."
+
+Then, all too soon, as happened to poor Susan also, the vision faded.
+But I had seen it. Yes, here it was in Tennessee, the rarity for
+which, spring after spring, I had been so many years on the watch. I
+had come South to find it, after all,--a bird that breeds from the
+northern border of New England to Hudson's Bay!
+
+It is of the nature of such excitements that, at the time, the
+subject of them has no thought of analyzing or justifying his
+emotions. He is better employed. Afterward, in some vacant mood,
+with no longer anything actively to enjoy, he may play with the
+past, and from an evil habit, or flattering himself with a show of
+intellectuality, may turn his former delight into a study; tickling
+his present conceit of himself by smiling at the man he used to
+be. How very wise he has grown, to be sure! All such refinements,
+nevertheless, if he did but know it, are only a poorer kind of
+child's play; less spontaneous, infinitely less satisfying, and
+equally irrational. Ecstasy is not to be assayed by any test that
+the reason is competent to apply; nor does it need either defense or
+apology. It is its own end, and so, like beauty, its own excuse for
+being. That is one of the crowning felicities of this present order
+of things,--the world, as we call it. What dog would hunt if there
+were no excitement in overhauling the game? And how would elderly
+people live through long evenings if there were no exhilaration in
+the odd trick?
+
+"What good does it do?" a prudent friend and adviser used to say to
+me, smiling at the fervor of my first ornithological enthusiasm. He
+thought he was asking me a poser; but I answered gayly, "It makes
+me happy;" and taking things as they run, happiness is a pretty
+substantial "good." So was it now with the sight of this long-desired
+warbler. It taught me nothing; it put nothing into my pocket; but it
+made me happy,--happy enough to sing and shout, though I am ashamed
+to say I did neither. And even a sober son of the Puritans may be
+glad to find himself, in some unexpected hour, almost as ineffably
+delighted as he used to be with a new plaything in the time when he
+had not yet tasted of the tree of knowledge, and knew not that the
+relish for playthings could ever be outgrown. I cannot affirm that I
+went quite as wild over my first Cape May warbler as I did over my
+first sled (how well the rapture of that frosty midwinter morning is
+remembered,--a hard crust on the snow, and the sun not yet risen!),
+but I came as near to that state of heavenly felicity--to reënter
+which we must become as little children--as a person of my years is
+ever likely to do, perhaps.
+
+It is one precious advantage of natural history studies that they
+afford endless opportunities for a man to enjoy himself in this
+sweetly childish spirit, while at the same time his occupation is
+dignified by a certain scientific atmosphere and relationship.
+He is a collector of insects, let us say. Whether he goes to the
+Adirondacks for the summer, or to Florida for the winter, he is
+surrounded with nets and cyanide bottles. He travels with them as
+another travels with packs of cards. Every day's catch is part of
+the game; and once in a while, as happened to me on Cameron Hill,
+he gets a "great hand," and in imagination, at least, sweeps the
+board. Commonplace people smile at him, no doubt; but that is only
+amusing, and he smiles in turn. He can tell many good stories under
+that head. He delights to be called a "crank." It is all because
+of people's ignorance. They have no idea that he is Mr. So-and-So,
+the entomologist; that he is in correspondence with learned men the
+country over; that he once discovered a new cockroach, and has had a
+grasshopper named after him; that he has written a book, or is going
+to write one. Happy man! a contributor to the world's knowledge, but
+a pleasure-seeker; a little of a savant, and very much of a child; a
+favorite of Heaven, whose work is play. No wonder it is commonly said
+that natural historians are a cheerful set.
+
+For the supplying of rarities and surprises there are no birds
+like the warblers. Their pursuit is the very spice of American
+ornithology. The multitude of species (Mr. Chapman's "Handbook of the
+Birds of Eastern North America" enumerates forty-five species and
+sub-species) is of itself an incalculable blessing in this respect.
+No single observer is likely ever to come to the end of them. They do
+not warble, it must be owned, and few of them have much distinction
+as singers, the best that I know being the black-throated green and
+the Kentucky; but they are elegant and varied in their plumage, with
+no lack of bright tints, while their extreme activity and their
+largely arboreal habits render their specific determination and their
+individual study a work most agreeably difficult and tantalizing. The
+ornithologist who has seen all the warblers of his own territory, say
+of New England, and knows them all by their notes, and has found all
+their nests,--well, he is himself a pretty rare specimen.
+
+As for my experience with the family in Tennessee, I was glad, of
+course, to scrape acquaintance--or to renew it, as the case might
+be--with the more southern species, the Kentucky, the hooded, the
+cerulean, the blue-wing, and the yellow-throat: that was partly why
+I was here; but perhaps I enjoyed quite as keenly the sight of our
+own New England birds moving homeward; tarrying here and there for
+a day, but not to be tempted by all the allurements of this fine
+country; still pushing on, northward, and still northward, as if for
+them there were no place in the world but the woods where they were
+born. Of the southern species just named, the Kentucky was the most
+abundant, with the hooded not far behind. The prairie warbler seemed
+about as common here as in its favored Massachusetts haunts; but
+unless my ear was at fault its song went somewhat less trippingly:
+it sounded labored,--too much like the scarlet tanager's in the way
+of effort and jerkiness. Unlike the golden warbler, the prairie
+was found not only in the lower country, but--in less numbers--on
+Walden's Ridge. The two warblers that I listed every day, no matter
+where I went, were the chat and the black-and-white creeper.
+
+When all is said, the Kentucky, with its beauty and its song, is
+the star of the family, as far as eastern Tennessee is concerned.
+I can hear it now, while Falling Water goes babbling past in
+the shade of laurel and rhododendron. As for the chat, it was
+omnipresent: in the valley, along the river, on Missionary Ridge,
+on Lookout Mountain, on Walden's Ridge, in the national cemetery,
+at Chickamauga,--everywhere, in short, except within the city
+itself. In this regard it exceeded the white-eyed vireo, and even
+the indigo-bird, I think. Black-polls were seen daily up to May 13,
+after which they were missing altogether. The last Cape May and the
+last yellow-rump were noted on the 8th, the last redstart and the
+last palm warbler on the 11th, the last chestnut-side, magnolia,
+and Canadian warbler on the 12th. On the 12th, also, I saw my only
+Wilson's blackcap. In my last outing, on the 18th, on Walden's Ridge,
+I came upon two Blackburnians in widely separate places. At the
+time, I assumed them to be migrants, in spite of the date. One of
+them was near the hotel, on ground over which I had passed almost
+daily. Why they should be so behindhand was more than I could tell;
+but only the day before I had seen a thrush which was either a
+gray-cheek or an olive-back, and of course a bird of passage. "The
+flight of warblers did not pass entirely until May 19," says Mr.
+Jeffries, writing of what he saw in western North Carolina.[6]
+
+The length of time occupied by some species in accomplishing their
+semi-annual migration is well known to be very considerable, and
+is best observed--in spring, at least--at some southern point.
+It is admirably illustrated in Mr. Chapman's "List of Birds seen
+at Gainesville, Florida."[7] Tree swallows, he tells us, were
+abundant up to May 6, a date at which Massachusetts tree swallows
+have been at home for nearly or quite a month. Song sparrows were
+noted March 31, two or three weeks after the grand irruption of
+song sparrows into Massachusetts usually occurs. Bobolinks, which
+reach Massachusetts by the 10th of May, or earlier, were still very
+abundant--both sexes--May 25! Such dates are not what we should
+have expected, I suppose, especially in the case of a bird like
+the bobolink, which has no very high northern range; but they seem
+not to be exceptional, and are surprising only because we have
+not yet mastered the general subject. Nothing exists by itself,
+and therefore nothing can be understood by itself. One thing the
+most ignorant of us may see,--that the long period covered by the
+migratory journeys is a matter for ornithological thankfulness. In
+Massachusetts, for example, spring migrants begin to appear in late
+February or early March, and some of the most interesting members of
+the procession--notably the mourning warbler and the yellow-bellied
+flycatcher--are to be looked for after the first of June. The
+autumnal movement is equally protracted; so that for at least half
+the year--leaving winter with its arctic possibilities out of
+consideration--we may be on the lookout for strangers.
+
+One of the dearest pleasures of a southern trip in winter or early
+spring is the very thing at which I have just now hinted, the sight
+of one's home birds in strange surroundings. You leave New England in
+early February, for instance, and in two or three days are loitering
+in the sunny pine-lands about St. Augustine, with the trees full of
+robins, bluebirds, and pine warblers, and the savanna patches full of
+meadow larks. Myrtle warblers are everywhere. Phoebes salute you as
+you walk the city streets, and flocks of chippers and vesper sparrows
+enliven the fields along the country roads. In a piece of hammock
+just outside the town you find yourself all at once surrounded by a
+winter colony of summer birds. Here are solitary vireos, Maryland
+yellow-throats, black-and-white creepers, prairie warblers, red-poll
+warblers, hermit thrushes, red-eyed chewinks, thrashers, catbirds,
+cedar-birds, and many more. White-eyed vireos are practicing in the
+smilax thickets,--though they have small need of practice,--and
+white-bellied swallows go flashing and twittering overhead. The world
+is good, you say, and life is a festival.
+
+My vacation in Tennessee afforded less of contrast and surprise, for
+a twofold reason: it was near the end of April, instead of early in
+February, so that migrants had been arriving in Massachusetts for six
+or seven weeks before my departure; and Tennessee has nothing of the
+foreign, half-tropical look which Florida presents to Yankee eyes;
+but even so, it was no small pleasure to step suddenly into a world
+full of summer music. Such multitudes of birds as were singing on
+Missionary Ridge on that first bright forenoon! The number of species
+was not great, when it came to counting them,--morning and afternoon
+together yielded but forty-two; but the whole country seemed alive
+with wings. And of the forty-two species, thirty-two were such as
+summer in Massachusetts or pass through it to their homes beyond.
+Here were already (April 27) the olive-backed thrush, and northern
+warblers like the black-poll, the bay-breast, and the Cape May, none
+of which would be due in Massachusetts for at least a fortnight.
+Here, too, were yellow-rumps and white-throated sparrows, though the
+advance guard of both species had reached New England before I left
+home. The white-throats lingered on Walden's Ridge on the 13th of
+May, a fact which surprised me more at the time than it does in the
+review.
+
+One bird was seen on this first day, and not afterward. I had been
+into the woods north of the city, and was returning, when from the
+bridge over the Tennessee I caught sight of a small flock of black
+birds, which at first, even with the aid of my glass, I could not
+make out, the bridge being so high above the river and its banks.
+While I was watching them, however, they began to sing. They were
+bobolinks. Probably the species is not common in eastern Tennessee,
+as the name is wanting in Dr. Fox's "List of Birds found in Roane
+County, Tennessee, during April, 1884, and March and April, 1885."[8]
+
+I have ventured upon some slight ornithological comparison between
+southeastern Tennessee and eastern Massachusetts, and, writing as a
+patriot (or a partisan), have seen to it that the scale inclined
+northward. To this end I have made as much as possible of the absence
+of robins, song sparrows, and vesper sparrows, and of the comparative
+dearth of swallows; but of course the loyal Tennessean is in no
+want of a ready answer. Robins, song sparrows, vesper sparrows, and
+swallows are _not_ absent, except as breeding birds. He has them
+all in their season,[9] and probably hears them sing. On the whole,
+then, he may fairly retort, he has considerably the advantage of us
+Yankees: he sees our birds on their passage, and drinks his fill
+of their music before we have caught the first spring notes; while
+we, on the other hand, see nothing of his distinctively southern
+birds unless we come South for the purpose. Well, they are worth the
+journey. Bachman's finch alone--yes, the one dingy, shabbily clad
+little genius by the Chickamauga well--might almost have repaid me
+for my thousand miles on the rail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a strange mingling of sensations that possessed me in
+Chattanooga. The city itself was like other cities of its age and
+size, with some appearance of a community that had been in haste to
+grow,--a trifle impatient, shall we say (impatience being one of
+the virtues of youth), to pull down its barns and build greater;
+just now a little checked in its ambition, as things looked; yet
+still enterprising, still fairly well satisfied with itself, with
+no lack of energy and bustle. As it happened, there was a stir in
+local politics at the time of my visit (possibly there always is),
+and at the street corners all patriotic citizens were exhorted to
+do their duty. "Vote for Tom ---- for sheriff," said one placard.
+"Vote for Bob ----," said another, in capitals equally importunate.
+In Tennessee, as everywhere else, the politician knows his trade.
+Familiarity, readiness with the hand, freedom with one's own name
+(Tom, not Thomas, if you please), and a happy knack at remembering
+the names of other people,--these are some of the preëlection tests
+of statesmanship.
+
+All in all, then, between politics and business, the city was "very
+much alive," as the saying goes; but somehow it was not so often the
+people about me that occupied my thoughts as those who had been here
+thirty years before. Precious is the power of a first impression.
+Because I was newly in the country I was constantly under the feeling
+of its past. Hither and thither I went in the region round about,
+listening at every turn, spying into every bush at the stirring of a
+leaf or the chirp of a bird; yet I had always with me the men of '63,
+and felt always that I was on holy ground.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 103.
+
+[4] Both these warblers--the Nashville and the Tennessee--were named
+by Wilson from the places where the original specimens were shot.
+Concerning the Tennessee warbler he sets down the opinion that "it is
+most probably a native of a more southerly climate." It would be a
+pity for men to cease guessing, though the shrewdest are certain to
+be sometimes wrong.
+
+[5] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 175.
+
+[6] _The Auk_, vol. vi. p. 120.
+
+[7] _Ibid._, vol. v. p. 267.
+
+[8] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 315. Of sixty-two species seen by me
+during the last four days of April, eleven are not given by Dr.
+Fox, namely, Wilson's thrush, black-poll warbler, bay-breasted
+warbler, Cape May warbler, black-throated blue warbler, palm warbler,
+chestnut-sided warbler, blue golden-winged warbler, bobolink, Acadian
+flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo.
+
+[9] See Dr. Fox's list.
+
+
+
+
+A LIST OF BIRDS
+
+FOUND IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF CHATTANOOGA FROM APRIL 27 TO MAY 18,
+1894.
+
+
+1. Green Heron. _Ardea virescens._--A single individual seen from a
+car window. No other water birds were observed except three or four
+ducks and a single wader, all upon the wing and unidentified.
+
+2. Bob White. Quail. Partridge. _Colinus virginianus._--Common.
+
+3. Ruffed Grouse. "Pheasant." _Bonasa umbettus._--Heard drumming on
+Walden's Ridge.
+
+4. Carolina Dove. Mourning Dove. _Zenaidura macroura._--A small
+number seen.
+
+5. Turkey Vulture. Turkey Buzzard. _Cathartes aura._--Common.
+
+6. Black Vulture. Carrion Crow. _Catharista atrata._--Two birds seen.
+
+7. Red-tailed Hawk. _Buteo borealis._--One bird seen from Walden's
+Ridge.
+
+8. Sparrow Hawk. _Falco sparverius._--One bird, on Walden's Ridge.
+
+9. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. _Coccyzus americanus._--Common. First
+noticed April 29.
+
+10. Black-billed Cuckoo. _Coccyzus erythrophthalmus._--Seen twice on
+Lookout Mountain, May 7 and 8, and once on Walden's Ridge, May 12.
+
+11. Belted Kingfisher. _Ceryle alcyon._--A single bird heard on
+Walden's Ridge.
+
+12. Hairy Woodpecker. _Dryobates villosus._--My notes record
+seven birds. No attempt was made to determine their specific or
+sub-specific identity, but they are presumed to have been _D.
+villosus_, not _D. villosus audubonii_.
+
+13. Downy Woodpecker. _Dryobates pubescens._--A single bird was heard
+(not seen) on Walden's Ridge,--a noticeable reversal of the usual
+relative commonness of this species and the preceding.
+
+14. Red-cockaded Woodpecker. _Dryobates borealis._--Found only at
+Chickamauga, on Snodgrass Hill, in long-leaved pines--two or three
+birds.
+
+15. Pileated Woodpecker. "Logcock." _Ceophloeus pileatus._--Said to
+be common on Walden's Ridge, where I heard its flicker-like shout.
+
+16. Red-headed Woodpecker. _Melanerpes erythrocephalus._--One seen
+near Missionary Ridge and one at Chickamauga. The scarcity of this
+bird, and the absence of the red-bellied and the yellow-bellied, were
+among the surprises of my visit.
+
+17. Flicker. Golden-winged Woodpecker. _Colaptes auratus._--Not
+common. Three birds were seen at Chickamauga, and it was occasional
+on Walden's Ridge, where I listed it five days of the seven.
+
+18. Whippoorwill. _Antrostomus vociferus._--Undoubtedly common. I
+heard it only on Walden's Ridge, the only place where I went into the
+woods after dark.
+
+19. Nighthawk. _Chordeiles virginianus._--Common.
+
+20. Chimney Swift. _ChÊtura pelagica._--Abundant.
+
+21. Ruby-throated Humming-bird. _Trochilus colubris._--Common in the
+forests of Walden's Ridge. Seen but twice elsewhere. First seen April
+28.
+
+22. Kingbird. _Tyrannus tyrannus._--Seen but three times--nine
+specimens in all. First seen April 29.
+
+23. Crested Flycatcher. _Myiarchus crinitus._--Noticed daily, with
+two exceptions.
+
+24. Phoebe. _Sayornis phoebe._--Common on Lookout Mountain and
+Walden's Ridge. Not seen elsewhere.
+
+25. Wood Pewee. _Contopus virens._--Very common. Much the most
+numerous member of the family. Present in good force April 27, and
+gathering nest materials April 29.
+
+26. Acadian Flycatcher. Green-crested Flycatcher. _Empidonax
+virescens._--Common.
+
+27. Blue Jay. _Cyanocitta cristata._--Scarce (for the blue jay), and
+not seen on Walden's Ridge!
+
+28. Crow. _Corvus americanus._--Apparently much less common than in
+Eastern Massachusetts.
+
+29. Bobolink. _Dolichonyx oryzivorus._--A small flock seen, and heard
+singing, April 27.
+
+30. Orchard Oriole. _Icterus spurius._--Common, but not found on
+Walden's Ridge.
+
+31. Baltimore Oriole. _Icterus galbula._--A single bird, at
+Chickamauga, May 3.
+
+32. Crow Blackbird. _Quiscalus quiscula?_--Seen on sundry occasions
+in the valley country, but specific distinction not made out. Both
+forms--_Q. quiscula_ and _Q. quiscula Êneus_--are found in Tennessee.
+See Dr. Fox's List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee. "The
+Auk," vol. iii. p. 315. My own list of the IcteridÊ is remarkable for
+its omissions, especially of the cowbird, the red-winged blackbird
+(which, however, I am pretty certain that I saw on the wing) and the
+meadow lark.
+
+33. House Sparrow. English Sparrow. _Passer
+domesticus._--Distressingly superabundant in the city and its suburbs.
+
+34. Goldfinch. _Spinus tristis._--Abundant. Still in flocks.
+
+35. White-crowned Sparrow. _Zonotrichia leucophrys._--Seen but once
+(May 1), two birds, in the national cemetery.
+
+36. White-throated Sparrow. _Zonotrichia albicollis._--Common. Still
+present on Walden's Ridge (in two places) May 13. Sang very little.
+
+37. Chipping Sparrow. Doorstep Sparrow. _Spizella socialis._--Common.
+
+38. Field Sparrow. _Spizella pusilla._--Common.
+
+39. Bachman's Sparrow. _PeucÊa Êstivalis bachmanii._--Common. One of
+the best of singers.
+
+40. Chewink. Towhee. _Pipilo erythrophthalmus._--Rather common. Much
+less numerous than I should have expected from the nature of the
+country.
+
+41. Cardinal Grosbeak. _Cardinalis cardinalis._--Seen daily, but
+seemingly not very numerous.
+
+42. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. _Habia ludoviciana._--A single female,
+May 11.
+
+43. Indigo-bird. _Passerina cyanea._--Very abundant. For the first
+time I saw this tropical-looking beauty in flocks.
+
+44. Scarlet Tanager. _Piranga erythromelas._--Common on the
+mountains, but seemingly rare in the valley.
+
+45. Summer Tanager. _Piranga rubra._--Common throughout.
+
+46. Purple Martin. _Progne subis._--Common.
+
+47. Rough-winged Swallow. _Stelgidopteryx serripennis._--A few birds
+seen.
+
+48. Red-eyed Vireo. _Vireo olivaceus._--Common. One of the species
+listed every day.
+
+49. Yellow-throated Vireo. _Vireo flavifrons._--Common. Seen or heard
+every day except April 27.
+
+50. White-eyed Vireo. _Vireo noveboracensis._--Abundant. Heard every
+day.
+
+51. Black-and-white Creeper. _Mniotilta varia._--Very common.
+
+52. Blue-winged Warbler. _Helminthophila pinus._--One bird seen at
+Chickamauga, and a pair on Missionary Ridge.
+
+53. Golden-winged Warbler. _Helminthophila chrysoptera._--Common,
+especially in the broken woods north of the city.
+
+54. Panda Warbler. Blue Yellow-backed Warbler. _Compsothlypis
+americana._--Only on Walden's Ridge.
+
+55. Cape May Warbler. _Dendroica tigrina._--One bird seen on Cameron
+Hill, and a small company on Lookout Mountain--April 27, and May 7
+and 8.
+
+56. Yellow Warbler. Golden Warbler. _Dendroica Êstiva._--Common, but
+not observed on Walden's Ridge.
+
+57. Black-throated Blue Warbler. _Dendroica cÊrulescens._--Common,
+April 27 to May 14.
+
+58. Myrtle Warbler. Yellow-rumped Warbler. _Dendroica
+coronata._--Noted April 27 and 28, and May 7 and 8.
+
+59. Magnolia Warbler. _Dendroica maculosa._--Not uncommon, May 1 to
+12.
+
+60. Cerulean Warbler. _Dendroica coerulea._--One bird, a male in
+song, on Lookout Mountain.
+
+61. Chestnut-sided Warbler. _Dendroica pensylvanica._--Listed on six
+dates--April 27 to May 12.
+
+62. Bay-breasted Warbler. _Dendroica castanea._--Seven or eight
+individuals--April 27 to May 10.
+
+63. Black-poll Warbler. _Dendroica striata._--Common to May 13.
+
+64. Blackburnian Warbler. _Dendroica blackburniÊ._--Seven birds--May
+1 to 18.
+
+65. Yellow-throated Warbler. _Dendroica dominica._
+(_Albilora?_)--Found only at Chickamauga (Snodgrass Hill), where it
+seemed to be common.
+
+66. Black-throated green Warbler. _Dendroica virens._--Common.
+
+67. Pine Warbler. _Dendroica vigorsii._--Not numerous, but found in
+appropriate places.
+
+68. Palm Warbler. _Dendroica palmarum._--The specific--or
+sub-specific--identity of this bird was not certainly determined, but
+I judged the specimens--seen on four dates, April 29 to May 11--to be
+as above given, rather than _D. palmarum hypochrysea_.
+
+69. Prairie Warbler. _Dendroica discolor._--Very common.
+
+70. Oven-bird. _Seiurus aurocapillus._--Common on Lookout Mountain
+and Walden's Ridge. Seen but once in the lower country.
+
+71. Louisiana Water-thrush. _Seiurus motacilla._--A few birds seen on
+Walden's Ridge.
+
+72. Kentucky Warbler. _Geothlypis formosa._--Very common, and in
+places very unlike.
+
+73. Maryland Yellow-throat. _Geothlypis trichas._--Common.
+
+74. Yellow-breasted Chat. _Icteria virens._--Very common.
+
+75. Hooded Warbler. _Sylvania mitrata._--Common, especially along the
+woodland streams on Walden's Ridge.
+
+76. Wilson's Blackcap. _Sylvania pusilla._--A single bird on Walden's
+Ridge, May 12, in free song.
+
+77. Canadian Warbler. _Sylvania canadensis._--Seen on three
+dates--May 6, 11, and 12.
+
+78. Redstart. _Setophaga ruticilla._--Common. Not seen after May 14.
+
+79. Mocking-bird. _Mimus polyglottos._--Rare. Not found on the
+mountains.
+
+80. Catbird. _Galeoscoptes carolinensis._--Very common, both in the
+city and in the country round about.
+
+81. Brown Thrasher. _Harporhynchus rufus._--Common.
+
+82. Carolina Wren. Mocking Wren. _Thryothorus ludovicianus._--Common.
+
+83. Bewick's Wren. _Thryothorus bewickii._--Not common. Seen only on
+Missionary Ridge.
+
+84. White-breasted Nuthatch. _Sitta carolinensis._--Common at
+Chickamauga and on Walden's Ridge. A single bird noticed on Lookout
+Mountain.
+
+85. Tufted Titmouse. _Parus bicolor._--Common.
+
+86. Carolina Chickadee. _Parus carolinensis._--Common.
+
+87. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. _Polioptila cÊrulea._--Common.
+
+88. Wood Thrush. _Turdus mustelinus._--Very common. A bird with
+its beak full of nest materials was seen April 29, at the base of
+Missionary Ridge.
+
+89. Wilson's Thrush. Veery. _Turdus fuscescens._--Rare.
+
+90. Gray-cheeked Thrush. _Turdus aliciÊ_, or _T. aliciÊ
+bicknelli_.--Two birds, May 2 and 13.
+
+91. Swainson's Thrush. Olive-backed Thrush. _Turdus ustulatus
+swainsonii._--In good numbers and free song. Seen on four dates, the
+latest being May 12.
+
+92. Robin. _Merula migratoria._--Five birds in the national cemetery,
+April 29.
+
+93. Bluebird. _Sialia sialis._--Common. Young birds out of the nest,
+April 28.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+    Arbutus, 137.
+    Azalea:--
+      flame-colored, 178.
+      pink, 182.
+      white, 132.
+
+    Baptisia, blue, 14, 93.
+    Blackbird:--
+      crow, 99.
+      red-winged, 215.
+    Bluebird, 9, 13, 78, 99, 111, 207.
+    Bobolink, 205, 209.
+    Buzzard, turkey, 6, 188.
+
+    Catbird, 6, 17, 25, 43, 47, 78, 99, 111, 183, 207.
+    Catchfly, scarlet, 15, 85, 109.
+    Cedar-bird, 207.
+    Chat, yellow-breasted, 3, 6, 9, 13, 17, 19, 27, 47, 55, 99, 110,
+        121, 135, 204.
+    Chewink, 6, 13, 207.
+    Chickadee, blackcap, 98.
+    Chickadee, Carolina, 13, 25, 71, 88.
+    Cowslip, 85.
+    Cranesbill, 34, 85.
+    Creeper, black-and-white, 6, 12, 33, 42, 117, 204, 207.
+    Cross-vine, 23, 137, 181.
+    Crow, 42, 189.
+    Cuckoo:--
+      black-billed, 31, 42.
+      yellow-billed, 19, 24, 71, 99, 111, 117.
+
+    Dogwood, flowering, 136.
+    Dove, mourning, 24.
+
+    Fern:--
+      cinnamon, 148.
+      maiden-hair, 47.
+    Finch:--
+      Bachman's, 2, 6, 9, 13, 25, 66, 78, 81, 110, 118, 193, 194, 210.
+      purple, 194.
+    Flicker, 66, 78, 190.
+    Flycatcher:--
+      Acadian, 17, 24, 26, 62, 117.
+      crested, 9, 13, 67, 71, 87.
+      yellow-bellied, 206.
+    Fringe-tree, 135.
+
+    Ginger, wild, 137.
+    Gnatcatcher, blue-gray, 6, 13, 18, 55, 99, 110.
+    Goldfinch, 13, 17, 24, 25, 47, 78, 111.
+    Gromwell, 85, 92.
+    Grosbeak:--
+      cardinal, 6, 13, 23, 26, 42, 135, 146, 162.
+      rose-breasted, 119, 194.
+    Grouse, ruffed (pheasant), 167.
+
+    Hawk:--
+      red-tailed, 169, 187.
+      sparrow, 174, 187.
+    Hieracium, 122.
+    Houstonia, 23, 61, 85, 93.
+    Humming-bird, ruby-throated, 109, 178, 191.
+
+    Indigo-bird, 6, 9, 13, 17, 47, 55, 72, 78, 110, 111, 121, 204.
+
+    Jay, blue, 178, 189.
+
+    Kingbird, 13, 87.
+    Kinglet, golden-crowned, 97.
+
+    Lady's-slipper, yellow, 178.
+    Lizard, 43, 55.
+    Locust, seventeen-year, 55, 70, 83, 114, 149.
+
+    Magnolia, 136, 148.
+    Martin, purple, 6, 185.
+    Maryland yellow-throat, 6, 13, 47, 61, 70, 185.
+    Milkweed, 92, 142.
+    Mistletoe, 110.
+    Mocking-bird, 6, 78, 82, 94, 183.
+    Mountain Laurel, 132, 135, 147, 169, 173, 176.
+
+    Nuthatch, white-breasted (Carolina), 58, 61, 82.
+
+    Oriole:--
+      Baltimore, 78.
+      orchard, 13, 78, 99, 111, 185.
+    Oven-bird, 31, 33, 42, 122, 196.
+    Oxalis:--
+      violet, 34, 61, 85.
+      yellow, 85.
+
+    Pentstemon, 61, 122.
+    Pewee, wood, 6, 17, 33, 62, 71, 78, 99, 117, 135.
+    Phlox, 23, 34, 61, 85, 122.
+    Phoebe, 28, 41, 207.
+    Pink, Indian, 15.
+
+    Quail, 6, 71, 122.
+
+    Ragwort (Senecio), 93, 122.
+    Raven, 130.
+    Redstart, 6, 13, 25, 108, 117.
+    Rhododendron, 135-137, 147, 169, 173, 176, 181.
+    Robin, 96, 207, 210.
+    Rue anemone, 62, 85.
+
+    Saxifrage, 34.
+    Sparrow:--
+      Bachman's (see FINCH).
+      chipping, 6, 13, 26, 99, 111, 193, 207.
+      field, 6, 13, 17, 25, 47, 55, 62, 67, 70, 87, 117, 135, 193.
+      house (English) 93, 183, 185.
+      song, 4, 194, 205, 210.
+      vesper, 194, 207, 210.
+      white-crowned, 96.
+      white-throated, 6, 26, 95, 135, 142, 208.
+    Specularia, 122.
+    Spring beauty, 61, 85.
+    Stonecrop, white, 34.
+    Swallow:--
+      rough-winged, 22, 87, 88, 187.
+      tree (white-bellied), 187, 205, 207.
+    Sweet bush, 137.
+    Swift, chimney, 189.
+
+    Tanager:--
+      scarlet, 20, 24, 33, 41, 118, 131, 135, 162.
+      summer, 3, 6, 13, 17, 20, 47, 70, 78, 120, 131.
+    Thrasher (brown thrush), 6, 7, 13, 17, 33, 82, 99, 111, 183, 207.
+    Thrush:--
+      gray-cheeked, 141.
+      hermit, 207.
+      Louisiana water, 163.
+      olive-backed (Swainson's), 7, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 24, 133, 208.
+      Wilson's (veery), 13, 14, 25, 111.
+      wood, 6, 13, 14, 17, 33, 47, 87, 99, 117, 120, 135.
+    Titmouse, tufted, 13, 14, 61, 70.
+    Tulip-tree, 178, 193.
+    Tupelo, 23.
+    Turkey, wild, 81, 130, 140.
+
+    Viburnum, maple-leaved, 34.
+    Violet, bird-foot, 34, 85.
+    Vireo:--
+      red-eyed, 6, 13, 33, 42, 47, 55, 70.
+      solitary, 207.
+      white-eyed, 6, 9, 13, 17, 47, 110, 121, 204, 207.
+      yellow-throated, 9, 13, 33, 70, 99, 117.
+    Vulture:--
+      black (carrion crow), 111, 188.
+      turkey, 6, 188.
+
+    Warbler:--
+      bay-breasted, 6, 28, 32, 38, 49, 208.
+      Blackburnian, 30, 31, 38, 204.
+      black-poll, 6, 12, 19, 28, 32, 38, 42, 49, 61, 81, 96, 117, 198,
+          204, 208.
+      black-throated blue, 12, 31, 32, 37, 135, 157.
+      black-throated green, 28, 31, 135, 156, 202.
+      blue-winged, 20, 22, 71, 79, 80.
+      blue yellow-backed, 21, 134, 135.
+      Canadian, 21, 22, 23, 117, 135, 204.
+      Cape May, 32, 37, 39, 198, 200, 204, 208.
+      cerulean, 53.
+      chestnut-sided, 12, 25, 117, 204.
+      Connecticut, 14.
+      golden-winged, 13, 110, 120, 195.
+      hooded, 7, 48, 135, 146, 156, 203.
+      Kentucky, 9, 13, 14, 19, 24, 35, 47, 49, 109, 110, 116, 122, 132,
+          135, 156, 202-204.
+      magnolia, 19, 30, 32, 37, 117, 204.
+      mourning, 206.
+      myrtle (yellow-rumped), 6, 12, 32, 39, 198, 204, 207, 208.
+      Nashville, 195.
+      palm (red-poll), 32, 38, 117, 204, 207.
+      pine, 25, 175, 207.
+      prairie, 6, 21, 25, 110, 121, 203, 207.
+      Tennessee, 195.
+      Wilson's blackcap, 136, 204.
+      yellow (golden), 12, 99, 108, 185, 203,
+      yellow-throated, 72, 73, 75, 80.
+    Water-thrush, Louisiana, 163.
+    Whippoorwill, 143.
+    Wintergreen, striped, 34.
+    Woodpecker:--
+      downy, 191.
+      golden-winged, 66, 190.
+      hairy, 30, 190.
+      pileated, 191.
+      red-cockaded, 67, 73, 80, 191.
+      red-headed, 80, 190, 191.
+    Wren:--
+      Bewick's, 4.
+      Carolina (mocking), 6, 13, 17, 25, 26, 28, 42, 47, 55, 71, 109,
+          162.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45708 ***
diff --git a/45708/45708-h/45708-h.htm b/45708-h/45708-h.htm
index c478d90..fed3ed2 100644
--- a/45708/45708-h/45708-h.htm
+++ b/45708-h/45708-h.htm
@@ -1,7324 +1,6907 @@
-<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"

-    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

-  <head>

-    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />

-    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />

-    <title>

-      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Spring Notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey.

-    </title>

-

-<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover-page.jpg"/>

-

-    <style type="text/css">

-

-body {

-    margin-left: 10%;

-    margin-right: 10%;

-}

-

-    h1,h2,h3 {

-    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */

-    clear: both;

-}

-

-p {

-    margin-top: .51em;

-    text-align: justify;

-    margin-bottom: .49em;

-}

-

-.p2       {margin-top: 2em;}

-

-hr {

-    width: 33%;

-    margin-top: 2em;

-    margin-bottom: 2em;

-    margin-left: 33.5%;

-    margin-right: 33.5%;

-    clear: both;

-}

-

-hr.tb   {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;}

-hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;}

-hr.r5  {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;}

-

-ul li {list-style-type: none;}

-

-

-.break-before {page-break-before: always;} /* p class */

-

-

-big { font-size:140%; }

-

-table {

-    margin-left: auto;

-    margin-right: auto;

-}

-

-

-.spaced {

-        line-height: 1.5;

-}

-

-.signature {

-  margin-right: 25%;

-   text-align: right;}

-

-

-.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */

-    /*  visibility: hidden;  */

-    position: absolute;

-    left: 92%;

-    font-size: smaller;

-    text-align: right;

-} /* page numbers */

-

-

-.bbox     {border: solid thin;

-        width: 28em; margin: 0 auto;}

-

-.center   {text-align: center;}

-

-.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}

-

-

-/* Images */

-.figcenter   {

-    margin: auto;

-    text-align: center;

-}

-

-

-/* Footnotes */

-.footnotes        {border: dashed thin;}

-

-.footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}

-

-.footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}

-

-.fnanchor {

-    vertical-align: super;

-    font-size: .8em;

-    text-decoration:

-    none;

-}

-

-/* Poetry */

-

-.cpoem {width: 19em; margin: 0 auto;}

-.cpoem br {display: none;}

-.cpoem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}

-    .cpoem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}

-    .cpoem span.i8     {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}

-    .cpoem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}

-

-

-    </style>

-  </head>

-<body>

-

-

-<pre>

-

-Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

-

-

-Title: Spring notes from Tennessee

-

-Author: Bradford Torrey

-

-Release Date: May 21, 2014 [EBook #45708]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by JoAnn Greenwood, and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-</pre>

-

-

-

-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 502px;">

-<img src="images/cover-page.jpg" width="502" height="800" alt="" />

-<br /><br /></div>

-

-

-<div class="bbox">

-<p class="center"><b>Books by Mr. Torrey.</b></p>

-

-<hr class="r5" />

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.</p>

-

-<p>A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.</p>

-

-<p>THE FOOT-PATH WAY. 16mo, gilt top,

-$1.25.</p>

-

-<p>A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK. 16mo, $1.25.</p>

-

-<p>SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.

-16mo, $1.25.</p></blockquote>

-

-

-<p class="center spaced">HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN &amp; CO.<br />

-<span class="smcap">Boston and New York.</span></p>

-</div>

-

-

-

-<h1>SPRING NOTES FROM

-TENNESSEE</h1>

-

-<p class="center spaced">BY<br />

-<big>BRADFORD TORREY</big><br /><br /></p>

-

-

-<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">We travelled in the print of olden wars;<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">Yet all the land was green.<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-

-<p class="signature"><span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson.</span><br /><br /></p>

-

-

-

-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 233px;">

-<img src="images/i003.jpg" width="233" height="300" alt="" />

-</div>

-

-<p class="p2 center">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />

-HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br />

-The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br />

-1896</p>

-

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-

-

-<p class="break-before center spaced">Copyright, 1896,<br />

-<span class="smcap">By BRADFORD TORREY</span>.</p>

-

-

-<p class="p2 center"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p>

-

-

-<p class="p2 center"><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.</i><br />

-

-Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton &amp; Co.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-

-<p class="break-before center"><big>CONTENTS.</big></p>

-

-

-<div class="center">

-<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">

-<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#AN_IDLER_ON_MISSIONARY_RIDGE"><span class="smcap">An Idler on Missionary Ridge</span></a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#LOOKOUT_MOUNTAIN"><span class="smcap">Lookout Mountain</span></a></td><td align="right">28</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHICKAMAUGA"><span class="smcap">Chickamauga</span></a></td><td align="right">57</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ORCHARD_KNOB_AND_THE_NATIONAL"><span class="smcap">Orchard Knob and the National Cemetery</span></a></td><td align="right">89</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#AN_AFTERNOON_BY_THE_RIVER"><span class="smcap">An Afternoon by the River</span></a></td><td align="right">102</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#A_MORNING_IN_THE_NORTH_WOODS"><span class="smcap">A Morning in the North Woods</span></a></td><td align="right">113</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#A_WEEK_ON_WALDENS_RIDGE"><span class="smcap">A Week on Walden's Ridge</span></a></td><td align="right">124</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#SOME_TENNESSEE_BIRD_NOTES"><span class="smcap">Some Tennessee Bird Notes</span></a></td><td align="right">183</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#A_LIST_OF_BIRDS"><span class="smcap">A List of Birds</span></a></td><td align="right">213</td></tr>

-<tr><td align="left"><a href="#INDEX"><span class="smcap">Index</span></a></td><td align="right">221</td></tr>

-</table></div>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p class="break-before"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<p class="center"><big>SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.</big></p>

-

-

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-<h2><a name="AN_IDLER_ON_MISSIONARY_RIDGE" id="AN_IDLER_ON_MISSIONARY_RIDGE">AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE.</a></h2>

-

-

-<p>I reached Chattanooga on the evening

-of April 26th, in the midst of a rattling

-thunder-shower,&mdash;which, to look back upon

-it, seems to have been prophetic,&mdash;and the

-next morning, after an early breakfast,

-took an electric car for Missionary Ridge.

-Among my fellow-passengers were four

-Louisiana veterans fresh from their annual

-reunion at Birmingham, where, doubtless,

-their hearts had been kindled by much fervent

-oratory, as well as by much private

-talk of those bygone days when they did

-everything but die for the cause they loved.

-As the car mounted the Ridge, one of them

-called his companions' attention to a place

-down the valley where "the Rebels and the

-Yankees" (his own words) used to meet to

-play cards. "A regular gambling-hole,"

-he called it. Their boys brought back lots<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>

-of coffee. In another direction was a spot

-where the Rebels once "had a regular picnic,"

-killing some extraordinary number of

-Yankees in some incredibly brief time. I

-interrupted the conversation, and at the

-same time made myself known as a stranger

-and a Northerner, by inquiring after

-the whereabouts of Orchard Knob, General

-Grant's headquarters; and the same man,

-who seemed to be the spokesman of the

-party, after pointing out the place, a savin-sprinkled

-knoll between us and the city,

-kindly invited me to go with him and his

-comrades up to the tower,&mdash;on the site of

-General Bragg's headquarters,&mdash;where he

-would show me the whole battlefield and

-tell me about the fight.</p>

-

-<p>We left the car together for that purpose,

-and walked up the slope to the foot of the

-observatory,&mdash;an open structure of iron,

-erected by the national government; but

-just then my ear caught somewhere beyond

-us the song of a Bachman's finch,&mdash;a song

-I had heard a year before in the pine woods

-of Florida, and, in my ignorance, was unprepared

-for here. I must see the bird and

-make sure of its identity. It led me a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>

-chase, and when I had seen it I must look

-also at a summer tanager, a chat, and so on,

-one thing leading to another; and by the

-time I returned to the observatory the veterans

-had come down and were under some

-apple-trees, from one of which the spokesman

-was cutting a big walking-stick. He

-had stood under those trees&mdash;which were

-now in bloom&mdash;thirty years before, he said,

-with General Bragg himself.</p>

-

-<p>I was sorry to have missed his story of

-the battle, and ashamed to have seemed ungrateful

-and rude, but I forget what apology

-I offered. At this distance it is hard to see

-how I could have got out of the affair with

-much dignity. I might have heard all about

-the battle from a man who was there, and

-instead I went off to listen to a sparrow

-singing in a bush. I thought, to be sure,

-that the men would be longer upon the observatory,

-and that I should still be in season.

-Probably that was my excuse, if I

-made one; and in all likelihood the veteran

-was too completely taken up with his own

-concerns to think twice about the vagaries

-of a stray Yankee, who seemed to be an odd

-stick, to say nothing worse of him. Well,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>

-the loss, such as it was, was mine, not his;

-and I have lost too much time in the way

-of business to fret over a little lost (or

-saved) in the way of pleasure. As for any

-apparent lack of patriotic feeling, I suppose

-that the noblest patriot in the world, if he

-chanced to be also an ornithologist, would

-notice a bird even amid the smoke of battle;

-and why should not I do as much on a

-field from which the battle smoke had vanished

-thirty years before?</p>

-

-<p>So I reason now; at the time I had no

-leisure for such sophistries. Every moment

-brought some fresh distraction. The long

-hill&mdash;woodland, brambly pasture, and

-shrubby dooryard&mdash;was a nest of singing

-birds; and when at last I climbed the

-tower, I came down again almost as suddenly

-as my Louisiana friends had done.

-The landscape,&mdash;the city and its suburbs,

-the river, the mountains,&mdash;all this would

-be here to-morrow; just now there were

-other things to look at. Here in the grass,

-almost under my nose, were a pair of Bewick

-wrens, hopping and walking by turns,

-as song sparrows may sometimes be found

-doing; conscious through and through of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>

-my presence, yet affecting to ignore it; carrying

-themselves with an indescribable and

-pretty demureness, as if a nest were something

-never dreamed of by birds of their

-kind; the female, nevertheless, having at

-that moment her beak bristling with straws,

-while the male, a proud young husband,

-hovered officiously about her with a continual

-sweetly possessive manner and an

-occasional burst of song. Till yesterday

-Bewick's wren had been nothing but a name

-to me. Then, somewhere after crossing the

-state line, the train stopped at a station, and

-suddenly through the open window came a

-song. "That's a Bewick wren," I said to

-myself, as I stepped across the aisle to look

-out; and there he stood, on the fence beside

-the track, his long tail striking the eye on

-the instant. He sang again, and once again,

-before the train started. Tennessee was

-beginning well with a visiting bird-gazer.</p>

-

-<p>There must be some wrennish quality

-about the Bewick's song, it would seem:

-else how did I recognize it so promptly?

-And yet, so far as I am able to give an

-account of my own impressions, it had in

-my ears no resemblance to any wren song I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>

-had ever heard. I think it never suggested

-to me any music except the song sparrow's.

-The truth is, I suppose, that we <em>feel</em> resemblances

-and relationships of which the mind

-takes no cognizance.</p>

-

-<p>I wandered at a venture down the further

-slope, turning this way and that as a song

-invited me. Here were Southerners and

-Northerners fraternally commingled: summer

-tanagers, Carolina wrens, blue-gray

-gnatcatchers, cardinal grosbeaks, chats,

-Bachman finches, field sparrows, chippers,

-white-throated sparrows, chewinks, indigo

-buntings, black-poll warblers, myrtle-birds,

-prairie warblers, a Maryland yellow-throat,

-a bay-breasted warbler, a black-and-white

-creeper, a redstart, brown thrushes, catbirds,

-a single mocking-bird, wood

-thrushes, red-eyed vireos, white-eyed vireos,

-wood pewees, a quail, and, in the air, purple

-martins and turkey buzzards. On the

-Ridge, as well as near the foot on our way

-up, a mocking-bird and a wood thrush sang

-within hearing of each other. Comparison as

-between birds so dissimilar is useless and out

-of place; but how shall a man avoid it? The

-mocking-bird is a great vocalist,&mdash;yes, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>

-a great singer; but to my Northern ears the

-wood thrush carried the day with his <em>voice</em>.</p>

-

-<p>Having climbed the Ridge again,&mdash;though

-climbing might be thought rather

-too laborious a word for so gradual a slope,&mdash;and

-started down on the side toward the

-city, I came to a patch of blackberry vines,

-in the midst of which sat a thrasher on her

-nest, all a mother's anxiety in her staring

-yellow eyes. Close by her stood an olive-backed

-thrush. There, too, was my first

-hooded warbler, a female. She escaped me

-the next instant, though I made an eager

-chase, not knowing yet how common birds

-of her sort were to prove in that Chattanooga

-country.</p>

-

-<p>In my delight at finding Missionary Ridge

-so happy a hunting-ground for an opera-glass

-naturalist, I went thither again the very

-next morning. This time some Virginia

-veterans were in the car (they all wore

-badges), and when we had left it, and were

-about separating,&mdash;after a bit of talk about

-the battle, of course,&mdash;one of them, with

-almost painful scrupulosity, insisted upon assuring

-me that if the thing were all to be

-done over again, he should do just as before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>

-One of his comrades, seeing me a Northerner,

-interrupted him more than once in a vain

-attempt to smooth matters over. They had

-buried the hatchet, he said; let bygones be

-bygones. But the first man was not to be

-cajoled with a phrase. He spoke without

-passion, with no raising of the voice, quite

-simply and amicably: he too accepted the

-result; the thing never <em>would</em> be done over

-again; only let his position be understood,&mdash;he

-had nothing to take back. It was impossible

-not to respect such conscientiousness.

-For my own part, at any rate, I felt

-no prompting to argue against it, being sufficiently

-"opinionated" to appreciate a difficulty

-which some obstinate people experience

-in altering their convictions as circumstances

-change, or accepting the failure of a cause as

-proof of its injustice. If a man is not <em>too</em>

-obstinate, to be sure, time and the course of

-events may bring him new light; but that

-is another matter. Once, when the men

-were talking among themselves, I overheard

-one say, as he pointed down the hill, "The

-Rebels were there, and the Union men yonder."

-That careless recurrence of the word

-"Rebel" came to me as a surprise.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>The principal excitement of the morning

-was a glimpse of a Kentucky warbler, a bird

-most peculiarly desired. I had finished my

-jaunt, and was standing beside the bramble

-patch not far from the railway, where I had

-seen the hooded warbler the day before, when

-the splendid creature flashed into sight, saw

-me, uttered a volley of quick, clear notes,

-and vanished up the hillside. I ran after

-him, but might as well have remained where

-I was. "He <em>is</em> a beauty!" I find written

-in my notebook. And so he is, clothed

-in lustrous olive and the most gorgeous of

-yellows with trimmings of black, all in the

-best of taste, with nothing patchy, nothing

-fantastic or even fanciful. I was again impressed

-with the abundance of chats, indigo-birds,

-and white-eyed vireos. Bachman sparrows

-were numerous, also, in appropriate

-localities,&mdash;dry and bushy,&mdash;and I noted a

-bluebird, a yellow-throated vireo, and, shouting

-from a dead treetop, a great crested flycatcher.</p>

-

-<p>My most vivid recollection of this second

-visit, however, is of the power of the sun, an

-old enemy of mine, by whom, in my ignorance

-of spring weather in Tennessee, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>

-allowed myself to be taken at a cruel noonday

-disadvantage. Even now, in the deep

-frigidity of a Massachusetts winter, I cannot

-think of Missionary Ridge without seeing

-again those long stretches of burning sunshine,

-wherein the least spot of shade was

-like a palm in the desert. In every such

-shelter I used to stand awhile, bareheaded;

-then, marking the next similar haven, so

-many rods ahead, I would hoist my umbrella

-and push forward, cringing at every step as

-if I were crossing a field under fire. Possibly

-I exaggerate, but, if I do, it is very little;

-and though it be an abuse of an exquisite

-poem, I say over to myself again and again

-a couplet of Miss Guiney's:&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">"Weather on a sunny ridge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Showery weather, far from here."<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>In truth, early as the season was, the excessive

-heat, combined with a trying dog-day

-humidity, sadly circumscribed all my Tennessee

-rambles. As for my umbrella, my

-obligations to it were such that nothing but

-a dread of plagiarism has restrained me from

-entitling this sketch "An Umbrella on Missionary

-Ridge." Nature never intended me

-for a tropical explorer. Often I did nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>

-more than seek a shady retreat and stay

-there, letting the birds come to me, if they

-would.</p>

-

-<p>Improved after this indolent fashion, one

-of the hottest of my forenoons became also

-one of the most enjoyable. I left the car

-midway up the Ridge,&mdash;at the angle of the

-Y,&mdash;and, passing my thrasher's blackberry

-tangle and descending a wooded slope, found

-myself unexpectedly in a pleasant place, half

-wood, half grassy field, through which ran a

-tiny streamlet, the first one I had seen in

-this dry and thirsty land. Near the streamlet,

-on the edge of the wood, quite by itself,

-stood a cabin of most forlorn appearance,

-with a garden patch under the window,&mdash;if

-there <em>was</em> a window, as to which I do not

-remember, and the chances seem against it,&mdash;the

-whole closely and meanly surrounded

-by a fence. In the door stood an aged white

-woman, looking every whit as old and forlorn

-as the cabin, with a tall mastiff on one

-side of her and a black cat on the other.</p>

-

-<p>"Your dog and cat are good friends," I

-remarked, feeling it polite to speak even to

-a stranger in so lonesome a spot.</p>

-

-<p>"Yes," she answered gruffly, "they're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>

-good friends, only once in a while he wants

-to kill her."</p>

-

-<p>She said nothing more, and her manner

-did not encourage further attempts at neighborly

-intercourse; but as I passed the cabin

-now and then during the forenoon, the birds

-leading me about, I heard her muttering

-often and at considerable length to her hens

-and ducks. Evidently she enjoyed conversation

-as well as most people, only she liked

-to pick her own company. She was "Aunt

-Tilly," I learned afterwards, and had lived

-there by herself for many years; one of the

-characters of the city, a fortune-teller, whose

-professional services were in frequent request.</p>

-

-<p>In this favored nook, especially along the

-watercourse, were many birds, some of them

-at home for the summer, but the greater

-part, no doubt, lying over for a day or two

-on their long northward journey. Not one

-of them but was interesting to me here

-in a new country, however familiar it might

-have become in New England. Here were

-at least eleven kinds of warblers: black-polls

-of both sexes, black-throated blues, chestnut-sides,

-myrtle-birds, golden warblers, black-and-white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>

-creepers, redstarts (have we

-anything handsomer?), Maryland yellow-throats,

-blue golden-wings, chats, and Kentuckies.

-Here were blue-gray gnatcatchers,

-bluebirds, wood thrushes, veeries, an olive-backed

-thrush, catbirds, thrashers, Carolina

-wrens, tufted titmice, a Carolina chickadee,

-summer tanagers uncounted, orchard orioles,

-field sparrows, chippers, a Bachman sparrow

-(unseen), a cardinal, a chewink, flocks of

-indigo-birds and goldfinches, red-eyed vireos,

-white-eyed vireos, a yellow-throated vireo,

-kingbirds, and a crested flycatcher.</p>

-

-<p>In an oak at the corner of Aunt Tilly's

-cabin a pair of gnatcatchers had built a nest;

-an exquisite piece of work, large and curiously

-cylindrical,&mdash;not tapering at the base,&mdash;set

-off with a profusion of gray lichens,

-and saddled upon one limb directly under

-another, as if for shelter. If the gnatcatcher

-is not a great singer (his voice is slender,

-like himself), he is near the head of his profession

-as an architect and a builder. Twice,

-in the most senseless manner, one of the

-birds&mdash;the female, I had no doubt, in spite

-of the adjective just applied to her conduct&mdash;stood

-beside the nest and scolded at me;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>

-then, having freed her mind and attracted

-my attention, she got inside and began pecking

-here and there at the rim, apparently

-giving it the final touches. The tufted tits

-whistled unseen with all their characteristic

-monotony. The veeries and the olive-back

-kept silence, but the wood thrushes, as was

-their daily habit, made the woods ring. One

-of them was building a nest.</p>

-

-<p>Most admired of all were the Kentucky

-warblers, of which there were at least five.

-It was my first real sight of them, and, fortunately,

-they were not in the least bashful.

-They spent the time mostly on the ground,

-in open, grassy places, especially about the

-roots of trees and thorn-bushes,&mdash;the latter

-now snowy with bloom,&mdash;once in a while

-hopping a few inches up the bole, as if to

-pick off insects. In movement and attitude

-they made me think often of the Connecticut

-warbler, although when startled they

-took a higher perch. Once I saw one of

-them under a pretty tuft of the showy blue

-baptisia (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">B. australis</i>),&mdash;a new bird in

-the shadow of a new flower! Who says

-that life is an old story? From the general

-manner of the birds,&mdash;more easily felt than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>

-defined,&mdash;as well as from their presence in

-a group and their silence, I inferred, rightly

-or wrongly, that they had but recently arrived.

-For aught I yet knew, they might

-be nothing but wayfarers,&mdash;a happy uncertainty

-which made them only the more interesting.

-Of their beauty I have already

-spoken. It would be impossible to speak of

-it too highly.</p>

-

-<p>As I took the car at noon, I caught sight

-of a wonderfully bright blood-red flower on

-the bank above the track, and, as I was the

-only passenger, the conductor kindly waited

-for me to run up and pluck it. It turned

-out to be a catchfly, and, like the Kentucky

-warbler, it became common a little later.

-"Indian pink," one of my Walden's Ridge

-friends said it was called; a pretty name,

-but to me "battlefield pink" or "carnage

-pink" would have seemed more appropriate.</p>

-

-<p>I had found an aviary, I thought, this

-open grove of Aunt Tilly's, with its treasure

-of a brook, and at the earliest opportunity I

-went that way again. Indeed, I went more

-than once. But the birds were no longer

-there. What I had seen was mainly a flock

-of "transients," a migratory "wave." On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>

-the farther side of the Ridge, however, I by

-and by discovered a spot more permanently

-attractive,&mdash;a little valley in the hillside.

-Here was a spring, and from it, nearly dry

-as it was, there still oozed a slender rill,

-which trickled halfway down the slope

-before losing itself in the sand, and here

-and there dribbled into a basin commodious

-enough for a small bird's bath. Several

-times I idled away an hour or two in this

-retreat, under the shadow of red maples,

-sweet-gums, sycamores, and tupelos, making

-an occasional sortie into the sun as an adventurous

-mood came over me or a distant

-bird-call proved an irresistible attraction.</p>

-

-<p>They were pleasant hours, but I recall

-them with a sense of waste and discomfort.

-In familiar surroundings, such waitings

-upon Nature's mood are profitable, wholesome

-for body and soul; but in vacation

-time, and away from home, with new paths

-beckoning a man this way and that, and a

-new bird, for aught he can tell, singing beyond

-the next hill,&mdash;at such a time, I think,

-sitting still becomes a burden, and the cheerful

-practice of "a wise passiveness" a virtue

-beyond the comfortable reach of ordinary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>

-flesh and blood. Along the upper edge of

-the glen a road ran downward into the valley

-east of the Ridge, and now and then a

-carriage or a horseman passed. It would

-have been good to follow them. All that

-valley country, as I surveyed it from the

-railway and the tower, had an air of invitingness:

-beautiful woods, with footpaths

-and unfrequented roads. In them I must

-have found birds, flowers, and many a delightful

-nook. If the Fates could have sent

-me one cool day!</p>

-

-<p>Yet for all my complaining, I have lived

-few more enjoyable Sunday forenoons than

-one that I passed most inactively in this

-same hillside hollow. As I descended the

-bank to the spring, two or three goldfinches

-were singing (goldfinch voices go uncommonly

-well in chorus, and the birds seem to

-know it); a female tanager sat before me

-calling <em>clippity</em>, <em>clippity</em>; a field sparrow,

-a mocking wren, and a catbird sang in as

-many different directions; and a pair of

-thrashers&mdash;whose nest could not be far

-away&mdash;flitted nervously about, uttering

-characteristic moaning whistles. If they

-felt half as badly as their behavior indicated,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>

-their case was tragical indeed; but

-at the moment, instead of pitying them,

-I fell to wondering just when it is that

-the thrasher <em>smacks</em> (all friends of his are

-familiar with his resounding imitation of a

-kiss), and when it is that he whistles. I

-have never made out, although I believe I

-know pretty well the states of mind thus

-expressed. The thrasher is to a peculiar

-degree a bird of passion; ecstatic in song,

-furious in anger, irresistibly pitiful in lamentation.

-How any man can rob a thrasher's

-nest with that heartbroken whistle in his

-ears is more than I can imagine.</p>

-

-<p>Indigo-birds are here, of course. Their

-number is one of the marvels of this country,&mdash;though

-indeed the country seems

-made for them, as it is also for chats and

-white-eyed vireos. A bit farther down the

-valley, as I come to the maples and tupelos,

-with their grateful density of shade, a wood

-pewee sings, and then a wood thrush. At

-the same moment, an Acadian flycatcher,

-who is always here (his nest is building

-overhead, as, after a while, I discover), salutes

-me with a quick, spiteful note. "No

-trespassing," he says. Landowners are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>

-pretty much alike. I pass on, but not far,

-and beside a little thicket I take up my

-stand, and wait. It is pleasant here, and

-patience will be rewarded. Yes, there is

-a magnolia warbler, my second Tennessee

-specimen; a great beauty, but without that

-final perfection of good taste (simplicity)

-which distinguishes the Kentucky. I see

-him, and he is gone, and I am not to be

-drawn into a chase. Now I have a glimpse

-of a thrush; an olive-back, from what I can

-see, but I cannot be sure. Still I keep my

-place. A blue-gray gnatcatcher is drawling

-somewhere in the leafy treetops. Thence,

-too, a cuckoo fires off a lively fusillade of

-<em>kuks</em>,&mdash;a yellow-bill, by that token. Next

-a black-poll warbler shows himself, still

-far from home, though he has already traveled

-a long way northward; and then, in

-one of the basins of the stream (if we may

-call it a stream, in which there is no semblance

-of a current), a chat comes to wash

-himself. Now I see the thrush again; or

-rather, I hear him whistle, and by moving a

-step or two I get him with my eye. He <em>is</em>

-an olive-back, as his whistle of itself would

-prove; and presently he begins to sing, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>

-my intense delight. Soon two others are in

-voice with him. Am I on Missionary Ridge

-or in the Crawford Notch? I stand motionless,

-and listen and listen, but my enjoyment

-is interrupted by a new pleasure. A

-warbler, evidently a female, from a certain

-quietness and plainness, and, as I take it,

-a blue-winged yellow, though I have never

-seen a female of that species (and only once

-a male&mdash;three days ago at Chickamauga),

-comes to the edge of the pool, and in another

-minute her mate is beside her. Him

-there is no mistaking. They fly away in a

-bit of lovers' quarrel, a favorite pastime

-with mated birds. And look! there is a

-scarlet tanager; the same gorgeous fellow,

-I suppose, that was here two days ago, and

-the only one I have seen in this lower country.

-What a beauty he is! One of the finest;

-handsomer, so I think, than the handsomest

-of his all-red cousins. Now he calls

-<em>chip-cherr</em>, and now he breaks into song.

-There he falls behind; his cousin's voice is

-less hoarse, and his style less labored and

-jerky.</p>

-

-<p>Now straight before me, up a woody aisle,

-an olive-backed thrush stands in full view<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>

-and a perfect light, facing me and singing,

-a lovely chorister. Looking at him, I catch

-a flutter of yellow and black among the

-leaves by the streamlet; a Kentucky warbler,

-I suspect, but I dare not go forward to see,

-for now the thrushes are in chorus again.

-By and by he comes up from his bath, and

-falls to dressing his feathers: not a Kentucky,

-after all, but a Canadian flycatcher,

-my first one here. He, too, is an exquisite,

-with fine colors finely laid on, and a most

-becoming jet necklace. While I am admiring

-him, a blue yellow-back begins to practice

-his scales&mdash;still a little blurred, and

-needing practice, a critic might say&mdash;somewhere

-at my right among the hillside oaks;

-another exquisite, a beauty among beauties.

-I see him, though he is out of sight. And

-what seems odd, at this very moment his

-rival as a singer of the scale, the prairie warbler,

-breaks out on the other side of me.

-Like the chat and the indigo-bird, he is

-abundantly at home hereabout.</p>

-

-<p>All this woodland music is set off by

-spaces of silence, sweeter almost than the

-music itself. Here is peace unbroken; here

-is a delicious coolness, while the sun blazes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>

-upon the dusty road above me. How amiable

-a power is contrast&mdash;on its softer side! I

-think of the eager, bloody, sweaty, raging

-men, who once stormed up these slopes, killing

-and being killed. The birds know nothing

-of all that. It might have been thousands

-of years ago. The very trees have forgotten

-it. Two or three cows come feeding

-down the glade, with the lazy tinkle of a bell.

-And now my new friend, the blue-winged

-yellow warbler, sings across the path (across

-the aisle, I was going to say), but only two

-or three times, and with only two insignificant

-lisping syllables. The chary soul! He

-sings to the eye, I suppose. I go over to

-look at him, and my sudden movement startles

-the thrushes, who, finding themselves

-again in the singers' gallery, cannot refrain

-from another chorus. At the same moment

-the Canadian warbler comes into sight again,

-this time in a tupelo. The blue-wings are

-found without difficulty; they have a call

-like the black-and-white creeper's. A single

-rough-winged swallow skims above the treetops.

-I have seen him here before, and one

-or two others like him.</p>

-

-<p>As I return to the bed of the valley, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>

-female cardinal grosbeak flutters suspiciously

-about a thicket of tall blackberry vines. Her

-nest should be there, I think, but a hasty

-look reveals nothing. Again I come upon

-the Canadian warbler. If there is only one

-here, he is often in my way. I sit down

-upon the leaning, almost horizontal, bole of

-a large tupelo,&mdash;a new tree to me, but common

-in this country. The thick dark-colored

-bark is broken deeply into innumerable geometrical

-figures, giving the tree a noticeable,

-venerable appearance, as wrinkles lend distinction

-and character to an old man's face.

-Another species, which, as far as I can tell,

-should be our familiar tupelo of Massachusetts,

-is equally common,&mdash;a smaller tree,

-with larger leaves. The moisture here, slight

-as it now is, gives the place a vegetation of

-its own and a peculiar density of leafage.

-From one of the smaller tupelos (I repeat

-that word as often as I can, for the music of

-it) cross-vine streamers are swinging, full of

-red-and-yellow bells. Scattered thinly over

-the ground are yellow starflowers, the common

-houstonia, a pink phlox, and some unknown

-dark yellow blossom a little like the

-fall dandelion,&mdash;Cynthia, I guess.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>My thoughts are recalled by a strong,

-sharp <em>chip</em> in a voice I do not recognize,&mdash;a

-Kentucky warbler's, as presently turns

-out. He walks about the ground amid the

-short, thin grass, seemingly in the most placid

-of moods; but at every few steps, for

-some inscrutable reason, he comes out with

-that quick, peremptory call. And all the

-while I keep saying to myself, "What a

-beauty!" But my forenoon is past. I rise

-to go, and at the motion he takes flight.

-Near the spring the goldfinches are still in

-full chorus, and just beyond them in the path

-is a mourning dove.</p>

-

-<p>That was a good season: hymns without

-words, "a sermon not made with hands,"

-and the world shut out. Three days afterward,

-fast as my vacation was running away,

-I went to the same place again. The olive-backed

-thrushes were still singing, to my

-surprise, and the Kentucky warblers were

-still feeding in the grass. The scarlet tanager

-sang (it is curious how much oftener I

-mention him than the comparatively unfamiliar,

-but here extremely common summer

-tanager), the cuckoo called, the Acadian

-flycatcher was building her nest,&mdash;on a horizontal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>

-limb of a maple,&mdash;and a goldfinch

-warbled as if he could never cease. A veery

-sang, also (I heard but one other in Tennessee),

-with a chestnut-sided warbler, two

-redstarts (one of them in the modest garb

-of his mother), a Carolina chickadee, a

-mocking wren, a pine warbler, a prairie warbler,

-and a catbird. In time, probably, all

-the birds for a mile around might have been

-heard or seen beside that scanty rill.</p>

-

-<p>To-day, however, my mood was less Sundayish

-than before, and in spite of the heat

-I ventured across an open pasture,&mdash;where

-a Bachman's finch was singing an ingenious

-set of variations, and a rabbit stamped with

-a sudden loudness that made me jump,&mdash;and

-then through a piece of wood, till I came

-to another hollow like the one I had left,

-but without water, and therefore less thickly

-shaded. Here was the inevitable thicket of

-brambles (since I speak so much of chats

-and indigo-birds, the presence of a sufficiency

-of blackberry bushes may be taken for

-granted), and I waited to see what it would

-bring forth. A field sparrow sang from the

-hillside,&mdash;a sweet and modest tune that

-went straight to the heart, and had nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>

-to fear from a comparison with Bachman's

-finch or any other. What a contrast in this

-respect between him and his gentle-seeming

-but belligerent and tuneless cousin whom

-we call "chippy."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>

-Here, likewise, were a

-pair of complaining Carolina wrens and an

-Acadian flycatcher. A thrush excited my

-curiosity, having the look of a gray-cheek,

-but showing a buff eye-ring; and while I

-was coaxing him to whistle, and so declare

-himself,&mdash;often a ready means of identification,

-and preferable on all accounts to shooting

-the bird,&mdash;there came a furious outburst

-from the depths of the brier patch,

-with a grand flurry of wings: a large bird

-and two smaller ones engaged in sudden

-battle, as well as I could make out. At

-the close of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mêlée</i>, which ended as abruptly

-as it had begun, the thicket showed

-two wrens, a white-throated sparrow, and a

-female cardinal. The cardinal flew away;

-the affair was no business of hers, apparently;

-but in a minute she was back

-again, scolding. Then, while my back was

-turned, everything became quiet; and on my

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>stepping up to reconnoitre, there she sat in

-her nest with four eggs under her. At that

-moment a chat's loud voice was heard, and,

-turning quickly, I caught the fellow in the

-midst of a brilliant display of his clownish

-tricks, ridiculous, indescribable. At a little

-distance, it is hard to believe that it can be

-a bird, that dancing, shapeless thing, balancing

-itself in the air with dangling legs and

-prancing, swaying motions. Well, that is

-the chat's way. What more need be said?

-Every creature must express himself, and

-birds no less than other poets are entitled

-to an occasional "fine frenzy."</p>

-

-<p>My little excursion had brought me nothing

-new, and, like all my similar ventures

-on Missionary Ridge, it ended in defeat.

-The sun was too much for me; to use a word

-suggested by the place, it carried too many

-guns. I took a long and comfortable siesta

-under a magnificent chestnut oak. Then it

-was near noon, and, with my umbrella spread,

-I mounted the hill to the railway, and waited

-for a car.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="LOOKOUT_MOUNTAIN" id="LOOKOUT_MOUNTAIN">LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.</a></h2>

-

-

-<p>Lookout Mountain was at first a disappointment.

-I went home discouraged.

-The place was spoiled, I thought. About

-the fine inn were cheap cottages,&mdash;as if

-one had come to a second-class summer

-resort; while the lower slopes of the mountain,

-directly under Lookout Point on the

-side toward the city, were given up to a

-squalid negro settlement, and, of all things, a

-patent-medicine factory,&mdash;a shameful desecration,

-it seemed to me. I was half ready

-to say I would go there no more. The prospect

-was beautiful,&mdash;so much there was no

-denying; but the air was thick with smoke,

-and, what counted for ten times more, the

-eye itself was overclouded. A few northern

-warblers were chirping in the evergreens

-along the edge of the summit, between the

-inn and the Point,&mdash;black-polls and bay-breasts,

-with black-throated greens and Carolina

-wrens; and near them I saw with

-pleasure my first Tennessee ph&oelig;bes. In the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>

-street car, on the way back to Chattanooga,

-I had for my fellow-passengers a group of

-Confederate veterans from different parts of

-the South, one of whom, a man with an

-empty sleeve, was showing his comrades an

-interesting war-time relic,&mdash;a bit of stone

-bearing his own initials. He had cut them

-in the rock while on duty at the Point thirty

-years before, I heard him say, and now, remembering

-the spot, and finding them still

-there, he had chipped them off to carry home.

-These are all the memories I retain of my

-first visit to a famous and romantic place

-that I had long desired to see.</p>

-

-<p>My second visit was little more remunerative,

-and came to an untimely and inglorious

-conclusion. Not far from the inn I noticed

-what seemed to be the beginning of an old

-mountain road. It would bring me to St.

-Elmo, a passing cottager told me; and I

-somehow had it fast in my mind that St.

-Elmo was a particularly wild and attractive

-woodland retreat somewhere in the valley,&mdash;a

-place where a pleasure-seeking naturalist

-would find himself happy for at least an

-hour or two, if the mountain side should

-insufficiently detain him. The road itself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>

-looked uncommonly inviting, rough and deserted,

-with wild crags above and old forest

-below; and without a second thought I took

-it, idling downward as slowly as possible,

-minding the birds and plants, or sitting for

-a while, as one shady stone after another

-offered coolness and a seat, to enjoy the

-silence and the prospect. Be as lazy as I

-could, however, the road soon gave signs of

-coming to an end; for Lookout Mountain,

-although it covers much territory and presents

-a mountainous front, is of a very modest

-elevation. And at the end of the way

-there was no sylvan retreat, but a village;

-yes, the same dusty little suburb that I had

-passed, and looked away from, on my way

-up. <em>That</em> was St. Elmo!&mdash;and, with my

-luncheon still in my pocket, I boarded the

-first car for the city. One consolation remained:

-I had lived a pleasant hour, and

-the mountain road had made three additions

-to my local ornithology,&mdash;a magnolia warbler,

-a Blackburnian warbler, and a hairy

-woodpecker.</p>

-

-<p>There was nothing for it but to laugh at

-myself, and try again; but it was almost a

-week before I found the opportunity. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>

-(May 7) I made a day of it on the mountain,

-mostly in the woods along the western bluffs.

-An oven-bird's song drew me in that direction,

-to begin with; and just as the singer

-had shown himself, and been rewarded with

-an entry as "No. 79" in my Tennessee catalogue,

-a cuckoo, farther away, broke into a

-shuffling introductory measure that marked

-him at once as a black-bill. Till now I had

-seen yellow-bills only, and though the voice

-was perhaps a sufficient identification, a

-double certainty would be better, especially

-in the retrospect. Luckily it was a short

-chase, and there sat the bird, his snowy

-throat swelling as he cooed, while his red

-eye-ring and his abbreviated tail-spots gave

-him a clear title to count as "No. 80."</p>

-

-<p>As I approached the precipitous western

-edge of the mountain, I heard, just below,

-the sharp, wiry voice of a Blackburnian

-warbler; a most splendid specimen, for in

-a moment more his orange-red throat shone

-like fire among the leaves. From farther

-down rose the hoarse notes of a black-throated

-blue warbler and two or three black-throated

-greens.</p>

-

-<p>Here were comfortable, well-shaded boulders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>

-and delightful prospects,&mdash;a place to

-stay in; but behind me stood a grove of

-small pine-trees, out of which came now and

-then a warbler's <em>chip</em>; and in May, with

-everything on the move, and anything possible,

-invitations of that kind are not to be

-refused. Warbler species are many, and

-there is always another to hope for. I

-turned to the pines, therefore, as a matter of

-course, and was soon deeply engaged with a

-charming bevy of northward-bound passengers,&mdash;myrtle-birds,

-palm warblers, black-throated

-blues (of both sexes), a female

-Cape May warbler (the first of her sex that

-I had seen) magnolias, bay-breasts, and

-many black-polls. It makes a short story

-in the telling; but it was long in the doing,

-and yielded more excitement than I dare

-try to describe. To and fro I went among

-the low trees (their lowness a most fortunate

-circumstance), slowly and with all

-quietness, putting my glass upon one bird

-after another as something stirred among the

-needles, and hoping every moment for some

-glorious surprise. In particular, I hoped

-for a cerulean warbler; but this was not the

-cerulean's day, and, if I had but known it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>

-these were not the cerulean's trees. None

-but enthusiasts in the same line will be able

-to appreciate the delight of such innocent

-"collecting,"&mdash;birds in the memory instead

-of specimens in a bag. Even on one's home

-beat it quickens the blood; how much more,

-then, in a new field, where a man is almost a

-stranger to himself, and rarities and novelties

-seem but the order of the day. Again and

-again, morning and afternoon, I traversed

-the little wood, leaving it between whiles for

-a rest under the big oaks on the edge of the

-cliffs, whence, through green vistas, I gazed

-upon the farms of Lookout Valley and

-the mountains beyond. A scarlet tanager

-called,&mdash;my second one here,&mdash;wood thrush

-voices rang through the mountain side forest,

-a single thrasher was doing his bravest from

-the tip of a pine (our "brown mocking-bird"

-is anything but a skulker when the

-lyrical mood is on him), while wood pewees,

-red-eyed vireos, yellow-throated vireos, black-and-white

-creepers, and I do not remember

-what else, joined in the chorus. Just after

-noon an oven-bird gave out his famous aerial

-warble. To an aspiring soul even a mountain

-top is but a perch, a place from which

-to take wing.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>All these birds, it will be noticed, were

-such as I might have seen in Massachusetts;

-and indeed, the general appearance of things

-about me was pleasantly homelike. Here

-was much of the pretty striped wintergreen,

-a special favorite of mine, with bird-foot

-violets, the common white saxifrage (dear

-to memory as the "Mayflower" of my childhood),

-the common wild geranium (cranesbill,

-which we were told was "good for

-canker"), and maple-leaved viburnum. One

-of the loveliest flowers was the pink oxalis,

-and one of the commonest was a pink phlox;

-but I was most pleased, perhaps, with the

-white stonecrop (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sedum ternatum</i>), patches

-of which matted the ground, and just now

-were in full bloom. The familiar look of

-this plant was a puzzle to me. I cannot

-remember to have seen it often in gardens,

-and I am confident that I never found it before

-in a wild state except once, fifteen years

-ago, at the Great Falls of the Potomac.

-Yet here on Lookout Mountain it seemed

-almost as much an old friend as the saxifrage

-or the cranesbill.</p>

-

-<p>I ate my luncheon on Sunset Rock, which

-literally overhangs the mountain side, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>

-commands the finest of valley prospects;

-and then, after another turn through the

-pines, where the warblers were still busy

-with their all-day meal,&mdash;but not the new

-warbler, for which I was still looking,&mdash;I

-crossed the summit and made the descent

-by the St. Elmo road, as before. How long

-I was on the way I am unable to tell; I had

-learned the brevity of the road, and, like a

-schoolboy with his tart, I made the most

-of it. Midway down I caught sudden sight

-of an olive bird in the upper branch of a

-tree, with something black about the crown

-and the cheek. "What's that?" I exclaimed;

-and on the instant the stranger flew across

-the road and up the steep mountain side.

-I pushed after him in hot haste, over the

-huge boulders, and there he stood on the

-ground, singing,&mdash;a Kentucky warbler.

-Seeing him so hastily, and on so high a

-perch, and missing his yellow under-parts, I

-had failed to recognize him. As it was, I

-now heard his song for the first time, and

-rejoiced to find it worthy of its beautiful

-author: <em>klurwée</em>, <em>klurwée</em>, <em>klurwée</em>, <em>klurwée</em>,

-<em>klurwée</em>; a succession of clear, sonorous dis-syllables,

-in a fuller voice than most warblers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>

-possess, and with no flourish before or after.

-Like the bird's dress, it was perfect in its

-simplicity. I felt thankful, too, that I had

-waited till now to hear it. Things should

-be desired before they are enjoyed. It was

-another case of the schoolboy and his tart;

-and I went home good-humored. Lookout

-Mountain was not wholly ruined, after all.</p>

-

-<p>The next day found me there again, to

-my own surprise, for I had promised myself

-a trip down the river to Shellmound. In

-all the street cars, as well as in the city

-newspapers, this excursion was set forth as

-supremely enjoyable, a luxury on no account

-to be missed,&mdash;a fine commodious steamer,

-and all the usual concomitants. The kind

-people with whom I was sojourning, on Cameron

-Hill, hastened the family breakfast

-that I might be in season; but on arriving

-at the wharf I found no sign of the steamer,

-and, after sundry attempts to ascertain the

-condition of affairs, I learned that the

-steamer did not run now. The river was

-no longer high enough, it was explained; a

-smaller boat would go, or might be expected

-to go, some hours later. Little disposed to

-hang about the landing for several hours,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>

-and feeling no assurance that so doing would

-bring me any nearer to Shellmound, I made

-my way back to the Read House, and took

-a car for Lookout Mountain. In it I sat

-face to face with the same conspicuous placard,

-announcing an excursion for that day

-by the large and commodious steamer So-and-So,

-from such a wharf, at eight o'clock.

-But I then noticed that intending passengers

-were invited, in smaller type, to call at

-the office of the company, where doubtless

-it would be politely confided to them that

-the advertisement was a "back number."

-So the mistake was my own, after all, and,

-as the American habit is, I had been blaming

-the servants of the public unjustly.</p>

-

-<p>I was no sooner on the summit than I

-hastened to the pine wood. At first it

-seemed to be empty, but after a little, hearing

-the drawling <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, of a black-throated

-blue, I followed it, and found the

-bird. Next a magnolia dropped into sight,

-and then a red-cheeked Cape May, the second

-one I had ever seen, after fifteen or

-twenty years of expectancy. He threaded

-a leafless branch back and forth on a level

-with my eyes. I was glad I had come.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>

-Soon another showed himself, and presently

-it appeared that the wood, as men speak of

-such things, was full of them. There were

-black-polls, also, with a Blackburnian, a bay-breast,

-and a good number of palm warblers,

-(typical <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">palmarum</i>, to judge from the pale

-tints); but especially there were Cape Mays,

-including at least two females. As to the

-number of males it is impossible to speak;

-I never had more than two under my eye

-at once, but I came upon them continually,&mdash;they

-were always in motion, of course,

-being warblers,&mdash;till finally, as I put my

-glass on another one, I caught myself saying,

-in a tone of disappointment, "Only a

-Cape May." But yesterday I might as well

-have spoken of a million dollars as "only a

-million." So soon does novelty wear off.

-The magnolia and the Blackburnian were in

-high feather, and made a gorgeous pair as

-chance brought them side by side in the

-same tree. They sang with much freedom;

-but the Cape Mays kept silence, to my deep

-regret, notwithstanding the philosophical

-remarks just now volunteered about the advantages

-derivable from a bird's gradual

-disclosure of himself. Such pieces of wisdom,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>

-I have noticed, when by chance they

-do not fall into the second or third person,

-are commonly applied to the past rather

-than the present; a man's past being, in

-effect, not himself, but another. In morals,

-as in archery, the target should be set at a

-fair distance. The Cape May's song is next

-to nothing,&mdash;suggestive of the black-poll's,

-I am told,&mdash;but I would gladly have bought

-a ticket to hear it.</p>

-

-<p>The place might have been made on purpose

-for the use to which it was now put.

-The pinery, surrounded by hard-wood forest,

-was like an island; and the warblers,

-for the most part, had no thought of leaving

-it. Had they been feeding in the hard

-wood,&mdash;miles of tall trees,&mdash;I should have

-lost them in short order. At the same time,

-the absence of undergrowth enabled me to

-move about with all quietness, so that none

-of them took the least alarm. Not a black-throated

-green was seen or heard, though

-yesterday they had been in force both

-among the pines and along the cliffs. A

-flock of myrtle warblers were surprisingly

-late, it seemed to me; but it was my last

-sight of them.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>The reader will perceive that I was not

-exploring Lookout Mountain, and am in no

-position to set forth its beauties. It is

-eighty odd miles long, we are told, and in

-some places more than a dozen miles wide.

-I visited nothing but the northern point, the

-Tennessee end, the larger part of the mountain

-being in Georgia; and even while there

-I looked twice at the birds, and once at the

-mountain itself.</p>

-

-<p>At noon, I lay for a long time upon a

-flat boulder under the tall oaks of the western

-bluff, looking down upon the lower

-woods, now in tender new leaf and most

-exquisitely colored. There are few fairer

-sights than a wooded mountain side seen

-from above; only one must not be too far

-above, and the forest should be mainly deciduous.

-The very thought brings before

-my eyes the long, green slopes of Mount

-Mansfield as they show from the road near

-the summit,&mdash;beauty inexpressible and

-never to be forgotten; and miles of autumn

-color on the sides of Kinsman, Cannon,

-and Lafayette, as I have enjoyed it by the

-hour, stretched in the September sunshine on

-the rocks of Bald Mountain. Perhaps the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>

-earth itself will never be fully enjoyed till

-we are somewhere above it. The Lookout

-woods, as I now saw them, were less magnificent

-in sweep, but hardly less beautiful.

-And below them was the valley bottom,&mdash;Lookout

-Valley, once the field of armies,

-now the abode of peaceful industry: acres

-of brown earth, newly sown, with no trace

-of greenness except the hedgerows along the

-brooks and on the banks of Lookout Creek.

-And beyond the valley was Raccoon Mountain,

-wooded throughout; and behind that,

-far away, the Cumberland range, blue with

-distance.</p>

-

-<p>A ph&oelig;be came and perched at my elbow,

-dropping a curtsey with old-fashioned politeness

-by way of "How are you, sir?" and a

-little afterward was calling earnestly from

-below. This is one of the characteristic

-birds of the mountain, and marks well the

-difference in latitude which even a slight

-elevation produces. I found it nowhere in

-the valley country, but it was common on

-Lookout and on Walden's Ridge. Then,

-behind me on the summit, another northern

-bird, the scarlet tanager, struck up a

-labored, rasping, breathless tune, hearty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>

-but broken and forced. I say labored and

-breathless; but, happily, the singer was unaware

-of his infirmity (or can it be I was

-wrong?), and continued without interruption

-for at least half an hour. If he was

-uncomfortably short-breathed, he was very

-agreeably long-winded. Oven-birds sang at

-intervals throughout the day, and once I

-heard again the black-billed cuckoo. Yes,

-Hooker was right: Lookout Mountain is

-Northern, not Southern. But then, as if to

-show that it is not exactly Yankee land, in

-spite of oven-bird and black-bill, and notwithstanding

-all that Hooker and his men

-may have done, a cardinal took a long turn

-at whistling, and a Carolina wren came to

-his support with a <em>cheery</em>, <em>cheery</em>. A far-away

-crow was cawing somewhere down the

-valley, no very common sound hereabout;

-a red-eye, our great American missionary,

-was exhorting, of course; a black-poll, on his

-way to British America, whispered something,

-it was impossible to say what; and a

-squirrel barked. I lay so still that a black-and-white

-creeper took me for a part of the

-boulder, and alighted on the nearest tree-trunk.

-He goes round a bole just as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>

-sings, in corkscrew fashion. Now and then

-I caught some of the louder phrases of a

-distant brown thrush, and once, when every

-one else fell silent, a catbird burst out spasmodically

-with a few halting, disjointed eccentricities,

-highly characteristic of a bird

-who can sing like a master when he will,

-but who seems oftener to enjoy talking to

-himself. Lizards rustled into sight with

-startling suddenness; and one big fellow

-disappeared so instantaneously&mdash;in "less

-than no time," as the Yankee phrase is&mdash;that

-I thought "quick as a lizard" might

-well enough become an adage. Here and

-there I remarked a chestnut-tree, the burs

-of last year still hanging; and chestnut

-oaks were among the largest and handsomest

-trees of the wood, as they were among

-the commonest. The temperature was perfect,&mdash;so

-says my penciled note. Let the

-confession not be overlooked, after all my

-railing at the fierce Tennessee sun. It

-made all the pleasure of the hour, too, that

-there were no troublesome insects. I had

-been in that country for ten days, the mercury

-had been much of the time above 90°,

-and I had not seen ten mosquitoes.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>I left my boulder at last, though it would

-have been good to remain there till night,

-and wandered along the bluffs to the Point.

-Here it was apparent at once that the wind

-had shifted. For the first time I caught

-sight of lofty mountains in the northeast;

-the Great Smokies, I was told, and could

-well believe it. I sat down straightway and

-looked at them, and had I known how

-things would turn, I would have looked at

-them longer; for in all my three weeks'

-sojourn in Chattanooga, that was the only

-half-day in which the atmosphere was even

-approximately clear. It was unfortunate,

-but I consoled myself with the charm of the

-foreground,&mdash;a charm at once softened and

-heightened, with something of the magic of

-distance, by the very conditions that veiled

-the horizon and drew it closer about us.</p>

-

-<p>It is truly a beautiful world that we see

-from Lookout Point: the city and its suburbs;

-the river with its broad meanderings,

-and, directly at our feet, its great Moccasin

-Bend; the near mountains,&mdash;Raccoon

-and Sand mountains beyond Lookout Valley,

-and Walden's Ridge across the river;

-and everywhere in the distance hills and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>

-high mountains, range beyond range, culminating

-in the Cumberland Mountains in

-one direction, and the Great Smokies in

-another. And as we look at the fair picture

-we think of what was done here,&mdash;of historic

-persons and historic deeds. At the

-foot of the cliffs on which we stand is White

-House plateau, the battlefield of Lookout

-Mountain. Chattanooga itself is spread

-out before us, with Orchard Knob, Cameron

-Hill, and the national cemetery. Yonder

-stretches the long line of Missionary Ridge,

-and farther south, recognizable by at least

-one of the government towers, is the battlefield

-of Chickamauga. Here, if anywhere, we

-may see places that war has made sacred.</p>

-

-<p>The feeling of all this is better enjoyed

-after one has grown oblivious to the things

-which at first do so much to cheapen the

-mountain,&mdash;the hotels, the photographers'

-shanties, the placards, the hurrying tourists,

-and the general air of a place given over to

-showmen. Much of this seeming desecration

-is unavoidable, perhaps; at all events,

-it is the part of wisdom to overlook it, as,

-fortunately, by the time of my third visit I

-was pretty well able to do. If that proves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>

-impossible, if the visitor is of too sensitive a

-temperament,&mdash;to call his weakness by no

-worse a name,&mdash;he can at least betake himself

-to the woods, and out of them see

-enough, as I did from my boulder, to repay

-him for all his trouble.</p>

-

-<p>The battlefield, as has been said, lies at

-the base of the perpendicular cliffs which

-make the bold northern tip of the mountain,&mdash;Lookout

-Point. I must walk over it,

-though there is little to see, and after a final

-look at the magnificent panorama I descended

-the steps to the head of the "incline,"

-or, as I should say, the cable road.

-The car dropped me at a sentry-box marked

-"Columbus" (it was easy to guess in what

-year it had been named), and thence I

-strolled across the plateau,&mdash;so called in

-the narratives of the battle, though it is far

-from level,&mdash;past the Craven house and

-Cloud Fort, to the western slope looking

-down into Lookout Valley, out of which the

-Union forces marched to the assault. The

-place was peaceful enough on that pleasant

-May afternoon. The air was full of music,

-and just below me were apple and peach

-orchards and a vineyard.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>In such surroundings, half wild, half tame,

-I had hope of finding some strange bird; it

-would be pleasant to associate him with a

-spot so famous. But the voices were all

-familiar: wood thrushes, Carolina wrens,

-bluebirds, summer tanagers, catbirds, a

-Maryland yellow-throat, vireos (red-eyes and

-white-eyes), goldfinches, a field sparrow (the

-dead could want no sweeter requiem than he

-was chanting, but the wood pewee should

-have been here also), indigo-birds, and chats.

-In one of the wildest and roughest places

-a Kentucky warbler started to sing, and I

-plunged downward among the rocks and

-bushes (here was maiden-hair fern, I remember),

-hoping to see him. It was only my

-second hearing of the song, and it would

-be prudent to verify my recollection; but

-the music ceased, and I saw nothing. At the

-turn, where the land begins to decline westward,

-I came to a low, semicircular wall

-of earth. Here, doubtless, on that fateful

-November morning, when clouds covered the

-mountain sides, the Confederate troops

-meant to make a stand against the invader.

-Now a wilderness of young blue-green persimmon-trees

-had sprung up about it, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>

-about the Craven house was a similar growth

-of sassafras. I had already noticed the extreme

-abundance of sassafras (shrubs rather

-than trees) in all this country, and especially

-on Missionary Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>With my thoughts full of the past, while

-my senses kept watch of the present, I returned

-slowly to the "incline," where I had

-five minutes to wait for a downward car. It

-had been a good day, a day worth remembering;

-and just then there came to my ear the

-new voice for which I had been on the alert:

-a warbler's song, past all mistake, sharp,

-thin, vivacious, in perhaps eight syllables,&mdash;a

-song more like the redstart's than anything

-else I could think of. The singer was

-in a tall tree, but by the best of luck, seeing

-how short my time was, the opera-glass fell

-upon him almost of itself,&mdash;a hooded warbler;

-my first sight of him in full dress (he

-might have been rigged out for a masquerade,

-I thought), as it was my first hearing

-of his song. If it had been also my last

-hearing of it, I might have written that the

-hooded warbler, though a frequenter of low

-thickets, chooses a lofty perch to sing from.

-So easy is it to generalize; that is, to tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>

-more than we know. The fellow sang again

-and again, and, to my great satisfaction,

-a Kentucky joined him,&mdash;a much better

-singer in all respects, and much more becomingly

-dressed; but I gave thanks for

-both. Then the car stopped for me, and we

-coasted to the base, where the customary

-gang of negroes, heavily chained, were repairing

-the highway, while the guard, a

-white man, stood over them with a rifle. It

-was a strange spectacle to my eyes, and suggested

-a considerable postponement of the

-millennium; but I was glad to see the men

-at work.</p>

-

-<p>Two days afterward (May 10), in spite of

-"thunder in the morning" and one of the

-safest of weather saws, I made my final excursion

-to Lookout, going at once to the

-warblers' pines. There were few birds in

-them. At all events, I found few; but

-there is no telling what might have happened,

-if the third specimen that came under my

-glass&mdash;after a black-poll and a bay-breast&mdash;had

-not monopolized my attention till I

-was driven to seek shelter. That was the

-day when I needed a gun; for I suppose it

-must be confessed that even an opera-glass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>

-observer, no matter how much in love he

-may be with his particular method of study,

-and no matter how determined he may be to

-stick to it, sees a time once in a great while

-when a bird in the hand would be so much

-better than two in the bush that his fingers

-fairly itch for something to shoot with.

-From what I know of one such man, I am

-sure it would be exaggerating their tenderness

-of heart to imagine observers of this

-kind incapable of taking a bird's life under

-any circumstances. In fact, it may be

-partly a distrust of their own self-restraint,

-under the provocations of curiosity, that

-makes them eschew the use of firearms altogether.</p>

-

-<p>My mystery on the present occasion was

-a female warbler,&mdash;of so much I felt reasonably

-assured; but by what name to call

-her, that was a riddle. Her upper parts

-were "not olive, but of a neutral bluish

-gray," with light wing-bars, "not conspicuous,

-but distinct," while her lower parts

-were "dirty, but unstreaked." What at

-once impressed me was her "bareheaded

-appearance" (I am quoting my penciled

-memorandum), with a big eye and a light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>

-eye-ring,&mdash;like a ruby-crowned kinglet, for

-which, at the first glance, I mistook her.

-If my notes made mention of any dark

-streaks or spots underneath, I would pluck

-up courage and hazard a glorious guess, to

-be taken for what it might be worth. As it

-is, I leave guessing to men better qualified,

-for whose possible edification or amusement

-I have set down these particulars.</p>

-

-<p>While I was pursuing the stranger, but

-not till I had seen her again and again, and

-secured as many "points" as a longer ogling

-seemed likely to afford me, it began thundering

-ominously out of ugly clouds, and I

-edged toward some woodland cottages not

-far distant. Then the big drops fell, and I

-took to my heels, reaching a piazza just in

-time to escape a torrent against which pine-trees

-and umbrella combined would have

-been as nothing. The lady of the house and

-her three dogs received me most hospitably,

-and as the rain lasted for some time we had

-a pleasant conversation (I can speak for one,

-at least) about dogs in general and particular

-(a common interest is the soul of talk);

-in illustration and furtherance of which the

-spaniel of the party, somewhat against his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>

-will, was induced to "sit up like a gentleman,"

-while I boasted modestly of another

-spaniel, Antony by name, who could do

-that and plenty of tricks beside,&mdash;a perfect

-wonder of a dog, in short. Thus happily

-launched, we went on to discuss the climate

-of Tennessee (whatever may be the soul of

-talk, the weather supplies it with members

-and a bodily substance) and the charms of

-Lookout Mountain. She lived there the

-year round, she said (most of the cottagers

-make the place a summer resort only), and

-always found it pleasant. In winter it

-wasn't so cold there as down below; at any

-rate, it didn't feel so cold,&mdash;which is the

-main thing, of course. Sometimes when she

-went to the city, it seemed as if she should

-freeze, although she hadn't thought of its

-being cold before she left home. It is one

-form of patriotism, I suppose,&mdash;parochial

-patriotism, perhaps we may call it,&mdash;that

-makes us stand up pretty stoutly for our

-own dwelling-place before strangers, however

-we may grumble against it among ourselves.

-In the present instance, however,

-no such qualifying explanation seemed necessary.

-In general, I was quite prepared to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>

-believe that life on a mountain top, in a cottage

-in a grove, would be found every whit

-as agreeable as my hostess pictured it.</p>

-

-<p>The rain slackened after a while, though

-it was long in ceasing altogether, and I went

-to the nearest railway station (Sunset Station,

-I believe) and waited half an hour for

-a train to the Point, chatting meanwhile

-with the young man in charge of the relic-counter.

-Then, at the Point, I waited again&mdash;this

-time to enjoy the prospect and see

-how the weather would turn&mdash;till a train

-passed on "the broad gauge" below. Just

-beyond Fort Cloud it ran into a fine old

-forest, and a sudden notion took me to go

-straight down through the woods and spend

-the rest of the day rambling in that direction.

-The weather had still a dubious aspect, but,

-with motive enough, some things can be

-trusted to Providence, and, the steepness of

-the descent accelerating my pace, I was soon

-on the sleepers, after which it was but a little

-way into the woods. Once there, I quickly

-forgot everything else at the sound of a new

-song. But <em>was</em> it new? It bore some resemblance

-to the ascending scale of the blue

-yellow-back, and might be the freak of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>

-individual of that species. I stood still, and

-in another minute the singer came near and

-sang under my eye; the very bird I had been

-hoping for,&mdash;a cerulean warbler in full

-dress; as Dr. Coues says, "a perfect little

-beauty." He continued in sight, feeding in

-rather low branches,&mdash;an exception to his

-usual habit, I have since found,&mdash;and sang

-many times over. His complaisance was a

-piece of high good fortune, for I saw no second

-specimen. The strain opens with two

-pairs of notes on the same pitch, and concludes

-with an upward run much like the

-blue yellow-back's, or perhaps midway between

-that and the prairie warbler's. So

-I heard it, I mean to say. But everything

-depends upon the ear. Audubon speaks of

-it as "extremely sweet and mellow" (the

-last a surprising word), while Mr. Ridgway

-is quoted as saying that the bird possesses

-"only the most feeble notes."</p>

-

-<p>The woods of themselves were well worth

-a visit: extremely open, with broad barren

-spaces; the trees tall, largely oak,&mdash;chestnut

-oak, especially,&mdash;but with chestnut, hickory,

-tupelo, and other trees intermingled. Here,

-as afterward on Walden's Ridge, I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>

-struck with the almost total absence of

-mosses, and the dry, stony character of the

-soil,&mdash;a novel and not altogether pleasing

-feature in the eyes of a man accustomed to

-the mountain forests of New England, where

-mosses cover every boulder, stump, and

-fallen log, while the feet sink into sphagnum

-as into the softest of carpets.</p>

-

-<p>Comfortable lounging-places continually

-invited me to linger, and at last I sat down

-under a chestnut oak, with a big broken-barked

-tupelo directly before me. Over the

-top of a neighboring boulder a lizard leaned

-in a praying attitude and gazed upon the

-intruder. Once in a while some loud-voiced

-tree-frog, as I suppose, uttered a grating cry.

-A blue-gray gnatcatcher was complaining,&mdash;snarling,

-I might have said; a red-eye, an

-indigo-bird, a field sparrow, and a Carolina

-wren took turns in singing; and a sudden

-chat threw himself into the air, quite unannounced,

-and, with ludicrous teetering

-motions, flew into the tupelo and eyed me

-saucily. A few minutes later, a single cicada

-(seventeen-year locust) followed him.

-With my glass I could see its monstrous red

-eyes and the orange edge of its wing. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>

-kept silence; but without a moment's cessation

-the musical hum of distant millions

-like it filled the air,&mdash;a noise inconceivable.</p>

-

-<p>I would gladly have sat longer, as I would

-gladly have gone much farther into the

-woods, for I had seen none more attractive;

-but a rumbling of thunder, a rapid blackening

-of the sky, and a recollection of the

-forenoon's deluge warned me to turn back.

-And now, for the first time, although I had

-been living within sound of locusts for a

-week or more, I suddenly came to trees in

-which they were congregated. The branches

-were full of them. Heard thus near, the

-sound was no longer melodious, but harsh

-and shrill.</p>

-

-<p>It seemed cruel that my last day on Lookout

-Mountain should be so broken up, and

-so abruptly and unseasonably concluded,

-but so the Fates willed it. My retreat became

-a rout, and of the remainder of the

-road I remember only the hurry and the

-warmth, and two pleasant things,&mdash;a few

-wild roses, and the scent of a grapevine in

-bloom; two things so sweet and homelike

-that they could be caught and retained by a

-man on the run.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="CHICKAMAUGA" id="CHICKAMAUGA">CHICKAMAUGA.</a></h2>

-

-

-<p>The field of Chickamauga&mdash;a worthily

-resounding name for one of the great battlefields

-of the world&mdash;lies a few miles south

-of the Tennessee and Georgia boundary, and

-is distant about an hour's ride by rail from

-Chattanooga. A single morning train outward,

-and a single evening train inward,

-made an all-day excursion necessary, and the

-time proved to be none too long. Unhappily,

-as I then thought, the sun was implacable,

-with the mercury in the nineties,

-though it was only the 3d of May; and as I

-was on foot, and the national reservation

-covers nine or ten square miles, I saw hardly

-more than a corner of the field. This would

-have been a more serious disappointment

-had my errand been of a topographical or

-historical nature. As the case was, being

-only a sentimental pilgrim, I ought perhaps

-to have welcomed the burning heat as a circumstance

-all in my favor; suiting the spirit

-of the place, and constraining me to a needful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>

-moderation. When a man goes in search

-of a mood, he must go neither too fast nor

-too far. As the Scripture saith, "Bodily

-exercise profiteth little." So much may

-readily be confessed now; for wisdom comes

-with reflection, and it is no great matter to

-bear a last year's toothache.</p>

-

-<p>From the railway station I followed, at a

-venture, a road that soon brought me to a

-comfortable, homelike house, with fine shade

-trees and an orchard. This was the Dyer

-estate,&mdash;so a tablet informed all comers.

-Here, in September, 1863, lived John Dyer,

-who suddenly found his few peaceful acres

-surrounded and overrun by a hundred thousand

-armed men, and himself drafted into

-service&mdash;if he needed drafting&mdash;as guide

-to the Confederate commander. Since then

-strange things had happened to the little

-farmhouse, which now was nothing less than

-a sort of government headquarters, as I

-rightly inferred from the general aspect of

-things round about, and the American flag

-flying above the roof. I passed the place

-without entering, halting only to smile at the

-antics of a white-breasted nuthatch,&mdash;my

-first Tennessee specimen,&mdash;which was hopping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>

-awkwardly about the yard. It was a

-question of something to eat, I suppose, or

-perhaps of a feather for the family nest, and

-precedents and appearances went for nothing.

-Two or three minutes afterward I came face

-to face with another apparition, a horseman

-as graceful and dignified, not to say majestic,

-as the nuthatch had been lumbering and ungainly;

-a man in civilian's dress, but visibly

-a soldier, with a pose and carriage that made

-shoulder-straps superfluous; a man to look

-at; every inch a major-general, at the very

-least; of whom, nevertheless,&mdash;the heat or

-something else giving me courage,&mdash;I ventured

-to inquire, from under my umbrella, if

-there were any way of seeing some of the

-more interesting portions of the battlefield

-without too much exposure to the sun. He

-showed a little surprise (military gentlemen

-always do, so far as I have observed, when

-strangers address them), but recovered himself,

-and answered almost with affability.

-Yes, he said, if I would take the first turn to

-the left, I should pass the spot over which

-Longstreet made the charge that decided the

-fate of the contest, and as he spoke he pointed

-out the field, which appeared to be part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>

-the Dyer farm; then I should presently

-come within sight of the Kelly house, about

-which the fighting was of the hottest; and

-from there I should do well to go to the Snodgrass

-Hill tower and the Snodgrass house.

-To do as much as that would require little

-walking, and at the same time I should have

-seen a good share of what was best worth

-a visitor's notice. I thanked him, and followed

-his advice.</p>

-

-<p>The left-hand road, of which my informant

-had spoken, ran between the forest&mdash;mostly

-of tall oaks and long-leaved pines&mdash;and the

-grassy Dyer field. Here it was possible to

-keep in the shade, and life was comparatively

-easy; so that I felt no stirrings of

-envious desire when two gentlemen, whom

-I recognized as having been among my fellow-passengers

-from Chattanooga, came up

-behind me in a carriage with a pair of horses

-and a driver. As they overtook me, and

-while I was wondering where they could

-have procured so luxurious a turnout, since

-I had discovered no sign of a public conveyance

-or a livery stable, the driver reined

-in his horses, and the older of the gentlemen

-put out his head to ask, "Were you in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>

-battle, sir?" I answered in the negative;

-and he added, half apologetically, that he and

-his companion wished to get as many points

-as possible about the field. In the kindness

-of my heart, I told him that I was a stranger,

-like himself, but that the gentleman yonder,

-on horseback, seemed to be well acquainted

-with the place, and would no doubt answer

-all inquiries. With a queer look in his face,

-and some remark that I failed to catch, my

-interlocutor dropped back into his seat, and

-the carriage drove on. It was only afterward

-that I learned&mdash;on meeting him again&mdash;that

-he was no other than General Boynton,

-the man who is at the head of all things

-pertaining to Chickamauga and its history.</p>

-

-<p>In the open field several Bachman finches

-were singing, while the woods were noisier,

-but less musical, with Maryland yellow-throats,

-black-poll warblers, tufted titmice,

-and two sorts of vireos. Sprinkled over the

-ground were the lovely spring beauty and

-the violet wood sorrel, with pentstemon,

-houstonia, and a cheerful pink phlox. Here

-I soon heard a second nuthatch, and fell into

-a kind of fever about its notes, which were

-clearer, less nasal, than those of our New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>

-England birds, it seemed to me, and differently

-phrased. Such peculiarities might indicate

-a local race, I said to myself, with

-that predisposition to surprise which is one

-of the chief compensations of life away from

-home. As I went on, a wood pewee and a

-field sparrow began singing,&mdash;two birds

-whose voices might have been tuned on purpose

-for such a place. Of the petulant,

-snappish cry of an Acadian flycatcher not

-quite the same could be said. One of the

-"unreconstructed," I was tempted to call

-him.</p>

-

-<p>The Kelly house, on the way to which

-through the woods my Yankee eyes were

-delighted with the sight of loose patches of

-rue anemones, was duly marked with a tablet,

-and proved to be a cabin of the most

-primitive type, standing in the usual bit of

-fenced land (the smallness of the houseyards,

-as contrasted with the miles of open country

-round about, is a noticeable feature of Southern

-landscapes), with a corn-house near by,

-and a tumble-down barn across the way.

-For some time I sat beside the road, under

-an oak; then, seeing two women, older and

-younger, inside the house, I asked leave to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>

-enter, the doors being open, and was made

-welcome with apparent heartiness. The

-elderly woman soon confided to me that she

-was seventy-six years old,&mdash;a marvelous

-figure she seemed to consider it; and when

-I tried to say something about her comparative

-youthfulness, and the much greater

-age of some ladies of my acquaintance (no

-names being mentioned, of course), she

-would only repeat that she was awful old,

-and shouldn't live much longer. She meant

-to improve the time, however,&mdash;and the

-unusual fortune of a visitor,&mdash;and fairly

-ran over with talk. She didn't belong about

-here. Oh no; she came from "'way up in

-Tennessee, a hundred and sixty miles!"

-"'Pears like I'm a long way from home,"

-she said,&mdash;"a hundred and sixty miles!"

-Again I sought to comfort her. That wasn't

-so very far. What did she think of me,

-who had come all the way from Massachusetts?

-She threw up her hands, and ejaculated,

-"Oh, Lor'!" with a fervor to which

-a regiment of exclamation points would

-scarcely do justice. Yet she had but a

-vague idea of where Massachusetts was, I

-fancy; for pretty soon she asked, "Where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>

-did you say you was from? Pennsylvany?"

-And when I said, "Oh no, Massachusetts,

-twice as far as that," she could only repeat,

-"Oh, Lor'!" Her grandson was at work

-in the park, and she had come down to live

-with him and his wife. But she shouldn't

-live long.</p>

-

-<p>The wonder of this new world was still

-strong upon her. "Them moniment things

-they've put up," she said, "have you seen

-'em? Men cut in a rock!&mdash;three of 'em?

-Have you seen 'em? Ain't they a sight to

-see?" She referred to the granite monuments

-of the regulars, on which are life-size

-figures in high relief. And had I seen the

-tower on the hill, she proceeded to ask,&mdash;an

-open iron structure,&mdash;and what did I think

-of <em>that</em>? She wouldn't go up in it for a

-bushel of money. "Oh yes, you would," I

-told her. "You would like it, I'm sure."

-But she stuck to her story. She wouldn't

-do it for a bushel of money. She should

-be dizzy; and she threw up her hands, literally,

-at the very thought, while her granddaughter

-sat and smiled at my waste of

-breath. I asked if many visitors came here.

-"Oh, Lor', yes!" the old lady answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>

-"More'n two dozen have been here from

-'way up in Chicago."</p>

-

-<p>The mention of visitors led the younger

-woman to produce a box of relics, and I

-paid her a dime for three minie-balls. "I

-always get a nickel," she said, when I inquired

-the price; but when I selected two,

-and handed her a ten-cent piece, she insisted

-upon my taking another. Wholesale customers

-deserved handsome treatment. She

-had picked up such things herself before

-now, but her husband found most of them

-while grubbing in the woods.</p>

-

-<p>The cabin was a one-room affair, of a sort

-common in that country ("cracker-boxes,"

-one might call them, if punning were not so

-frowned upon), with a big fireplace, two

-opposite doors, two beds in diagonally opposite

-corners, and, I think, no window. Here

-was domestic life in something like its pristine

-simplicity, a philosopher might have

-said: the house still subordinate to the man,

-and the housekeeper not yet a slave to furniture

-and bric-à-brac. But even a philosopher

-would perhaps have tolerated a second

-room and a light of glass. As for myself,

-I remembered that I used to read of "poor

-white trash" in anti-slavery novels.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>By this time the sun had so doubled its

-fury that I would not cross the bare Kelly

-field, and therefore did not go down to look at

-the "men cut in a rock;" but after visiting

-a shell pyramid which marks the spot where

-Colonel King fell,&mdash;and near which I saw

-my first Tennessee flicker,&mdash;I turned back

-toward Snodgrass Hill, keeping to the woods

-as jealously as any soldier can have done on

-the days of the battle. At the foot of the

-hill was a well, with a rude bucket and a

-rope to draw with. Here I drank,&mdash;having

-to stand in the sun, I remember,&mdash;and

-then sat down in the shelter of large trees

-near by, with guideboards and index-fingers

-all about me, while a Bachman finch, who

-occupied a small brush-heap just beyond the

-well (<em>he</em> had no fear of sunshine), entertained

-me with music. He was a master.

-I had never heard his equal of his own kind,

-and seldom a bird of any kind, that seemed

-so much at home with his instrument. He

-sang "like half a dozen birds," to quote my

-own pencil; now giving out a brief and simple

-strain, now running into protracted and

-intricate warbles; and all with the most bewitching

-ardor and sweetness, and without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>

-the slightest suggestion of attempting to

-make a show. A field sparrow sang from

-the border of the grass land at the same

-moment. I wished he could have refrained.

-Nothing shall induce me to say a word

-against him; but there are times when one

-would rather be spared even the opportunity

-for a comparison.</p>

-

-<p>As I went up the hill under the tall trees,

-largely yellow pines, a crested flycatcher

-stood at the tip of one of the tallest of them,

-screaming like a bird of war; and further

-on was a red-cockaded woodpecker, flitting

-restlessly from trunk to trunk, its flight

-marked with a musical woodpeckerish wing-beat,&mdash;like

-the downy's purr, but louder.

-I had never seen the bird before except in

-the pine-lands of Florida, nor did I see it

-afterward except on this same hill, at a second

-visit. It is a congener of the downy

-and the hairy, ranking between them in size,

-and by way of distinction wears a big white

-patch, an ear-muff, one might say, on the

-side of its head. Its habitat is strictly

-southern, so that its name, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates borealis</i>,

-though easily rememberable, seems but

-moderately felicitous.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the

-day&mdash;the most comfortable, certainly, but

-the words are not synonymous&mdash;was a two-hour

-siesta on the Snodgrass Hill tower,

-above the tops of the highest trees. The

-only two landmarks of which I knew the

-names were Missionary Ridge and Lookout

-Mountain; the latter running back for

-many miles into Georgia, like a long wooded

-plateau, till it rises into High Point at its

-southern end, and breaks off precipitously.</p>

-

-<p>Farther to the south were low hills followed

-by a long mountain of beautiful shape,&mdash;Pigeon

-Mountain, I heard it called,&mdash;with

-elevations at each end and in the middle.

-And so my eye made the round of the

-horizon, hill after hill in picturesque confusion,

-till it returned to Missionary Ridge,

-with Walden's Ridge rising beyond, and

-Lookout Point on the left: a charming prospect,

-especially for its atmosphere and color.

-The hard woods, with dark pines everywhere

-among them to set them off, were just coming

-into leaf, with all those numberless,

-nameless, delicate shades of green that make

-the glory of the springtime. The open

-fields were not yet clear green,&mdash;if they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>

-ever would be,&mdash;but green and brown intermixed,

-while the cultivated hillsides, especially

-on Missionary Ridge, were of a deep

-rich reddish-brown. The air was full of

-beautifying haze, and cumulus clouds in the

-south and west threw motionless shadows

-upon the mountain woods.</p>

-

-<p>Around me, in different parts of the

-battlefield, were eight or ten houses and

-cabins, the nearest of them, almost at my

-feet, being the Snodgrass house, famous as

-the headquarters of General Thomas, the

-hero of the fight,&mdash;the "Rock of Chickamauga,"&mdash;who

-saved the Union army after

-the field was lost. All was peaceful enough

-there now, with the lines full of the week's

-washing, which a woman under a voluminous

-sunbonnet was at that moment taking

-in (in that sun things would dry almost before

-the clothes-pins could be put on them,

-I thought), while a red-gowned child, and a

-hen with a brood of young chickens, kept

-close about her feet. Her husband, like the

-occupant of the Kelly house, was no doubt

-one of the government laborers, who to-day

-were burning refuse in the woods,&mdash;invisible

-fires, from each of which a thin cloud<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>

-of blue smoke rose among the trees. The

-Dyer house, in a direction nearly opposite

-the Snodgrass house, stood broadly in the

-open, with an orchard behind it, and dark

-savins posted here and there over the outlying

-pasture.</p>

-

-<p>Even at noonday the air was full of

-music: first an incessant tinkle of cow-bells

-rising from all sides, wondrously sweet and

-soothing; then a continuous, far-away hum,

-like a sawmill just audible in the extreme

-distance, or the vibration of innumerable

-wires, miles remote, perhaps,&mdash;a noise which

-I knew neither how to describe nor how to

-guess the origin of, the work of seventeen-year

-locusts, I afterward learned; and then,

-sung to this invariable instrumental accompaniment,&mdash;this

-natural pedal point, if I

-may call it so,&mdash;the songs of birds.</p>

-

-<p>The singers were of a quiet and unpretentious

-sort, as befitted the hour: a summer

-tanager; a red-eyed vireo; a tufted titmouse;

-a Maryland yellow-throat, who cried, "What

-a pity! What a pity! What a pity!" but

-not as if he felt in the least distressed about

-it; a yellow-throated vireo, full-voiced and

-passionless; a field sparrow, pretty far off;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>

-a wood pewee; a yellow-billed cuckoo; a

-quail; a Carolina wren, with his "Cherry,

-cherry, cherry!" and a Carolina chickadee,&mdash;a

-modest woodland chorus, interrupted

-now by the jubilant cackling of a hen at the

-Snodgrass house (if a man's daily achievements

-only gave him equal satisfaction!)

-and now by the scream of a crested flycatcher.</p>

-

-<p>The most interesting member of the choir,

-though one of the poorest of them all as a

-singer, is not included in the foregoing enumeration.

-While I lay dreaming on the

-iron floor of the tower, enjoying the breeze,

-the landscape, the music, and, more than all,

-the place, I was suddenly brought wide

-awake by a hoarse drawling note out of the

-upper branches of a tall oak a little below

-my level. I caught a glimpse of the bird,

-having run down to a lower story of the

-tower for that purpose. Then he disappeared,

-but after a while, from the same

-tree, he called again; and again I saw him,

-but not well. Another long absence, and

-once more, still in the same tree, he sang

-and showed himself: a blue-winged yellow

-warbler, an exquisite bunch of feathers, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>

-with a song of the oddest and meanest,&mdash;two

-syllables, the first a mere nothing, and

-the second a husky drawl, in a voice like

-the blue golden-wing's. Insignificant and

-almost contemptible as it was, a shabby expression

-of connubial felicity, to say the

-least, I counted myself happy to have heard

-it, for novelty covers a multitude of sins.</p>

-

-<p>The yellow-throated warblers were hardly

-less interesting than the blue-wing, though

-they threw me into less excitement. For

-a long time I heard them without heeding

-them. From the day of my arrival in Chattanooga

-I had been surrounded by indigo-birds

-in numbers beyond anything that a

-New England mind ever dreams of. As a

-matter of course they were singing here on

-Snodgrass Hill, or so I thought. But by

-and by, as the lazy notes were once more

-repeated, there came over me a sudden sense

-of difference. "<em>Was</em> that an indigo-bird?"

-I said to myself. "Wasn't it a yellow-throated

-warbler?" I was sitting among

-the tops of the pine-trees; the birds had

-been droning almost in my very ears, and

-without a thought I had listened to them as

-indigo-birds. It confirmed what I had written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>

-in Florida, that the two songs are much

-alike; but it was a sharp lesson in caution.

-When a prudent man finds himself thus befooled,

-he begins to wonder how it may be

-with the remainder of that precious body of

-notions, inherited and acquired, to which, in

-all but his least complacent moods, he has

-been accustomed to give the name of knowledge.</p>

-

-<p>Here was a lesson, also, in the close relation

-that everywhere subsists between the

-distribution of plants and the distribution

-of animals. These were the only yellow

-pines noticed in the neighborhood of Chattanooga;

-and in them, and nowhere else, I

-found two birds of the Southern pine-barrens,

-the red-cockaded woodpecker and the

-yellow-throated warbler.</p>

-

-<p>At the base of the tower, when I finally

-descended, I paused a moment to look at

-a cluster of graves, eight or ten in all, unmarked

-save by a flagging of small stones;

-one of those family or neighborhood burying-grounds,

-the occupants of which&mdash;happier

-than most of us, who must lie in crowded

-cities of the dead&mdash;repose in decent privacy,

-surrounded by their own, with no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>

-ugly staring white slabs to publish their immemorable

-names to every passer-by.</p>

-

-<p>From the hill it was but a few steps to

-the Snodgrass house, where a woman stood

-in the yard with a young girl, and answered

-all my inquiries with cheerful and easy politeness.

-None of the Snodgrass family

-now occupied the house, she said, though one

-of the daughters still lived just outside the

-reservation. The woman had heard her describe

-the terrible scenes on the days of the

-battle. The operating-table stood under this

-tree, and just there was a trench into which

-the amputated limbs were thrown. Yonder

-field, now grassy, was then planted with

-corn; and when the Federal troops were

-driven through it, they trod upon their own

-wounded, who begged piteously for water

-and assistance. A large tree in front of the

-house was famous, the woman said; and

-certainly it was well hacked. A picture of

-it had been in "The Century." General

-Thomas was said to have rested under it;

-but an officer who had been there not long

-before to set up a granite monument near

-the gate told her that General Thomas

-didn't rest under that tree, nor anywhere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>

-else. Two things he did, past all dispute:

-he saved the Federal army from destruction

-and made the Snodgrass farmhouse an

-American shrine.</p>

-

-<p>When our talk was ended I returned to

-the hill, and thence sauntered through the

-woods&mdash;the yellow-throated warblers singing

-all about me in the pine-tops&mdash;down to

-the vicinity of the railroad. Here, finding

-myself in the sun again, I made toward a

-shop near the station,&mdash;shop and post-office

-in one,&mdash;where fortunately there were such

-edibles, semi-edibles, as are generally to be

-looked for in country groceries. Meanwhile

-there came on a Tennessee thunder shower,

-lightning of the closest and rain by the

-bucketful; and, driven before it, an Indiana

-soldier made his appearance, a wiry little

-man of fifty or more. He had been spending

-the day on the field, he told me. In

-one hand he carried a battered and rusty

-cartridge-box, and out of his pockets he produced

-and laid on the counter a collection of

-bullets. His were relics of the right stamp,&mdash;found,

-not purchased,&mdash;and not without

-a little shamefacedness I showed him my

-three minie-balls. "Oh, you have got all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>

-Federal bullets," he said; and on my asking

-how he could tell that, he placed a Confederate

-ball beside them, and pointed out a

-difference in shape. He was a cheery, communicative

-body, good-humored but not

-jocose, excellent company in such an hour,

-though he had small fancy for the lightning,

-it seemed to me. Perhaps he had been

-under fire so often as to have lost all relish

-for excitement of that kind. He was not at

-the battle of Chickamauga, he said, but at

-Vicksburg; and he gave me a vivid description

-of his work in the trenches, as well as

-of the surrender, and the happiness of the

-half-starved defenders of the city, who were

-at once fed by their captors.</p>

-

-<p>All his talk showed a lively sense of the

-horrors of war. He had seen enough of

-fighting, he confessed; but he couldn't keep

-away from a battlefield, if he came anywhere

-near one. He had been to the national

-cemetery in Chattanooga, and agreed with

-me that it was a beautiful place; but he had

-heard that Southern soldiers were lying in

-unmarked graves just outside the wall (a

-piece of misinformation, I have no doubt),

-and he didn't think it right or decent for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>

-the government to discriminate in that way.

-The Confederates were just as sincere as the

-Union men; and anyhow, vengeance ought

-not to follow a man after he was dead.

-Evidently he had fought against an army

-and a cause, not against individuals.</p>

-

-<p>When the rain was over, or substantially

-so, I proposed to improve an hour of coolness

-and freshness by paying another visit

-to headquarters; but my Indiana veteran

-was not to be enticed out of shelter. It was

-still rather wet, he thought. "I'm pretty

-careful of my body," he added, by way of

-settling the matter. It had been through

-so much, I suppose, that he esteemed it

-precious.</p>

-

-<p>I set out alone, therefore, and this time

-went into the Dyer house, after drinking

-from a covered spring across the way. But

-there was little to see inside, and the three

-or four officers and clerks were occupied

-with maps and charts,&mdash;courteous, no doubt,

-but with official and counting-house courtesy;

-men of whom you could well enough ask a

-definite question, but with whom it would be

-impossible to drift into random talk. There

-was far better company outside. Even while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>

-I stood in the back door, on my way thither,

-there suddenly flashed upon me from a treetop

-by the fence a splendid Baltimore oriole.

-He fairly "gave me a start," and I broke

-out to the young fellow beside me, "Why,

-there's a Baltimore oriole!" The exclamation

-was thrown away, but I did not mind.</p>

-

-<p>It was the birds' own hour,&mdash;late afternoon,

-with sunshine after rain. The orchard

-and shade-trees were alive with wings,

-and the air was loud. How brilliant a company

-it was a list of names will show: a

-mocking-bird, a thrasher, several catbirds, a

-pair of bluebirds, a pair of orchard orioles,

-a summer tanager, a wood pewee, and a

-flicker, with goldfinches and indigo-birds,

-and behind the orchard a Bachman finch.

-For bright colors and fine voices that was a

-chorus hard to beat. As for the Baltimore

-oriole, the brightest bird of the lot, and the

-only one of his race that I found in all that

-country, he looked most uncommonly at

-home&mdash;to me&mdash;in the John Dyer trees.

-I was never gladder to see him.</p>

-

-<p>A strange fate this that had befallen these

-Georgia farms, owned once by Dyer, Snodgrass,

-Kelly, Brotherton, and the rest: the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>

-plainest and most ordinary of country houses,

-in which lived the plainest of country people,

-with no dream of fame, or of much else, perhaps,

-beyond the day's work and the day's

-ration. Then comes Bragg retreating before

-Rosecrans, who is man&oelig;uvring him out of

-Tennessee. Here the Confederate leader

-turns upon his pursuers. Here he&mdash;or rather,

-one of his subordinates&mdash;wins a great

-victory, which nevertheless, as a Southern

-historian says, "sealed the fate of the

-Southern Confederacy." Now the farmers

-are gone, but their names remain; and as

-long as the national government endures,

-pilgrims from far and near will come to

-walk over the historic acres. "This is the

-Dyer house," they will say, "and this is

-the Kelly house, and this is the Snodgrass

-house." So Fame catches up a chance

-favorite, and consigns the rest to oblivion.</p>

-

-<p>My first visit to Chickamauga left so

-pleasant a taste that only two days afterward

-I repeated it. In particular I remembered

-my midday rest among the treetops, and my

-glimpse of the blue-winged warbler. It

-would be worth a day of my vacation to idle

-away another noon so agreeably, and hear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>

-again that ridiculous makeshift of a bird-song.

-Field ornithology has this for one

-of its distinguishing advantages, that every

-excursion leaves something for another to

-verify or finish.</p>

-

-<p>This time I went straight to Snodgrass

-Hill through the woods, and was barely on

-the steps of the tower before I heard the

-blue-wing. As well as I could judge, the

-voice came from the same oak that the bird

-had occupied two days before. I was in

-luck, I thought; but the miserly fellow

-vouchsafed not another note, and I could

-not spend the forenoon hours in waiting for

-him. Two red-cockaded woodpeckers were

-playing among the trees, where, like the blue-wing

-and the yellow-throats, they were doubtless

-established in summer quarters. "Sap-suckers,"

-one of the workmen called them.

-They were common, he said, but likely

-enough he failed to discriminate between

-them and their two black-and-white relatives.

-Red-headed woodpeckers were <em>not</em> common

-here (I had seen a single bird, displaying its

-colors from a lofty dead pine), but were

-abundant and very destructive, so my

-informant declared, on Lookout Mountain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>

-Turkeys were still numerous on the mountain,

-and only the Sunday before one had

-been seen within the park limits.</p>

-

-<p>The Bachman finch was again in tune at

-his brush-heap near the well, and between

-the music and a shady seat I was in no haste

-to go further. Finally, I experimented to

-see how near the fellow would let me approach,

-taking time enough not to startle

-him in the process. It was wonderful how

-he held his ground. The "Rock of Chickamauga"

-himself could not have been more

-obstinate. I had almost to tread on him before

-he would fly. He was a great singer,

-a genius, and a poet,</p>

-

-<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i8">"with modest looks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And clad in homely russet brown,"<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>and withal a lover of the sun,&mdash;a bird never

-to be forgotten. I wish I knew how to

-praise him.</p>

-

-<p>To-day, as on my previous visit, I remarked

-a surprising scarcity of migrants.

-With the exception of black-poll warblers,

-I am not certain that I saw any, though I

-went nowhere else without finding them in

-good variety. Had my imagination been

-equal to such a stretch, I might have suspected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>

-that Northern birds did not feel at

-home on the scene of a great Southern victory.

-Here and there a nuthatch called,

-and again I seemed to perceive a decided

-strangeness in the voice. From the tip of a

-fruit-tree in the Kelly yard a thrasher or a

-mocker was singing like one possessed. It

-was impossible to be sure which it was, and

-the uncertainty pleased me so much, as a

-testimony to the thrasher's musical powers,

-that I would not go round the house in the

-sun to get a nearer observation. Instead, I

-went down to look at the monuments of the

-regulars, with their "men cut in a rock."

-Thence I returned to Snodgrass Hill for my

-noonday rest, stopping once more at the

-well, of course, and reading again some of

-the placards, the number of which just here

-bore impressive witness to the fierceness of

-the battle at this point. One inscription I

-took pains to copy:&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p><big>&#9758;</big><span class="smcap">Gen. J. B. Hood was wounded

-11.10 a.&nbsp;m. 20 Sept. '63 in edge

-of timber on Cove Road &frac12; mile

-East of South, loosing his leg.</span></p></blockquote>

-

-<p>It was exactly eleven o'clock as I went up

-the hill toward the tower, and the workmen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>

-were already taking down their dinner-pails.

-Standard time, so called, is an unquestioned

-convenience, but the stomach of a day-laborer

-has little respect for convention, and

-is not to be appeased by a setting back of

-the clock. For my own part, I was not

-hungry,&mdash;in that respect, as in some others,

-I might have envied the day-laborers,&mdash;but

-as men of a certain amusing sort are

-said to turn up their trousers in New York

-when it rains in London, so I felt it patriotic

-to nibble at my luncheon as best I

-could, now that the clocks were striking

-twelve in Boston.</p>

-

-<p>The hour (but it was two hours) calls for

-little description. The breeze was delicious,

-and the hazy landscape beautiful. The cow-bells

-and the locusts filled the air with music,

-the birds kept me company, and for half

-an hour or more I had human society that

-was even more agreeable. When the workmen

-had eaten their dinner at the foot of

-the tower, four of them climbed the stairs,

-and my field-glass proved so pleasing a

-novelty that they stayed till their time was

-up, to the very last minute. One after another

-took the glass, and no sooner had it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>

-gone the rounds once than it started again;

-for meanwhile every man had thought of

-something else that he wanted to look at.

-They were above concealing their delight,

-or affecting any previous acquaintance with

-such a toy, and probably I never before

-gave so much pleasure by so easy a means.

-I believe I was as happy as if the blue-wing

-had sung a full hour. They were rough-looking

-men, perhaps, at least they were

-coarsely dressed, but none of them spoke

-a rude word; and when the last moment

-came, one of them, in the simplest and gentlest

-manner, asked me to accept three relics

-(bullets) which he had picked up in the

-last day or two on the hill. It was no great

-thing, to be sure, but it was better: it was

-one of those little acts which, from their

-perfect and unexpected grace, can never be

-forgotten.</p>

-

-<p>A jaunt through the woods past the Kelly

-house, after luncheon, brought me to a

-superfine, spick-and-span new road,&mdash;like

-the new government "boulevard" on Missionary

-Ridge, of which it may be a continuation,&mdash;following

-which I came to the

-Brotherton house, another war-time landmark,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>

-weather-beaten and fast going to ruin.

-In the woods&mdash;cleared of underbrush, and

-with little herbage&mdash;were scattered ground

-flowers: houstonia, yellow and violet oxalis,

-phlox, cranesbill, bird-foot violets, rue anemones,

-and spring beauties. I remarked

-especially a bit of bright gromwell, such as

-I had found first at Orchard Knob, and a

-single tuft of white American cowslip (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dodecatheon</i>),

-the only specimen I had ever

-seen growing wild. The flower that pleased

-me most, however, was the blood-red catchfly,

-which I had seen first on Missionary

-Ridge. Nothing could have been more appropriate

-here on the bloody field of Chickamauga.

-Appealing to fancy instead of

-to fact, it nevertheless spoke of the battle

-almost as plainly as the hundreds of decapitated

-trees, here one and there one, which

-even the most careless observer could not

-fail to notice.</p>

-

-<p>From the Brotherton house to the post-office

-was a sunny stretch, but under the

-protection of my umbrella I compassed it;

-and then, passing the Widow Glenn's

-(Rosecrans's headquarters), on the road to

-Crawfish Springs, I came to a diminutive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>

-body of water,&mdash;a sink-hole,&mdash;which I

-knew at once could be nothing but Bloody

-Pond. At the time of the fight it contained

-the only water to be had for a long distance.

-It was fiercely contended for, therefore, and

-men and horses drank from it greedily,

-while other men and horses lay dead in it,

-having dropped while drinking. Now a

-fence runs through it, leaving an outer segment

-of it open to the road for the convenience

-of passing teams; and when I came in

-sight of the spot, two boys were fishing

-round the further edge. Not far beyond

-was an unfinished granite tower, on which

-no one was at work, though a derrick still

-protruded from the top. It offered the best

-of shade,&mdash;the shadow of a great rock,&mdash;in

-the comfort of which I sat awhile, thinking

-of the past, and watching the peaceful

-labors of two or three men who were cultivating

-a broad ploughed field directly before

-me, crossing and recrossing it in the sun.

-Then I took the road again; but by this

-time I had relinquished all thought of walking

-to Crawfish Springs, and so did nothing

-but idle along. Once, I remember, I turned

-aside to explore a lane running up to a hillside<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>

-cattle pasture, stopping by the way to

-admire the activities&mdash;and they <em>were</em> activities&mdash;of

-a set of big scavenger beetles.

-Next, I tried for half a mile a fine new road

-leading across the park to the left, with

-thick, uncleared woods on one side; and

-then I went back to Bloody Pond.</p>

-

-<p>The place was now deserted, and I took

-a seat under a tree opposite. Prodigious

-bullfrogs, big enough to have been growing

-ever since the war, lay here and there upon

-the water; now calling in the lustiest bass,

-now falling silent again after one comical

-expiring gulp. It was getting toward the

-cool of the afternoon. Already the birds

-felt it. A wood thrush's voice rang out

-at intervals from somewhere beyond the

-ploughed land, and a field sparrow chanted

-nearer by. At the same time my eye was

-upon a pair of kingbirds,&mdash;wayfarers hereabout,

-to judge from their behavior; a

-crested flycatcher stood guard at the top of

-a lofty dead tree, and a rough-winged swallow

-alighted on the margin of the pool, and

-began bathing with great enjoyment. It

-made me comfortable to look at him. By

-and by two young fellows with fishing-poles

-came down the railroad.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>"Why is this called Bloody Pond?" I

-asked.</p>

-

-<p>"Why?"</p>

-

-<p>"Yes."</p>

-

-<p>"Why, there were a lot of soldiers killed

-here in the war, and the pond got bloody."</p>

-

-<p>The granite tower in the shadow of which

-I had rested awhile ago was General

-Wilder's monument, they said. His headquarters

-were there. Then they passed on

-down the track out of sight, and all was

-silent once more, till a chickadee gave out

-his sweet and quiet song just behind me, and

-a second swallow dropped upon the water's

-edge. The pond was of the smallest and

-meanest,&mdash;muddy shore, muddy bottom,

-and muddy water; but men fought and

-died for it in those awful September days

-of heat and dust and thirst. There was no

-better place on the field, perhaps, in which

-to realize the horrors of the battle, and I

-was glad to have the chickadee's voice the

-last sound in my ears as I turned away.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="ORCHARD_KNOB_AND_THE_NATIONAL" id="ORCHARD_KNOB_AND_THE_NATIONAL">ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL

-CEMETERY.</a></h2>

-

-

-<p>The street cars that run through the open

-valley country from Chattanooga to Missionary

-Ridge, pass between two places of peculiar

-interest to Northern visitors,&mdash;Orchard

-Knob on the left, and the national cemetery

-on the right. Of these, the Knob remains

-in all the desolation of war-time; unfenced,

-and without so much as a tablet to inform

-the stranger where he is and what was done

-here; a low, round-topped hill, dry, stony,

-thin-soiled, with out-cropping ledges and

-a sprinkling of stunted cedars and pines.

-Some remains of rifle-pits are its only monument,

-unless we reckon as such a cedar

-rather larger than its fellows, which must

-have been of some size thirty years ago, and

-now bears the marks of abundant hard usage.</p>

-

-<p>The hill was taken by the Federal troops

-on the 23d of November, 1863, by way of

-"overture to the battle of Chattanooga,"

-Grant, Thomas, Hooker, Granger, Howard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>

-and others overlooking the engagement from

-the ramparts of Fort Wood. The next day,

-as all the world knows, Hooker's men carried

-Lookout Mountain, while the multitude below,

-hearing the commotion, wondered what

-could be going on above them, till suddenly

-the clouds lifted, and behold, the Confederates

-were in full flight. Then, says an eye-witness,

-there "went up a mighty cheer from

-the thirty thousand in the valley, that was

-heard above the battle by their comrades on

-the mountain." On the day following, for

-events followed each other fast in that spectacular

-campaign, Grant and Thomas had

-established themselves on Orchard Knob,

-and late in the afternoon the Union army,

-exceeding its orders, stormed Missionary

-Ridge, put the army of Bragg to sudden

-rout, and completed one of the really decisive

-victories of the war.</p>

-

-<p>For a man who wishes to feel the memory

-of that stirring time there is no better place

-than Orchard Knob, where Grant stood and

-anxiously watched the course of the battle,

-a battle of which he declared that it was

-won "under the most trying circumstances

-presented during the war." For my own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>

-part, I can see the man himself as I read the

-words of one who was there with him. The

-stormers of Missionary Ridge, as I have

-said, after making the demonstration they

-had been ordered to make, kept on up the

-slope, thinking "the time had come to finish

-the battle of Chickamauga." "As soon as

-this movement was seen from Orchard

-Knob," writes General Fullerton, "Grant

-turned quickly to Thomas, who stood by his

-side, and I heard him say angrily, 'Thomas,

-who ordered those men up the ridge?'

-Thomas replied in his usual slow, quiet manner,

-'I don't know; I did not.' Then, addressing

-General Gordon Granger, he said,

-'Did you order them up, Granger?' 'No,'

-said Granger; 'they started up without

-orders. When those fellows get started all

-hell can't stop them.'" In the heat of battle

-a soldier may be pardoned, I suppose, if his

-speech smells of sulphur; and after the event

-an army is hardly to be censured for beating

-the enemy a day ahead of time. I speak as

-a civilian. Military men, no doubt, find insubordination,

-even on the right side, a less

-pardonable offense; a fact which may explain

-why General Grant, in his history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>

-the battle, written many years afterward,

-makes no mention of this its most dramatic

-incident, so that the reader of his narrative

-would never divine but that everything had

-been done according to the plans and orders

-of the general in command.</p>

-

-<p>Orders or no orders, the fight was won.

-That was more than thirty years ago. It

-was now a pleasant May afternoon, the

-afternoon of May-day itself. The date, indeed,

-was the immediate occasion of my

-presence. I had started from Chattanooga

-with the intention of going once more to

-Missionary Ridge, which just now offered

-peculiar attractions to a stranger of ornithological

-proclivities. But the car was full

-of laughing, smartly dressed colored people;

-they were bound for the same place, it appeared,

-on their annual picnic; and, being

-in a quiet mood, I took the hint and dropped

-out by the way.</p>

-

-<p>There was much to feel but little to see at

-Orchard Knob; and yet I recall two plants

-that I found there for the first time; a low

-gromwell (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Lithospermum canescens</i>), with

-clustered bright yellow flowers, and an odd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>

-and homely greenish milkweed (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Asclepias

-obovata</i>). The yarrow-leaved ragwort was

-there also, and the tall blue baptisia; but

-as well as I can recollect, not one dainty

-and modest nosegay-blossom; not even the

-houstonia, which seemed to grow everywhere,

-though after a strangely sparse and depauperate

-fashion. As I said to begin with, the

-Knob is a desolate place. It made me think

-of the Scriptural phrase about "the besom

-of destruction." I can imagine that mourners

-of the "Lost Cause," if such there still

-be, might see upon it the signs of a place

-accursed.</p>

-

-<p>Far otherwise is it with the national cemetery.

-That is a spot of which the nation

-takes care. Here are shaven lawns, which,

-nevertheless, you are permitted to walk over;

-and shrubbery and trees, both in grateful

-profusion, but not planted so thickly as to

-make the inclosure either a wood or a garden;

-and where the ledge crops out, it is

-pleasingly and naturally draped with vines

-of the Virginia creeper. One thing I noticed

-upon the instant; there were no English

-sparrows inside the wall. The city is

-overrun with them beyond anything I have

-seen elsewhere; within two hundred feet of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>

-the cemetery gate, as I passed out, there

-were at least two hundred sparrows; but

-inside, on three visits, I saw not one! How

-this exemption had been brought about, I

-did not learn; but it makes of the cemetery

-a sort of heavenly place. I felt the silence

-as the sweetest of music (it was a Sunday

-afternoon), and thought instantly of Comus

-and his "prisoned soul" lapped in Elysium.

-If I knew whom to thank, I would name

-him.</p>

-

-<p>A mocking-bird, aloft upon the topmost

-twig of a tall willow near the entrance, was

-pouring forth a characteristic medley, in the

-midst of which he suddenly called <em>wick-a-wick</em>,

-<em>wick-a-wick</em>, in the flicker's very happiest

-style. "So flickers must now and then

-come to Chattanooga," I said to myself, for

-up to that time I had seen none. It was

-a pleasure to hear this great songster of

-the South singing above these thousands of

-Northern graves. It seemed <em>right</em>; for time

-and the event will prove, if, indeed, they

-have not proved already, that the South,

-even more than the North, has reason to be

-glad of the victory which these deaths went

-far to win.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>A tablet on one of the cannons which

-stand upright on the highest knoll informs

-visitors that the cemetery was "established"

-in 1863. The number of burials is given as

-12,876, of which nearly five thousand are of

-bodies unidentified. A great proportion of

-the stones bear nothing but a number. On

-others is a name, or part of a name, with

-the name of the State underneath. One I

-noticed that was inscribed:&mdash;</p>

-

-

-<p class="center">JOHN</p>

-

-<p class="center">N. Y.</p>

-

-

-<p>An attendant of whom I inquired if any

-New England men were here, answered that

-there were a few members of the Thirty-third

-Massachusetts. I hope the New Englanders

-resident in Chattanooga do not forget

-them on Memorial Day.</p>

-

-<p>Twice in the year, at least, the place has

-many Northern visitors. They arrive on

-wings, mostly by night, and such of them as

-came under my eye acted as if they appreciated

-the quiet of the inclosure, a quiet which

-their own presence made but the more appreciable.

-Scattered over the lawns were

-silent groups of white-throated sparrows,&mdash;on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>

-their way to New Hampshire, perhaps, or

-it might be to upper Michigan; and not far

-from the entrance, and almost directly under

-the mocking-bird, were two or three white-crowned

-sparrows, the only ones found in

-Tennessee. On an earlier visit (April 29)

-I saw here my only Tennessee robins&mdash;five

-birds; and most welcome they were.

-Months afterward, a resident of Missionary

-Ridge wrote to me that a pair had nested in

-the cemetery that year, though to his great

-regret he did not know of it till too late.

-He had never seen a robin's nest, he added,

-and was acquainted with the bird only as a

-migrant. Such are some of the deprivations

-of life in eastern Tennessee. May and June

-without robins or song sparrows!</p>

-

-<p>On the last of my three visits, a small

-flock of black-poll warblers were in the trees,

-and two of them gave me a pleasant little

-surprise by dropping to the ground, and

-feeding for a long time upon the lawn.

-That was something new for black-polls, so

-far as my observation had gone, and an encouraging

-thing to look at: another sign,

-where all signs are welcome, that the life of

-birds is less strictly instinctive&mdash;less a matter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>

-of inherited habit, and more a matter of

-personal intelligence&mdash;than has commonly

-been assumed. In general, no doubt, like

-human beings, they do what their fathers

-did, what they themselves have done heretofore.

-So much is to be expected, since

-their faculties and desires remain the same,

-and they have the same world to live in;

-but when exceptional circumstances arise,

-their conduct becomes exceptional. In other

-words, they do as a few of the quicker-witted

-among men do&mdash;suit their conduct

-to altered conditions. A month ago I should

-have said, after years of acquaintance, that

-no birds could be more strictly arboreal than

-golden-crowned kinglets. But recently, I

-happened upon a little group of them that

-for a week or more fed persistently on the

-ground in a certain piece of wood. Then

-and there, for some reason, food was plentiful

-on the snow and among the dead leaves;

-and the kinglets had no scruples about following

-where duty called them.</p>

-

-<p>At the same time a friend of mine, a

-young farmer, was at his winter's work in

-the woods; and being alone, and a lover of

-birds, he had taken a fancy to experiment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>

-with a few chickadees, to see how tame a

-little encouragement would make them. A

-flock of five came about him day after day,

-at luncheon-time, and by dint of sitting

-motionless he soon had two of them on terms

-of something like intimacy; so that they

-would alight on his hand and help themselves

-to a feast. He was not long in discovering,

-and reporting to me, that they carried

-much of the food to the trees round about,

-and packed it into crannies of the bark.</p>

-

-<p>"Are you sure of that?" I asked.</p>

-

-<p>"Oh, yes," he answered; "I saw them do

-it, and then I went to the trees and found

-the crumbs."</p>

-

-<p>Did any one ever suspect the chickadee of

-such providence? If so, I never heard of it;

-and it is more likely, I think, that the birds

-had never before done anything of the sort;

-but now, finding suddenly a supply far in

-excess of the demand (one day they ate and

-carried away half a doughnut), they had

-sense enough to improve the opportunity.

-What they had done, or had not done, in

-times past, was nothing to the point, since

-they were creatures not of memory alone,

-but of intelligence and a measure of reason.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Beside the unmistakable migrants,&mdash;white-throats,

-white-crowns, and black-polls,&mdash;there

-were numbers of more southern

-birds in the national cemetery. Among

-them I noticed a yellow-billed cuckoo, crow

-blackbirds, orchard orioles, summer tanagers,

-catbirds, a thrasher, a bluebird, wood pewees,

-chippers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, yellow warblers,

-wood thrushes, and chats. All these

-looked sufficiently at home except the chats;

-and it helps to mark the exceeding abundance

-of these last in the Chattanooga region

-that they should show themselves without

-reserve in a spot so frequented and so wanting

-in close cover. One of the orioles sang

-in the manner of a fox sparrow, while one

-that sang daily under my window, on Cameron

-Hill, never once suggested that bird,

-but often the purple finch. The two facts

-offer a good idea of this fine songster's quality

-and versatility. The organ tones of the

-yellow-throated vireo and the minor whistle

-of the wood pewee were sweetly in harmony

-with the spirit of the place, a spirit hard

-fully and exactly to express, a mingling of

-regret and exultation. What mattered it

-that all these men had perished, as it seemed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>

-before their time?&mdash;that so many of them

-were lying in nameless graves? We shall

-all die; few of us so worthily; and when

-we are gone, of what use will be a name

-upon a stone, a name which, after a few

-years at the most, no passer-by will be concerned

-to read? Happy is he who dies to

-some purpose. It would have been good, I

-thought, to see over the cemetery gate the

-brave old Latin sentence, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dulce et decorum

-est pro patria mori</i>.</p>

-

-<p>The human visitors, of whom one day

-there might have been a hundred, were

-largely people of color. All were quiet

-and orderly, in couples and family groups.

-Most of them, I remarked, went to look at

-the only striking monument in the grounds,

-a locomotive and tender (the "General")

-on a pedestal of marble&mdash;"Ohio's Tribute

-to the Andrews Raiders, 1862." On

-three faces of the pedestal are lists of the

-"exchanged," the "executed," and the

-"escaped."</p>

-

-<p>One thing, one only, grated upon my feelings.

-In a corner of the inclosure is the

-Superintendent's house, with a stable and

-out-buildings; and at the gate the visitor is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>

-suddenly struck in the face with this notice

-in flaring capitals: <span class="smcap">Keep Out! This

-Means You!</span> That is brutality beyond excuse.

-But perhaps it answers its purpose.

-For my own part, I got out of the neighborhood

-as quickly as possible. I liked better

-the society of the graves; at such a price a

-dead soldier was better than a live superintendent;

-and to take the unpleasant taste

-out of my mouth I stopped to read again a

-stanza on one of the metal tablets set at intervals

-along the driveway:&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">"On Fame's eternal camping ground<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">Their silent tents are spread,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Glory guards, with solemn round,<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">The bivouac of the dead."<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>Far be the day when these Southern fields

-of Northern graves shall fall into forgetfulness

-and neglect.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="AN_AFTERNOON_BY_THE_RIVER" id="AN_AFTERNOON_BY_THE_RIVER">AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER.</a></h2>

-

-

-<p>To an idler desirous of seeing wild life on

-easy terms Chattanooga offers this advantage,

-that electric cars take him quickly out

-of the city in different directions, and drop

-him in the woods. In this way, on an afternoon

-too sultry for extended travel on foot,

-I visited a wooded hillside on the further

-bank of the Tennessee, a few miles above

-the town.</p>

-

-<p>The car was still turning street corner

-after street corner, making its zigzag course

-toward the bridge, when I noticed a rustic

-old gentleman at my side looking intently

-at the floor. Apparently he suspected something

-amiss. He was unused to the ways

-of electricity, I thought,&mdash;a verdancy by no

-means inexcusable. But as he leaned farther

-forward, and looked and listened with

-more and more absorption, the matter&mdash;not

-his ignorance, but his simple-hearted betrayal

-of it&mdash;began to seem amusing. For myself,

-to be sure, I knew nothing about electricity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>

-but I had wit enough to sit still and let the

-car run; a degree of sophistication which

-passes pretty well as a substitute for wisdom

-in a world where men are distinguished from

-children not so much by more knowledge as

-by less curiosity. In the present instance,

-however, as the event proved, the dunce's

-cap belonged on the other head. My countryman's

-stare was less verdant than his

-next neighbor's smile; for in a few minutes

-the conductor was taking up a trap door at

-our feet, to get at the works, some part of

-which had fallen out of gear, though they

-were still running. Twice the car was

-stopped for a better examination into the difficulty,

-and at last a new wedge, or something

-else, was inserted, and we proceeded

-on our way, while the motorman who had

-done the job busied himself with removing

-from his coat, as best he could, the oil with

-which it had become besmeared in the course

-of the operation. It was rather hard, he

-thought, to have to spoil his clothes in repair-shop

-work of that kind, especially as he

-was paid nothing for it, and had to find

-himself. As for my rustic-looking seatmate,

-he was an old hand at the business, it appeared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>

-and his practiced ear had detected a

-jar in the machinery.</p>

-

-<p>We left the car in company, he and I,

-at the end of the route, and pretty soon it

-transpired that he was an old Union soldier,

-of Massachusetts parentage, but born in Canada

-and a member of a Michigan regiment.

-Just how these autobiographical details came

-to be mentioned I fail now to remember,

-but in that country, where so much history

-had been made, it was hard to keep the past

-out of one's conversation. He had been in

-Sheridan's force when it stormed Missionary

-Ridge. As they went up the heights, he

-said, they were between two fires; as much

-in danger from Federal bullets as from Confederate;

-"but Sheridan kept right on."

-An old woman who lived on the Ridge told

-him that she asked General Bragg if the

-Yankees would take the hill. "Take the

-hill!" said Bragg; "they could as well fly."

-Just then she saw the blue-coats coming,

-and pointed them out to the General. He

-looked at them, put spurs to his horse,

-"and," added the woman, "I ain't seen him

-since." All of which, for aught I know,

-may be true.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>The talkative veteran was now on his way

-to find an old friend of his who lived somewhere

-around here, he didn't know just

-where; and as my course lay in the same

-general direction we went across lots and up

-the hill together, he rehearsing the past,

-and I gladly putting myself to school. In

-my time history was studied from text-books;

-but the lecture system is better. By and

-by we approached a solitary cabin, on the

-dilapidated piazza of which sat the very

-man for whom my companion was looking.

-"Very sick to-day," he said, in response

-to a greeting. His appearance harmonized

-with his words,&mdash;and with the piazza; and

-his manners were pitched on the same key;

-so that it was in a downright surly tone that

-he pointed out a gate through which I could

-make an exit toward the woods on the other

-side of the house. I had asked the way,

-and was glad to take it. Not that I was

-greatly offended. A sick man on one of his

-bad days has some excuse for a little impatience;

-a far better excuse than I should

-have for alluding to the matter at this late

-date, if I did not improve the occasion to

-add that this was the only bit of anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>

-like incivility that I have ever received at

-the South, where I have certainly not been

-slow to ask questions of all sorts of people.</p>

-

-<p>A little jaunt along a foot-path brought

-me unexpectedly to a second cabin, uninhabited.

-It was built of boards, not logs,

-with the usual outside chimney at one end,

-a broad veranda, a door, and no window; a

-house to fill a social economist with admiration

-at the low terms to which civilized life

-can be reduced. Thoreau himself was outdone,

-though the veranda, it must be confessed,

-seemed a dispensable bit of fashionable

-conformity, with forest trees on all

-sides crowding the roof. Half the floor had

-fallen away; yet the house could not have

-been long unoccupied, for at one end the

-wall was hung with newspapers, among

-which was a Boston "weekly" less than two

-years old. From it looked the portrait of a

-New England college president, and at the

-head of the page stood a list of "eminent

-contributors." I ran the names over, but

-somehow, in these wild and natural surroundings,

-they did not seem so very impressive.

-I think it has been said before, perhaps

-by Thoreau, that most of what we call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>

-literature wears an artificial and unimportant

-look when taken out-of-doors.</p>

-

-<p>Near this cabin I struck a road ("a

-sort of road," according to my notebook)

-through the woods, following which I

-shortly came to a grave-yard, or rather to a

-bunch of graves, for there was no inclosure,

-nor even a clearing. One grave&mdash;or it

-may have been a tiny family lot&mdash;was surrounded

-by a curb of stone. The others,

-with a single exception, were marked only

-by low mounds of gravel. The one exception

-was a grave with a head-board,&mdash;the

-grave of "Little Theodosia," a year and

-some months old. "Theodosia!"&mdash;even

-into a windowless cabin a baby brings romance.

-Under the name and the two dates

-was this legend: "She is happy." Of ten

-inscriptions on marble monuments nine will

-be found less simply appropriate.</p>

-

-<p>By a circuitous course the wood road

-brought me to a larger cabin, in a larger

-clearing. Here a pleasant-spoken, neighborly

-woman, with a child in her arms,

-called off her dog, and pointed out a path

-beyond a pair of bars. That path, she

-said, would carry me to the river,&mdash;to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>

-water's edge. And so it did, down a pleasant

-wooded hillside, which an unwonted

-profusion of bushes and ferns made exceptionally

-attractive. At the end of the path

-a lordly elm and a lordlier buttonwood, both

-of them loaded with lusty vines (besides

-clusters of mistletoe, I believe), gave me

-shelter from the sun while I sat and gazed

-at the strong eager current of the Tennessee

-hurrying onward without a ripple. As my

-foot touched the beach a duck&mdash;I could

-not tell of what kind&mdash;sprang out of the

-water and went dashing off. She had

-learned her lesson. In the duck's primer

-one of the first questions is: "What is a

-man?" and the answer follows: "Man is

-a gun-bearing animal." In the treetops a

-golden warbler and a redstart were singing.

-Then I heard a puffing of steam, and by and

-by a tug came round a turn, pushing laboriously

-up stream a loaded barge. It was the

-Ocoee of Chattanooga, and the two or three

-mariners on board seemed to find the sight

-of a stranger in that unlooked-for place a

-welcome break in the monotony of their inland

-voyage.</p>

-

-<p>On the bushy, ferny slope, as I returned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>

-two Kentucky warblers were singing in opposite

-directions. So I called them, at all

-events. But they were too far away to be

-gone after, as my mood then was, and soon

-I began to wonder whether I might not be

-mistaken. Possibly they were Carolina

-wrens, whose <em>cherry</em> is not altogether unlike

-the Kentucky's <em>klurwee</em>. The question

-will perhaps seem unreasonable to readers

-long familiar with the two birds; but let

-them put themselves in a stranger's place,

-remembering that this was only his third

-or fourth hearing of the Kentucky's music.

-As the doubt grew on me (and nothing

-grows faster than doubt) I sat down and

-listened. Yes, they were Kentuckies; but

-anon the uncertainty came back, and I kept

-my seat. Then a sound of humming-bird

-wings interrupted my cogitations, and in

-another moment the bird was before me,

-sipping at a scarlet catchfly,&mdash;battlefield

-pink. I caught the flash of his throat. It

-was as red as the flower&mdash;beyond which

-there is nothing to be said. Then he vanished

-(rather than went away), as humming-birds

-do; but in ten minutes he was there

-again. I was glad to see him. Birds of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>

-kind were rare about Chattanooga, though

-afterwards, in the forests of Walden's Ridge,

-they became as common as I ever saw them

-anywhere. The two invisible Kentuckies

-wore out my patience, but as I came to the

-bars another sang near me. Him, by good

-luck, I saw in the act, and for the time, at

-least, my doubts were quieted.</p>

-

-<p>In the woods and thickets, as I sauntered

-along, I heard blue golden-winged warblers,

-two more Kentuckies, a blue-gray gnatcatcher,

-a Bachman's finch, a wood pewee, a

-quail, and the inevitable chats, indigo-birds,

-prairie warblers, and white-eyed vireos.

-Then, as I drew near the car track, I descended

-again to the river-bank and walked

-in the shade of lofty buttonwoods, willows,

-and white maples, with mistletoe perched in

-the upper branches, and poison ivy climbing

-far up the trunks; the whole standing in

-great contrast to the comparatively stunted

-growth, mainly oak,&mdash;and largely black

-jack,&mdash;on the dry soil of the hillside.

-Across the river were broad, level fields,

-brown with cultivation, in which men were

-at work, and from the same direction came

-loud rasping cries of batrachians of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>

-kind. For aught that my ear could detect,

-they might be common toads uttering their

-mysterious, discordant midsummer screams

-in full chorus. Here were more indigo-birds,

-with red-eyes, white-eyes, lisping black-poll

-warblers, redstarts, a yellow-billed cuckoo

-(furtive as ever, like a bird with an evil

-conscience), catbirds, a thrasher, a veery in

-song (a luxury in these parts), orchard orioles,

-goldfinches, and chippers. A bluebird

-was gathering straws, and a carrion crow,

-one of two seen in Tennessee, was soaring

-high over the river.</p>

-

-<p>The "pavilion," at the terminus of the

-car route, was deserted, and I sat on the

-piazza enjoying the really beautiful prospect&mdash;the

-river, the woods, and the cultivated

-fields. The land hereabout was all in the

-market. In truth, the selling of building

-lots seemed to be one of the principal industries

-of Chattanooga; and I was not

-surprised to find the good-humored young

-fellow behind the counter&mdash;with its usual

-appetizing display of cigars, drinks, and

-confectionery&mdash;full of the glories and imminent

-possibilities of this particular "suburb."

-He believed in the river. Folks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>

-would come this way, where it was high and

-cool. (On that particular afternoon, to be

-sure, it was neither very high nor very

-cool, but of course the weather isn't always

-good anywhere.) "Lookout Mountain ain't

-what it used to be," he said, in a burst of

-confidence. "It's done seen its best days.

-Yes, sir, it's done seen its best days." It

-was not for a stranger, with no investment

-in view, to take sides in such competitions

-and rivalries. I believed in the river and

-the mountain both, and hoped that both

-would survive their present exploitation.

-I liked his talk better when it turned upon

-himself. Nothing is more exhilarating than

-an honest bit of personal brag. He was

-never sick, he told me. He knew nothing

-of aches or pains. He could do anything

-without getting tired. Save for his slavery

-to the counter, he seemed almost as well off

-as the birds.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="A_MORNING_IN_THE_NORTH_WOODS" id="A_MORNING_IN_THE_NORTH_WOODS">A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS.</a></h2>

-

-

-<p>The electric car left me near the Tennessee,&mdash;at

-"Riverview,"&mdash;and thence I

-walked into the woods, meaning to make

-a circuit among the hills, and at my convenience

-board an inward-bound car somewhere

-between that point and the city. The

-weather was of the kind that birds love:

-warm and still, after heavy showers, with

-the sun now and then breaking through the

-clouds. The country was a suburb in its

-first estate: that is to say, a land company

-had laid out miles of streets, but as yet there

-were no houses, and the woods remained unharmed.

-That was a very comfortable stage

-of the business to a man on my errand.

-The roads gave the visitor convenience of

-access,&mdash;a ready means of moving about

-with his eyes in the air,&mdash;and at the same

-time, by making the place more open, they

-made it more birdy; for birds, even the

-greater part of wood birds, like the borders

-of a forest better than its darker recesses.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>One thing I soon perceived: the rain had

-left the roads in a condition of unspeakable

-adhesiveness. The red clay balled up

-my heels as if it had been moist snow, till

-I pitched forward as I walked. I fancied

-that I understood pretty well the sensations

-of a young lady in high-heeled shoes. One

-moment, too, my feet were weighted with

-lead; then the mass fell off in a sudden big

-lump, and my next few steps were on air.

-A graceful, steady, self-possessed gait was

-out of the question. As for abstaining

-from all appearance of evil&mdash;well, as

-another and more comfortable Scripture

-says, "There is a time for everything."

-However, I was not disposed to complain.

-We read much about the tribulations of

-Northern soldiers on the march in Virginia,&mdash;of

-entire armies mud-bound and helpless.

-Henceforth I shall have some better idea of

-what such statements mean. In that part

-of the world, I am assured, rubber overshoes

-have to be tied on the feet with strings.

-Mother Earth does not believe in such

-effeminacies, and takes it upon herself to

-pull them off.</p>

-

-<p>The seventeen-year locusts made the air<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>

-ring. Heard at the right distance, the

-sound has a curious resemblance, noticed

-again and again, to the far-away, barely

-audible buzz of an electric car. For a week

-the air of the valley woods had been full of

-it. I wondered over it for a day or two,

-with no suspicion of its origin. Then, as I

-waited for a car at the base of Missionary

-Ridge, a colored man who stood beside me

-on the platform gave me, without meaning

-it, a lesson in natural history.</p>

-

-<p>"The locuses are goin' it, this mornin',

-ain't they?" he said.</p>

-

-<p>"The locuses?" I answered, in a tone of

-inquiry.</p>

-

-<p>"Yes. Don't you hear 'em?"</p>

-

-<p>He meant my mysterious universal hum,

-it appeared. But even then I did not know

-that he spoke of the big, red-eyed cicada

-that I had picked off a fence a day or two

-before and looked at for a moment with

-ignorant curiosity. And even when, by

-dint of using my own eyes, I learned so

-much, I was still unaware that this cicada

-was the famous seventeen-year locust. Here

-in the north woods I more than once passed

-near a swarm of the insects. At short range<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>

-the noise loses its musical character; so that

-it would be easy to hear it without divining

-any connection between it and the grand

-pervasive hum of the universal chorus.</p>

-

-<p>One of the first birds at which I stopped

-to look was a Kentucky warbler, walking

-about the ground and pausing now and then

-to sing; one of six or seven seen and heard

-during the forenoon. Few birds are more

-freely and easily observed. I mean in open

-woodlands with clear margins, such as I was

-now exploring. In a mountain forest, where

-they haunt brookside jungles of laurel and

-rhododendron, the story is different, as a

-matter of course. How it happens that the

-same bird is equally at home in surroundings

-so dissimilar is a question I make no attempt

-to answer.</p>

-

-<p>All the hill woods, mostly oak, were dry

-and stony; but after a while I came unexpectedly

-to a valley, a place of another sort;

-not moist, to be sure, but looking as if it

-had been moist at some time or other; and

-with pleasant grassy openings and another

-set of trees&mdash;red maples, persimmons, and

-sweet-gums. Here was a fine bunch of

-birds, including many migrants, and I went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>

-softly hither and thither, scanning the

-branches of one tree after another, as a note

-or the stirring of a leaf attracted me, ready

-every minute for the sight of something

-new and wonderful. I found nothing,&mdash;nothing

-new and wonderful, I mean,&mdash;but I

-had all the exhilaration of the chase. In the

-company, nearly all of them in song, were

-wood thrushes, a silent palm warbler (red-poll),

-a magnolia warbler, three Canadian

-flycatchers, many black-polls, one or two

-redstarts, a chestnut-sided warbler, a black-and-white

-creeper, a field sparrow, a yellow-throated

-vireo, a wood pewee, an Acadian

-flycatcher, and two or more yellow-billed

-cuckoos. The red-poll was of a very pale

-complexion (but I assert nothing as to its

-exact identity, specific or sub-specific), and

-seemed to me unreasonably late. It was

-the 11th of May, and birds of its kind had

-been passing through Massachusetts by the

-middle of April. Chestnut-sides were scarce

-enough to be interesting, and it was good

-to hear this lover of berry fields and the

-gray birch singing from a sweet-gum.</p>

-

-<p>When at last I turned away from the

-grassy glade,&mdash;where cattle were pasturing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>

-as I now remember,&mdash;and went back among

-the dry hills (through the powdery soil of

-which the almost daily showers seemed to

-run as through a sieve), I presently caught

-sight of a scarlet tanager,&mdash;a beauty, and,

-except on the mountains, a rarity. Then I

-stopped&mdash;on a street corner!&mdash;to admire

-the singing of a Bachman's finch, wishing

-also to compare his plumage with that of a

-bird seen and greatly enjoyed a few days

-before at Chickamauga. To judge from

-my limited observation, this is one of the

-sparrows&mdash;the song sparrow being another&mdash;which

-exhibit a strange diversity of individual

-coloration; as if the fashion were

-not yet fully set, or perhaps were being

-outgrown. The bird here in the north

-woods, so far as color and markings went,

-might well enough have been of a different

-species from that of the Chickamauga singer,

-yet there was no reason to suspect the presence

-of more than one variety of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Peucæa</i>, so

-far as I knew, and the music of the two

-birds was precisely the same. A wonderfully

-sweet and various tune it is; with

-sometimes a highly ventriloquial effect, as if

-the different measures or phrases came from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>

-different points. It opens like the song

-heard in the Florida flat-woods, but is even

-more varied, both in voice and in musical

-form. So it seemed to me, I mean to say;

-but hearing the two a year apart, I cannot

-speak without reserve. It is pleasanter&mdash;as

-well as safer&mdash;to praise both singers than

-to exalt one to the pulling down of the other.

-In appearance, Bachman's finch is one of

-the dullest, dingiest, least prepossessing

-members of its great family; but its voice

-and musical genius make it a treasure,

-especially in this comparatively sparrowless

-country of eastern Tennessee.</p>

-

-<p>I have remarked that I found this bird

-upon a street corner. Unhappily my notes

-do not enable me to be more specific. It

-may have been at the corner of Court and

-Tremont Streets, or, possibly, at the junction

-of Tremont and Dartmouth Streets. All

-these names appear in my memoranda.

-Boston people should have had a hand in

-this business, I said to myself. It was on

-Federal Street (so much I put down) that

-I saw my only Tennessee rose-breasted grosbeak.

-He, or rather she, was the most

-interesting bird of the forenoon, and matched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>

-the one Baltimore oriole seen at Chickamauga.

-I heard the familiar <em>click</em>, as of

-rusty shears, and straightway took chase.

-For some minutes my search was in vain,

-and once I feared I had been fooled. A bird

-flew out of the right tree, as I thought, but

-showed yellow, and the next moment set up

-the <em>clippiticlip</em> call of the summer tanager.

-Could that bird have also a note like the

-rose-breast's? It was not impossible, of

-course, for one does not exhaust the vocabulary

-of a bird in a month's acquaintance; but

-I could not think it likely, thick as tanagers

-had been about me; and soon the <em>click</em> was

-repeated, and this time I put my eye on its

-author,&mdash;a feminine rose-breast. Perhaps it

-was nothing more than an accident that she

-was my only specimen; but so showy a bird,

-with so lovely a song and so distinctive a

-signal, could hardly have escaped notice had

-it been in any degree common.</p>

-

-<p>Wood thrushes sang on all sides. They

-had need to be abundant and free-hearted,

-since they stand in that region for the whole

-thrush family. Blue golden-winged warblers,

-too, were generously distributed, and,

-as happens to me now and then in Massachusetts,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>

-I found one with a song so absurdly

-peculiar that I spent some time in making

-sure of its author. It is to be hoped that

-this tendency to individual variation will

-persist and increase in the case of this species

-till something more melodious than its

-present sibilant monotony is evolved; till

-beauty and art are mated, as they ought to

-be. Who would not love to hear the music

-of all our birds a few millions of years

-hence? What a singer the hermit thrush

-will be, for example, when his tune is equal

-to his voice! Indigo-birds, white-eyed vireos

-and prairie warblers abounded. As for the

-chats, they saluted me on the right and on

-the left, till I said, "Chats, Chattanooga,"

-and felt almost as if Nature had perpetrated

-a huge fantastic pun on her own account.

-If I could have had the ear of the enterprising

-owners of this embryo suburb,&mdash;a syndicate,

-I dare say they call themselves,&mdash;I

-would have suggested to them to name it

-"Chat City."</p>

-

-<p>I wandered carelessly about, now following

-a bird over a rounded hill (one, I remember,

-was covered literally from end to end with

-the common brake,&mdash;<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pteris</i>,&mdash;which will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>

-give the reader an idea of its sterility), now

-keeping to the road. In such a soil flowers

-were naturally scarce; but I noticed houstonia,

-phlox, hieracium, senecio, pentstemon,

-and specularia. Like the brake, the names

-are suggestive of barrenness. The senecio

-(ragwort), a species with finely cut leaves

-(<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">S. millefolium</i>), was first seen on Missionary

-Ridge. There, as here, it had a strange,

-misplaced appearance in my eyes, looking

-much like our familiar <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">S. aureus</i>, but growing

-in dry woods!</p>

-

-<p>So the morning passed. The hours were

-far too brief, and I would have stretched

-them into the afternoon, but that my trunk

-was packed for Walden's Ridge. It was

-necessary to think of getting back to the

-city, and I took a quicker pace. Two more

-Kentucky warblers detained me for a moment;

-a quail sprang up from under my

-feet; and on the other side of the way an

-oven-bird sang&mdash;the only one found in the

-valley. Then I came to the car-track; but

-somehow things wore an unexpected look,

-and a preacher, very black, solemn, and

-shiny, gave me to understand, in answer to

-a question, that the city lay not where I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>

-thought, but in an opposite direction. Instead

-of making a circuit I had cut straight

-across the country (an unusual form of

-bewilderment), and had come to another

-railway. But no harm was done. In that

-corner of the world all roads lead to Chattanooga.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="A_WEEK_ON_WALDENS_RIDGE" id="A_WEEK_ON_WALDENS_RIDGE">A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE.</a></h2>

-

-

-<h3>I.</h3>

-

-<p>Throughout my stay in Chattanooga I

-looked often and with desire at a long, flat-topped,

-perpendicular-sided, densely wooded

-mountain, beyond the Tennessee River. Its

-name was Walden's Ridge, I was told; the

-top of it was eighty miles long and ten or

-twelve miles wide; if I wanted a bit of wild

-country, that was the place for me. Was it

-accessible? I asked. And was there any

-reasonable way of living there? Oh yes;

-carriages ran every afternoon from the city,

-and there were several small hotels on the

-mountain. So it happened that I went to

-Walden's Ridge for my last week in Tennessee,

-and have ever since thanked my

-stars&mdash;as New England Christians used to

-say, in my boyhood&mdash;for giving me the

-good wine at the end of the feast.</p>

-

-<p>The wine, it is true, was a little too freely

-watered. I went up the mountain in a rain,

-and came down again in a rain, and of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>

-seven intervening days five were showery.

-The showers, mostly with thunder and

-lightning, were of the sort that make an

-umbrella ridiculous, and my jaunts, as a

-rule, took me far from shelter. Yet I had

-little to complain of. Now and then I was

-put to my trumps, as it were; my walk was

-sometimes grievously abbreviated, and my

-pace uncomfortably hurried, but by one

-happy accident and another I always escaped

-a drenching. Worse than the water that

-fell&mdash;worse, and not to be escaped, even by

-accident&mdash;-was that which saturated the

-atmosphere, making every day a dog-day, and

-the week a seven-day sweat. And then, as

-if to even the account, on the last night of

-my stay I was kept awake for hours shivering

-with cold; and in the morning, after

-putting on all the clothing I could wear,

-and breakfasting in a snowstorm, I rode

-down the mountain in a state suggestive of

-approaching congelation. "My feet are

-frozen, I know they are," said the lady who

-sat beside me in the wagon; but she was

-mistaken.</p>

-

-<p>This sudden drop in the temperature

-seemed to be a trial even to the natives.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>

-As we drove into Chattanooga, it was impossible

-not to smile at the pinched and

-woebegone appearance of the colored people.

-What had they to do with weather that

-makes a man hurry? And the next morning,

-when an enterprising, bright-faced white

-boy ran up to me with a "'Times,' sir?

-Have a 'Times'?" I fear he quite misapprehended

-the more or less quizzical expression

-which I am sure came into my face. I

-was looking at his black woolen mittens, and

-thinking how well he was mothered. It was

-the 19th of May; for at least three weeks,

-to my own knowledge, the city had been

-sweltering under the hottest of midsummer

-heats,&mdash;94° in the shade, for example; and

-now, mittens and overcoats!</p>

-

-<p>I should be sorry to exaggerate, or leave

-a false impression. In this day of literary

-conscientiousness, when writers of fiction

-itself are truth-tellers first, and story-tellers

-afterwards,&mdash;if at all,&mdash;it behooves mere

-tourists and naturalists to speak as under

-oath. Be it confessed, then, that the foregoing

-paragraphs, though true in every

-word, are not to be taken too seriously. If

-the weather, "the dramatic element in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>

-scenery," happened not to suit the convenience

-of a naturally selfish man, now ten

-times more selfish than usual&mdash;as is the

-rule&mdash;because he was on his annual vacation,

-it does not follow that it was essentially

-bad. The rains were needed, the heat was

-to have been expected, and the cold, unseasonable

-and exceptional, was not peculiar

-to Tennessee. As for the snow, it was no

-more than I have seen before now, even in

-Massachusetts,&mdash;a week or two earlier in

-the month; and it lent such a glory to the

-higher Alleghanies, as we passed them on

-our way homeward, that I might cheerfully

-have lain shivering for <em>two</em> nights in that

-unplastered bedroom, with its window that

-no man could shut, rather than miss the

-spectacle. Eastern Tennessee, I have no

-doubt, is a most salubrious country; properly

-recommended by the medical fraternity

-as a refuge for consumptive patients. If to

-me its meteorological fluctuations seemed

-surprisingly wide and sudden, it was perhaps

-because I had been brought up in the

-equable climate of New England. It would

-be unfair to judge the world in general by

-that favored spot.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>The road up the mountain&mdash;the "new

-road," as it is called&mdash;is a notable piece of

-work, done, I was told, by the county chain-gangs.

-The pleasure of the ascent, which

-naturally would have been great, was badly

-diminished by the rain, which made it necessary

-to keep the sides of the wagon down;

-but I was fortunate in my driver. At first

-he seemed a stolid, uncommunicative body,

-and when we came to the river I made sure

-he could not read. As we drove upon the

-bridge, where straight before his eyes was a

-sign forbidding any one to drive or ride over

-the bridge at a pace faster than a walk, under

-a penalty of five dollars for each offense,

-he whipped up his horse and his mule (the

-mule the better horse of the two), and they

-struck into a trot. Halfway across we met

-another wagon, and its driver too had let

-his horses out. Illiteracy must be pretty

-common in these parts, I said to myself.

-But whatever my driver's educational deficiencies,

-it did not take long to discover that

-in his own line he was a master. He could

-hit the ear of his mule with the end of his

-whip with a precision that was almost startling.

-In fact, it <em>was</em> startling&mdash;to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>

-mule. For my own part, as often as he

-drew back his hand and let fly the lash, my

-eye was glued to the mule's right ear in

-spite of myself. Had my own ears been endowed

-with life and motion, instead of fastened

-to my head like blocks of wood, I think

-they too would have twitched. I wondered

-how long the man had practiced his art.

-He appeared to be not more than forty-five

-years old. Perhaps he came of a race of

-drivers, and so began life with some hereditary

-advantages. At all events, he was a

-specialist, with the specialist's motto, "This

-one thing I do."</p>

-

-<p>We were hardly off the bridge and in the

-country before I began plying him with

-questions about this and that, especially the

-wayside trees. He answered promptly and

-succinctly, and turned out to be a man who

-had kept his eyes open, and, better still,

-knew how to say, "No, suh," as well as,

-"Yes, suh." (There is no mark in the

-dictionaries to indicate the percussive brevity

-of the vowel sound in "suh" as he pronounced

-it.) The big tupelo he recognized

-as the "black-gum." "But isn't it ever

-called 'sour-gum'?" "No, suh." He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>

-knew but one kind of tupelo, as he knew

-but one kind of "ellum." There were many

-kinds of oaks, some of which he named as

-we passed them. This botanical catechism

-presently waked up the only other passenger

-in the wagon, a modest girl of ten or twelve

-years. She too, it appeared, had some acquaintance

-with trees. I had asked the

-driver if there were no long-leaved pines

-hereabout. "No, suh," he said. "But I

-think I saw some at Chickamauga the other

-day," I ventured. (It was the only place I

-did see them, as well as I remember.) "Yes,

-sir," put in the girl, "there are a good many

-there." "Good for you!" I was ready to

-say. It was a pretty rare schoolgirl who,

-after visiting a battlefield, could tell what

-kind of pines grow on it. Persimmons?

-Yes, indeed, the girl had eaten them.

-There was a tree by the fence. Had I never

-eaten them? She seemed to pity me when

-I said "No," but I fancied she would have

-preferred to see me begin with one a little

-short of ripe.</p>

-

-<p>As for the birds of Walden's Ridge, the

-driver said, there were partridges, pheasants,

-and turkeys. He had seen ravens, also,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>

-but only in winter, he thought, and never

-in flocks. His brother had once shot one.

-About smaller birds he could not profess

-to speak. By and by he stopped the carriage.

-"There's a bird now," he said,

-pointing with his whip. "What do you

-call that?" It was a summer tanager, I

-told him, or summer redbird. Did he know

-another redbird, with black wings and tail?

-Yes, he had seen it; that was the male, and

-this all-red one was the female. Oh no, I

-explained; the birds were of different species,

-and the females in both cases were yellow.

-He did not insist,&mdash;it was a case of a

-driver and his fare; but he had always

-been told so, he said, and I do not flatter

-myself that I convinced him to the contrary.

-It is hard to believe that one man can be so

-much wiser than everybody else. A Massachusetts

-farmer once asked me, I remember,

-if the night-hawk and the whippoorwill were

-male and female of the same bird. I answered,

-of course, that they were not, and

-gave, as I thought, abundant reason why

-such a thing could not be possible. But

-I spoke as a scribe. "Well," remarked

-the farmer, when I had finished my story,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>

-"some folks <em>say</em> they be, but I guess they

-<em>ain't</em>."</p>

-

-<p>With such converse, then, we beguiled

-the climb to the "Brow,"&mdash;the top of the

-cliffs which rim the summit of the mountain,

-and give it from below a fortified look,&mdash;and

-at last, after an hour's further drive

-through the dripping woods, came to the

-hotel at which I was to put up&mdash;or with

-which I was to put up&mdash;during my stay on

-the Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>I had hardly taken the road, the next

-morning, impatient to see what this little

-world on a mountain top was like, before I

-came to a lovely brook making its devious

-course among big boulders with much pleasant

-gurgling, in the shadow of mountain

-laurel and white azalea,&mdash;a place highly

-characteristic of Walden's Ridge, as I was

-afterwards to learn. Just now, naturally,

-there was no stopping so near home, though

-a Kentucky warbler, with his cool, liquid

-song, did his best to beguile me; and I kept

-on my way, past a few houses, a tiny box of

-a post-office, a rude church, and a few more

-houses, till just beyond the last one the road

-dropped into the forest again, as if for good.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>

-And there, all at once I seemed to be

-in New Hampshire. The land fell away

-sharply, and at one particular point, through

-a vista, the forest could be seen sloping down

-on either side to the gap, beyond which,

-miles away, loomed a hill, and then, far, far

-in the distance, high mountains dim with

-haze. It was like a note of sublimity in a

-poem that till now had been only beautiful.</p>

-

-<p>From the bottom of the valley came a

-sound of running water, and between me

-and the invisible stream a chorus of olive-backed

-thrushes were singing,&mdash;the same

-simple and hearty strains that, in June and

-July, echo all day long through the woods

-of the Crawford Notch. The birds were on

-their way from the far South, and were

-happy to find themselves in so homelike a

-place. Then, suddenly, amid the golden

-voices of the thrushes, I caught the wiry

-notes of a warbler. They came from the

-treetops in the valley, and&mdash;so I prided

-myself upon guessing&mdash;belonged to a cerulean

-warbler, a bird of which I had seen my

-first and only specimen a week before, on

-Lookout Mountain. Down the steep hillside

-I scrambled,&mdash;New Hampshire clean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>

-forgotten,&mdash;and was just bringing my glass

-into play when the fellow took wing, and

-began singing at the very point I had just

-left. I hastened back; he flew again, farther

-up the hill, and again I put myself out

-of breath with pursuing him. Again and

-again he sang, now in this tree, now in that,

-but there was no getting sight of him. The

-trees should have been shorter, or the bird

-larger. Straight upward I gazed, till the

-muscles of my neck cried for mercy. At

-last I saw him, flitting amid the dense foliage,

-but so far above me, and so exactly

-between me and the sun, that I might as

-well not have seen him at all.</p>

-

-<p>It was a foolish half-hour. The bird, as

-I afterwards discovered, was nothing but a

-blue yellow-back, with an original twist to

-his song. In Massachusetts, I should not

-have listened to it twice, but on new hunting-grounds

-a man is bound to look for new

-game; else what would be the use of traveling?

-It was a foolish half-hour, I say; but

-I wish some moralist would explain, in a

-manner not inconsistent with the dignity of

-human nature, how it happens that foolish

-half-hours are commonly so much more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>

-enjoyable at the time, and so much pleasanter

-in the retrospect, than many that are

-more reasonably employed.</p>

-

-<p>I swallowed my disappointment, and

-presently forgot it, for at the first turn in

-the road I found myself following the

-course of a brook or creek, between which

-and myself was a dense thicket of mountain

-laurel and rhododendron, with trees and

-other shrubs intermingled. The laurel was

-already in full bloom, while the rhododendrons

-held aloft clusters of gorgeous rose-purple

-buds, a few of which, the middle ones

-of the cluster, were just bursting into flower.

-Here was beauty of a new order,&mdash;such

-wealth and splendor of color in surroundings

-so romantic. And the place, besides, was

-alive with singing birds: hooded warblers,

-Kentucky warblers, a Canadian warbler, a

-black-throated blue, a black-throated green,

-a blue yellow-back, scarlet tanagers, wood

-pewees, wood thrushes, a field sparrow (on

-the hillside beyond) a cardinal, a chat, a

-bunch of white-throated sparrows, and who

-could tell what else? It was an exciting

-moment. Luckily, a man can look and

-listen both at once. Here was a fringe-tree,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>

-a noble specimen, hung with creamy-white

-plumes; here was a magnolia, with

-big leaves and big flowers; and here was

-a flowering dogwood, not to be put out of

-countenance in any company; but especially,

-here were the rhododendrons! And

-all the while, deep in the thickest of the

-bushes, some unknown bird was singing a

-strange, breathless jumble of a song, note

-tripping over note,&mdash;like an eager churchman

-with his responses, I kept saying to

-myself, with no thought of disrespect to

-either party. It cost me a long vigil and

-much patient coaxing to make the fellow

-out, and he proved to be merely a Wilson's

-blackcap, after all; but he was the only

-bird of his kind that I saw in Tennessee.</p>

-

-<p>On this first visit I did not get far beyond

-the creek, through the bed of which the

-road runs, with a single log for foot-passengers.

-I had spent at least an hour in going

-a hundred rods, and it was already drawing

-near dinner time. But I returned to the

-spot that very afternoon, and half a dozen

-times afterward. So poor a traveler am

-I, so ill fitted to explore a new country.

-Whenever nothing in particular offered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>

-itself, why, it was always pretty down at

-Falling Water Creek. There I saw the

-rhododendrons come into exuberant bloom,

-and there I oftenest see them in memory,

-though I found them elsewhere in greater

-abundance, and in a setting even more

-romantic.</p>

-

-<p>More romantic, perhaps, but hardly more

-beautiful. I remember, just beyond the

-creek, a bank where sweet bush (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Calycanthus</i>),

-wild ginger (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Asarum</i>), rhododendron,

-laurel, and plenty of trailing arbutus (the

-last now out of flower) were growing side

-by side,&mdash;a rare combination of beauty

-and fragrance. And within a few rods of

-the same spot I sat down more than once to

-take a long look at a cross-vine covering a

-dead hemlock. The branches of the tree,

-shortening regularly to the top, were draped

-heavily with gray lichens, while the vine,

-keeping mostly near the trunk and climbing

-clean to the tip,&mdash;fifty feet or more, as I

-thought,&mdash;was hung throughout with large,

-orange-red, gold-lined bells. Their numbers

-were past guessing. Here and there a

-spray of them swung lightly from the end of

-a branch, as if inviting the breeze to lend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>

-them motion and a voice. The sight was

-worth going miles to see, and yet I passed

-it three times before it caught my eye, so

-full were the woods of things to look at.

-After all, <em>is</em> it a poor traveler who turns

-again and again into the same path?

-Whether is better, to read two good books

-once, or one good book twice?</p>

-

-<p>A favorite shorter walk, at odd minutes,&mdash;before

-breakfast and between showers,&mdash;was

-through the woods for a quarter of a

-mile to a small clearing and a cabin. On a

-Sunday afternoon I ventured to pass the

-gate and make a call upon my neighbors.

-The doors of the house stood open, but a

-glance inside showed that there was no one

-there, and I walked round it, inspecting the

-garden,&mdash;corn, beans, and potatoes coming

-on,&mdash;till, just as I was ready to turn back

-into the woods, I descried a man and woman

-on the hillside not far away; the man leading

-a mule, and the woman picking strawberries.

-At sight of a stranger the woman

-fell behind, but the man kept on to the

-house, greeted me politely, and invited me

-to be seated under the hemlock, where two

-chairs were already placed. After tying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>

-the mule he took the other chair, and we fell

-into talk about the weather, the crops, and

-things in general. When the wife finally

-appeared, I rose, of course; but she went on

-in silence and entered the house, while the

-husband said, "Oh, keep your seat." We

-continued our conversation till the rain began

-to fall. Then we picked up our chairs

-and followed the woman inside. She sat in

-the middle of the room (young, pretty, newly

-married, and Sunday-dressed), but never

-once opened her lips. Her behavior was in

-strict accordance with local etiquette, I was

-afterward assured (as if <em>all</em> etiquette were

-not local); but though I admire feminine

-modesty as much as any man, I cannot say

-that I found this particular manifestation of

-it altogether to my liking. Silence is golden,

-no doubt, and gold is more precious than

-silver, but in cases of this figurative sort I

-profess myself a bimetallist. A <em>little</em> silver,

-I say; enough for small change, at any rate;

-and if we can have a pretty free coinage,

-why, so much the better, though as to that,

-it must be admitted, a good deal depends

-upon the "image and superscription." However,

-my hostess followed her lights, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>

-reserved her voice&mdash;soft and musical let us

-hope&mdash;for her husband's ear.</p>

-

-<p>They had not lived in the house very long,

-he told me, and he did not know how many

-years the land had been cleared. There

-was a fair amount of game in the woods,&mdash;turkeys,

-squirrels, pheasants, and so on,&mdash;and

-in winter the men did considerable

-hunting. Formerly there were a good many

-deer, but they had been pretty well killed

-off. Turkeys still held out. They were

-gobbling now. His father had been trying

-for two or three weeks, off and on, to shoot

-a certain old fellow who had several hens

-with him down in the valley. His father

-could call with his mouth better than with

-any "caller," but so far the bird had been

-too sharp for him. The son laughed good-naturedly

-when I confessed to an unsportsmanlike

-sympathy with the gobbler.</p>

-

-<p>The cabin, built of hewn logs, with clay

-in the chinks, was neatly furnished, with

-beds in two corners of the one room, a stone

-chimney, two doors directly opposite each

-other, and no window. The doors, it is

-understood, are always to be open, for ventilation

-and light. Such is the custom; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>

-custom is nowhere more powerful than in

-small rustic communities. If a native, led

-away by his wife, perhaps, puts a window

-into his new cabin, the neighbors say, "Oh,

-he is building a glass house, isn't he?"

-It must be an effeminate woman, they think,

-who cannot do her cooking and sewing by

-the light of the door. None the less, in a

-climate where snow is possible in the middle

-of May, such a Spartan arrangement must

-sometimes be found a bit uncomfortable by

-persons not to the manner born. A preacher

-confided to me that in his pastoral calls he

-had once or twice made bold to push to a

-door directly at his back, when the wind

-was cold; but the innovation was ill received,

-and the inmates of the house, doubtless

-without wishing to hurt their minister's feelings,&mdash;since

-he had meant no harm, to be

-sure, but was simply unused to the ways of

-the world,&mdash;speedily found some excuse for

-rectifying his mistake. Probably there is

-no corner of the world where the question

-of fresh air and draughts is not available

-for purposes of moral discipline.</p>

-

-<p>Beside the path to the cabin, on the 13th

-of May, was a gray-cheeked thrush, a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>

-gray specimen, sitting motionless in the best

-of lights. "Look at me," he seemed to say.

-"I am no olive-back. My cheeks are not

-sallow." On the same day, here and in

-another place, I saw white-throated sparrows.

-Their presence at this late hour was a great

-surprise, and suggested the possibility of

-their breeding somewhere in the Carolina

-mountains, though I am not aware that such

-an occurrence has ever been recorded. Another

-recollection of this path is of a snow-white

-milkweed (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Asclepias variegata</i>),&mdash;white

-with the merest touch of purple to set

-it off,&mdash;for the downright elegance of which

-I was not in the least prepared. The queen

-of all milkweeds, surely.</p>

-

-<p>After nightfall the air grew loud with the

-cries of batrachians and insects, an interesting

-and novel chorus. On my first evening

-at the hotel I was loitering up the road, with

-frequent auditory pauses, thinking how full

-the world is of unseen creatures which find

-their day only after the sun goes down, when

-in a woody spot I heard behind me a sound

-of footsteps. A woman was close at my

-heels, fetching a pail of water from the

-spring. I remarked upon the many voices.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>

-She answered pleasantly. It was the big

-frogs that I heard, she reckoned.</p>

-

-<p>"Do you have whippoorwills here?" I

-asked.</p>

-

-<p>"Plenty of 'em," she answered, "plenty

-of 'em."</p>

-

-<p>"Do you hear them right along the road?"</p>

-

-<p>"Yes, sir; oh yes."</p>

-

-<p>We had gone hardly a rod further before

-we exclaimed in the same breath, "There is

-one now!"</p>

-

-<p>I inquired if there was another bird here,

-something like the whippoorwill, meaning

-the chuck-will's-widow. But she said no;

-she knew of but one.</p>

-

-<p>"How early does the whippoorwill get

-here?" said I.</p>

-

-<p>"Pretty early," she answered.</p>

-

-<p>"By the first of April, should you say?"</p>

-

-<p>"Yes, sir, I think about then. I know

-the timber is just beginning to put out when

-they begin to holler."</p>

-

-<p>This mannerly treatment of a stranger

-was more Christian-like than the stately

-silence of my lady of the cabin, it seemed to

-me. I liked it better, at all events. I had

-learned nothing, perhaps; but unless a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>

-is far gone in philosophy he need not feel

-bound to increase in wisdom every time a

-neighbor speaks to him; and anyhow, that

-expression about the "putting out of the

-timber" had given me pleasure. Hearing

-it thus was better than finding it upon a

-page of Stevenson, or some other author

-whose business in life is the picking of right

-words. Let us have some silver, I repeat.

-I am ready to believe, what I have somewhere

-read, that men will have to give

-account not only for every idle word, but

-for every idle silence.</p>

-

-<p>The summit of the Ridge, as soon as one

-leaves its precipitous rocky edge,&mdash;the

-Brow, so called,&mdash;is simply an indefinite

-expanse of gently rolling country, thin-soiled,

-but well watered, and covered with fine open

-woods, rambling through which the visitor

-finds little to remind him of his elevation

-above the world. I heard a resident speak

-of going to the "top of the mountain," however,

-and on inquiry learned that a certain

-rocky eminence, two miles, more or less,

-from Fairmount (the little "settlement"

-where I was staying), went by that name,

-and was supposed to be the highest point of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>

-the Ridge. My informant kindly made me a

-rough map of the way thither, and one morning

-I set out in that direction. It would be

-shameful to live for a week on the "summit"

-of a mountain, and not once go to the "top."</p>

-

-<p>The glory of Walden's Ridge, as compared

-with Lookout Mountain,&mdash;so the

-dwellers there say,&mdash;is its streams and

-springs; and my morning path soon brought

-me to the usual rocky brook bordered with

-mountain laurel, holly, and hemlock. To

-my New England eyes it was an odd circumstance,

-the hemlocks growing always along

-the creeks in the valley bottoms. Beyond

-this point I passed an abandoned cabin,&mdash;no

-other house in sight,&mdash;and by and by

-a second one, near which, in the garden

-(better worth preserving than the house, it

-appeared), a woman and two children were

-at work. Yes, the woman said, I was on the

-right path. I had only to keep a straight

-course, and I should bring up at the "top

-of the mountain." A little farther, and my

-spirits rose at the sight of a circular, sedgy,

-woodland pond, such a place as I had not

-seen in all this Chattanooga country. It

-ought to yield something new for my local<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>

-ornithological list, which up to this time included

-ninety species, and not one of them

-a water-bird. I did my best, beating round

-the edge and "squeaking," but startled nothing

-rarer than a hooded warbler and a

-cardinal grosbeak.</p>

-

-<p>Next I traversed a long stretch of unbroken

-oak woods, with single tall pines interspersed;

-and then all at once the path

-turned to the right, and ran obliquely downhill

-to a clearing in which stood a house,&mdash;not

-a cabin,&mdash;with a garden, orchard trees,

-and beehives. This should be the German

-shoemaker's, I thought, looking at my map.

-If so, I was pretty near the top, though

-otherwise there was no sign of it; and if I

-had made any considerable ascent, it had

-been as children increase in stature,&mdash;and

-as the good increase in goodness,&mdash;unconsciously.

-A woman of some years was in

-the garden, and at my approach came up

-to the fence,&mdash;a round-faced, motherly

-body. Yes, the top of the mountain was

-just beyond. I could not miss it.</p>

-

-<p>"You do not live here?" she asked.</p>

-

-<p>No, I explained; I was a stranger on the

-Ridge,&mdash;a stranger from Boston.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>"From Washington?"</p>

-

-<p>"No, from Boston."</p>

-

-<p>"Oh! from Boston!&mdash;Massachusetts!&mdash;Oh-h-h!"</p>

-

-<p>She would go part way with me, she said,

-lest I should miss the path. Perhaps she

-wished to show some special hospitality to

-a man from Massachusetts; or possibly she

-thought I must be more in danger of getting

-bewildered, being so far from home. But

-I could not think of troubling her. Was

-there a spring near by, where I could drink?</p>

-

-<p>"I have water in the house," she answered.</p>

-

-<p>"But isn't there a creek down in the valley

-ahead?"</p>

-

-<p>Oh yes, there was a creek; but had I anything

-to drink out of? I thanked her. Yes,

-I had a cup. "My husband will be at home

-by the time you come back," she said, as I

-started on, and I promised to call.</p>

-

-<p>The scene at the brook, halfway between

-the German's house and the top, would of

-itself have paid me for my morning's jaunt.

-I stood on a boulder in mid-current, in the

-shadow of overhanging trees, and drank it

-in. Such rhododendrons and laurel, now in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>

-the perfection of their beauty! One rhododendron

-bush was at least ten feet high,

-and loaded with blooms. Another lifted its

-crown of a dozen rose-purple clusters amid

-the dark foliage of a hemlock. A magnolia-tree

-stood near; but though it was much

-taller than the laurel or the rhododendron,

-and had much larger flowers, it made little

-show beside them. Birds were singing on

-all hands, and numbers of gay-colored butterflies

-flitted about, sipping here and there

-at a blossom. I remember especially a fine

-tiger swallow-tail; the only one I saw in

-Tennessee, I believe. I remember, too, how

-well the rhododendron became him. Here,

-as in many other places, the laurel was

-nearly white; a happy circumstance, as it

-and the rhododendron went the more harmoniously

-together. Even in this high

-company, some tufts of cinnamon fern were

-not to be overlooked; the fertile cinnamon-brown

-fronds were now at their loveliest,

-and showed as bravely here, I thought, as in

-the barest of Massachusetts swamp-lands.</p>

-

-<p>A few rods more, up a moderate slope,

-and I was at the top of the mountain,&mdash;a

-wall of out-cropping rocks, falling off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>

-abruptly on the further side, and looking

-almost like an artificial rampart. Beyond

-me, to my surprise, I heard the hum of

-cicadas,&mdash;seventeen-year locusts,&mdash;a sound

-of which the lower country had for some

-time been full, but of which, till this moment,

-I had heard nothing on the Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>As for the prospect, it was far reaching,

-but only in one direction, and through openings

-among the trees. Directly before me,

-some hundreds of feet below, was a piece of

-road, with a single cabin and a barn; and

-much farther away were other cabins, each

-with its private clearing. Elsewhere the

-foreground was an unbroken forest. For

-some time I could not distinguish the Ridge

-itself from the outlying world. Mountains

-and hills crowded the hazy horizon, range

-beyond range. Moving along the rocks, I

-found a vista through which Chattanooga

-and Lookout Mountain were visible. Another

-change, and a stretch of the Tennessee

-River came into sight, and, beyond it, Missionary

-Ridge with its settlements and its

-two observatories. Evidently I was considerably

-above the level of the Brow; but

-whether this was really the top of the mountain&mdash;reached,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>

-in some mysterious way,

-without going uphill&mdash;was more than I

-could say.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>

-

-<p>Nor did it matter. I was glad to be

-there. It was a pleasant place and a pleasant

-hour, with an oak root for a seat, and

-never an insect to trouble me. That, by the

-way, was true of all those Tennessee forests,&mdash;when

-I was there, I mean; from what I

-heard, the ticks and jiggers must be bad

-enough later in the season. As men do at

-such times,&mdash;for human nature is of noble

-origin, and feels no surprise at being well

-treated,&mdash;I took my immunity as a matter

-of course, and only realized how I had been

-favored when I got back to Massachusetts,

-where, on my first visit to the woods, I was

-fairly driven out by swarms of mosquitoes.</p>

-

-<p>The shoemaker was at home when I

-reached his house on my return, and at the

-urgent invitation of himself and his wife I

-joined them on the piazza for a bit of neighborly

-chat. I found him a smallish man,

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>not German in appearance, but looking, I

-thought, like Thoreau, only grown a little

-older. He had been on Walden's Ridge for

-fifteen years. Before that he was in South

-Carolina, but the yellow fever came along

-and made him feel like getting out. Yes,

-this was a healthy country. He had nothing

-to complain of; he was sixty-two years old

-and his doctors' bills had never amounted to

-"five dollar."</p>

-

-<p>"Do <em>you</em> like living here?" I asked his

-wife.</p>

-

-<p>"No," she answered promptly; "I never

-did. But then," she added, "we can't help

-it. If you own something, you know, you

-have to stay."</p>

-

-<p>The author of Walden would have appreciated

-that remark. There was no shoemaking

-to be done here, the man said, his

-nearest neighbor being half a mile distant

-through the woods; and there was no clover,

-so that his bees did not do very well; and

-the frost had just killed all his peach-trees;

-but when I asked if he never felt homesick

-for Germany, the answer came like a pistol

-shot,&mdash;"No."</p>

-

-<p>I inquired about a cave, of which I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>

-heard reports. Yes, it was a good cave,

-they said; I could easily find it. But their

-directions conveyed no very clear idea to

-my mind, and by and by the woman began

-talking to her husband in German. "She

-is telling him he ought to go with me

-and show me the way," I said to myself;

-and the next moment she came back to

-English. "He will go with you," she said.

-I demurred, but he protested that he could

-do it as well as not. "Take up a stick;

-you might see a snake," his wife called after

-him, as we left the house. He smiled, but

-did not follow her advice, though I fancied

-he would have done so had she gone along

-with us. A half-mile or so through the

-pathless woods brought us to the cave,

-which might hold a hundred persons, I

-thought. The dribbling "creek" fell over

-it in front. Then the man took me to my

-path, pointed my way homeward, and, with

-a handshake (the silver lining of which was

-not refused, though I had been troubled

-with a scruple), bade me good-by. First,

-however, he told me that if I found any one

-in Boston who wanted to buy a place on

-Walden's Ridge, he would sell a part of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>

-or the whole of it. I remember him most

-kindly, and would gladly do him a service.

-If any reader, having a landed investment

-in view, should desire my intervention in

-the premises, I am freely at his command;

-only let him bear in mind the terms of the

-deed: "If you own something, you know,

-you have to stay."</p>

-

-

-<h3>II.</h3>

-

-<p>Fairmount, as has already been said, is

-but a clearing in the forest. Instead of a

-solitary cabin, as elsewhere, there are perhaps

-a dozen or two of cabins and houses

-scattered along the road, which emerges

-from the woods at one end of the settlement,

-and, after a mile or so in the sun, drops

-into them again at the other end. The

-glory of the place, and the reason of its

-being, as I suppose, is a chalybeate spring

-in a woody hollow before the post-office.

-There may be a shop of some kind, also,

-but memory retains no such impression.

-One building, rather larger than most of

-its neighbors, and apparently unoccupied, I

-looked at more than once with a measure

-of that curiosity which is everywhere the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>

-stranger's privilege. It sat squarely on the

-road, and boasted a sort of portico or piazza,&mdash;it

-puzzled me what to call it,&mdash;but there

-was no vestige of a chimney. One day a

-ragged, bright-faced boy met me at the right

-moment, and I asked, "Did some one use

-to live in that house?" "That?" said he,

-in a tone I shall never forget. "That's a

-barn. That over there is the dwelling."

-My ignorance was fittingly rebuked, and I

-had no spirit to inquire about the piazza.

-Probably it was nothing but a lean-to.

-Even in my humiliation, however, it pleased

-me to hear what I should have called that

-good literary word "dwelling" on such lips.

-A Yankee boy might have said "dwelling-house,"

-but no Yankee of any age, or none

-that I have ever known, would have said

-"dwelling," though he might have read the

-word in books a thousand times. I thought

-of a spruce colored waiter in Florida, who,

-when I asked him at breakfast how the day

-was likely to turn out, answered promptly,

-"I think it will be inclement." It may

-reasonably be counted among the minor

-advantages of travel that it enriches one's

-every-day vocabulary.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Another Fairmount building (an unmistakable

-house, this time) is memorable to

-me because on the doorstep, day after day,

-an old gentleman and a younger antagonist&mdash;they

-might have been grandfather and

-grandson&mdash;were playing checkers. "I

-hope you are beating the young fellow," I

-could not help saying once to the old gentleman.

-He smiled dubiously, and made

-some halting reply suggestive of resignation

-rather than triumph; and it came to me

-with a kind of pang, as I passed on, that if

-growing old is a bad business, as most of us

-think, it is perhaps an unfavorable symptom

-when a man finds himself, not out of

-politeness, but as a simple matter of course,

-taking sides with the aged.</p>

-

-<p>Fairmounters, living in the woods, have

-no outlook upon the world. If they wish to

-see off, they must go to the Brow, which, by

-a stroller's guess, may be two miles distant.

-My first visit to it was the pleasanter&mdash;the

-more vacational, so to speak&mdash;for being an

-accident. I sauntered aimlessly down the

-road, past the scattered houses and orchards

-(the raising of early apples seemed to be

-a leading industry on the Ridge, though a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>

-Chattanooga gentleman had assured me that

-the principal crops were blackberries and

-rabbits), and almost before I knew it, was

-in the same delightful woods that had welcomed

-me wherever I had gone. And in

-the same woods the same birds were singing.

-My notes make particular record of hooded

-and Kentucky warblers, these being two of

-my newer acquaintances, as well as two of

-the commoner Ridge songsters; but I halted

-for some time, and with even a livelier interest,

-to listen to an old friend (no acquaintance,

-if you please),&mdash;a black-throated

-green warbler. It was one of the queerest

-of songs: a bar of five or six notes, uniform

-in pitch, and then at once, in perfect form

-and voice,&mdash;the voice being a main part of

-the music in the case of this warbler,&mdash;the

-familiar <em>trees</em>, <em>trees</em>, <em>murmuring trees</em>.

-Where could the fellow have picked up such

-a ditty? No doubt there was some story

-connected with it. Nothing is born of itself.

-A dozen years ago, in the Green Mountains,&mdash;at

-Bread-Loaf Inn,&mdash;I heard from the

-forest by the roadside a song utterly strange,

-and hastened in search of its author. After

-much furtive approach and diligent scanning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>

-of the foliage, I had the bird under my

-opera-glass,&mdash;a black-throated blue warbler!

-With my eye still upon him, he sang

-again and again, and the song bore no faintest

-resemblance to the <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, which

-all New England bird-lovers know as the

-work of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica cærulescens</i>. In what

-private school he had been educated I have

-no idea; but I believe that every such

-extreme eccentricity goes back to something

-out of the common in the bird's early

-training.</p>

-

-<p>I felt in no haste. Life is easy in the

-Tennessee mountains. A pile of lumber,

-newly unloaded near the road,&mdash;in the

-woods, of course,&mdash;offered a timely seat,

-and I took it. Some Chattanooga gentleman

-was planning a summer cottage for

-himself, I gathered. May he enjoy it for

-twenty years as much as I did for twenty

-minutes. Not far beyond, near a fork in the

-road, a man of twenty-five or thirty, a youth

-of sixteen or seventeen, and a small boy were

-playing marbles in a cabin yard. I interrupted

-the sport long enough to inquire

-which road I had better take. I was going

-nowhere in particular, I explained, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>

-wanted simply a pleasant stroll. "Then I

-would go to the Brow, if I were you," said

-the man. "Keep a straight road. It isn't

-far." I thanked him, and with a cheery

-"Come on!" to his playmates he ran back,

-literally, to the ring. Yes, life is easy in

-the Tennessee mountains. It is not to be

-assumed, nevertheless, that the man was a

-do-nothing: probably he had struck work

-for a few minutes only; but, like a sensible

-player, he was enjoying the game while it

-lasted. Perhaps it is a certain inborn Puritanical

-industriousness, against which I have

-never found the courage effectually to rebel,

-that makes me look back upon this dooryard

-comedy as one of the brightest incidents

-of my Tennessee vacation. Fancy a

-Massachusetts farmer playing marbles at

-nine o'clock in the forenoon!</p>

-

-<p>At that moment, it must be owned, a rebuke

-of idleness would have fallen with a

-poor grace from my Massachusetts lips. If

-the player of marbles had followed his questioner

-round the first turn, he would have

-seen him standing motionless beside a swamp,

-holding his head on one side as if listening,&mdash;though

-there was nothing to be heard,&mdash;or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>

-evoking ridiculous squeaking noises by

-sucking idiotically the back of his hand.

-Well, I was trying to find another bird, just

-as he was trying to knock another marble

-out of the ring.</p>

-

-<p>The spot invited such researches,&mdash;a

-bushy swamp, quite unlike the dry woods

-and rocky woodland brooks which I had

-found everywhere else. I had seen my

-first cerulean warbler on Lookout Mountain,

-my first Cape May warbler on Cameron

-Hill, my first Kentucky warbler on Missionary

-Ridge, and my first blue-winged yellow

-warbler at the Chickamauga battlefield. If

-Walden was to treat me equally well, as in

-all fairness it ought, now was the time.

-Looking, listening, and squeaking were alike

-unrewarded, however, till I approached the

-same spot on my return. Then some bird

-sang a new song. I hoped it was a prothonotary

-warbler, a bird I had never seen, and

-about whose notes I knew nothing. More

-likely it was a Louisiana water-thrush, a

-bird I had seen, but had never heard sing.

-Whichever it was, alas, it speedily fell silent,

-and no beating of the bush proved of the

-least avail.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile I had been to the Brow, where

-I had sat for an hour or more on the edge

-of the mountain, gazing down upon the

-world. The sky was clouded, but here and

-there were fugitive patches of sunshine, now

-on Missionary Ridge, now on the river, now

-glorifying the smoke of the city. Southward,

-just across the valley and over Chattanooga,

-was Lookout Mountain; eastward stretched

-Missionary Ridge, with many higher hills

-behind it; and more to the north, and far

-in the distance, loomed the Great Smoky

-Mountains, in all respects true to their

-name. The valley at my feet was beautiful

-beyond words: green forests interspersed

-with green clearings, lonely cabins, and bare

-fields of red earth. At the north, Walden's

-Ridge made a turn eastward, narrowing

-the valley, but without ending it. Chimney

-swifts were cackling merrily, and the air was

-full of the hum of seventeen-year locusts,&mdash;miles

-and miles of continuous sound. From

-somewhere far below rose the tinkle of cow-bells.

-Even on that cloudy and smoky day

-it was a glorious landscape; but it pleased

-me afterward to remember that the eye returned

-of itself again and again to a stretch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>

-of freshly green meadow along a slender

-watercourse,&mdash;a valley within the valley.

-Of all the fair picture, that was the most

-like home.</p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile there was no forgetting that

-undiscovered stranger in the swamp. Whoever

-he was, he must be made to show

-himself; and the next day, when the usual

-noonday deluge was past, I looked at the

-clouds, and said: "We shall have another,

-but in the interval I can probably reach the

-Brow. There I will take shelter on the

-piazza of an unoccupied cottage, and, when

-the rain is over, go back to the swamp, see

-my bird, and thence return home." So it

-turned out&mdash;in part. The clouds hurried

-me, but I reached the Brow just in season,

-climbed the cottage fence, the gate being

-padlocked, and, thoroughly heated as I was,

-paced briskly to and fro on the piazza in

-a chilling breeze for an hour or more, the

-flood all the while threatening to fall, and

-the thunder shaking the house. There was

-plenty to look at, for the cottage faced the

-Great Smokies, and though we were under

-the blackest of clouds, the landscape below

-was largely in the sun. The noise of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>

-locusts was incessant. Nothing but the peals

-of thunder kept it out of my ears.</p>

-

-<p>So far, then, my plans had prospered;

-but to find the mysterious bird,&mdash;that was

-not so easy. The swamp was silent, and I

-was at once so cold and so hot, and so badly

-under the weather already, that I dared not

-linger.</p>

-

-<p>In the woods, nevertheless, I stopped long

-enough to enjoy the music of a master

-cardinal,&mdash;a bewitching song, and, as I

-thought, original: <em>birdy</em>, <em>birdy</em>, repeated

-about ten times in the sweetest of whistles,

-and then a sudden descent in the pitch, and

-the same syllables over again. At that

-instant, a Carolina wren, as if stirred to

-rivalry, sprang into a bush and began

-whistling <em>cherry</em>, <em>cherry</em>, <em>cherry</em> at his

-loudest and prettiest. It was a royal duet.

-The cardinal was in magnificent plumage,

-and a scarlet tanager near by was equally

-handsome. If the tanager could whistle

-like the cardinal, our New England woods

-would have a bird to brag of.</p>

-

-<p>Not far beyond these wayside musicians I

-came upon a boy sitting beside a wood-pile,

-with his saw lying on the ground. "It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>

-easier to sit down than to saw wood,

-isn't it?" said I. Possibly he was unused

-to such aphoristic modes of speech. He

-took time to consider. Then he smiled, and

-said, "Yes, sir." The answer was all-sufficient.

-We spoke from experience, both of

-us; and between men who <em>know</em>, whatever

-the matter in hand, disagreement is

-impossible and amplification needless.</p>

-

-<p>Three days later&mdash;my last day on the

-Ridge&mdash;I had better luck at the swamp.

-The stranger was singing on the nearer

-edge as I approached, and I had simply to

-draw near and look at him,&mdash;a Louisiana

-water-thrush. He sang, and I listened;

-and farther along, at the little bridge where

-I had first heard the song, another like him

-was in tune. The strain, as warbler songs

-go ("water-thrushes" being not thrushes,

-but warblers), is rather striking,&mdash;clear,

-pretty loud, of about ten notes, the first pair

-of which are longest and best. I speak of

-what I heard, and give, of course, my own

-impression. Audubon pronounces the notes

-"as powerful and mellow, and at times as

-varied," as those of the nightingale, and

-Wilson waxes almost equally enthusiastic in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>

-his praise of the "exquisitely sweet and

-expressive voice." Here, as in Florida, I

-was interested to perceive how instantly the

-bird's appearance and carriage distinguished

-it from its Northern relative, although the

-descriptions of the two species, as given in

-books, sound confusingly alike. It is matter

-for thankfulness, perhaps, that language

-is not yet so all-expressive as to render

-individual eyesight superfluous.</p>

-

-<p>I kept on to the Brow, and some time

-afterward was at Mabbitt's Spring, quenching

-my thirst with a draught of liquid iron

-rust, when a third songster of the same kind

-struck up his tune. The spring, spurting

-out of the rock in a slender jet, is beside the

-same stream&mdash;Little Falling Water&mdash;that

-makes through the swamp; and along its

-banks, it appeared, the water-thrushes were

-at home. I was glad to have heard the

-famous singer, but my satisfaction was not

-without alloy. Walden, after all, had failed

-to show me a new bird, though it had given

-me a new song.</p>

-

-<p>The most fatiguing, and perhaps the most

-interesting of my days on the Ridge was

-the one day in which I did not travel on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>

-foot. Passing through the village, on my

-return from one of my earlier visits to

-Falling Water, I stopped a nice-looking

-man (if he will pardon the expression,

-copied from my notes), driving a horse with

-a pair of clothes-line reins. He had an air

-of being at home, and naturally I took him

-for a native. Would he tell me something

-about the country, especially about the

-roads, so that I might improve my scanty

-time to the best advantage? Very gladly,

-he answered. He had walked and driven

-over the mountain a good deal, surveying,

-and if I would call at his house, a short distance

-down the road,&mdash;the house with the

-big barn,&mdash;he would make me a rough map,

-such as would answer my purpose. At the

-same time he mentioned two or three shorter

-excursions which I ought not to miss; and

-when I had thanked him for his kindness,

-he gathered up the reins and drove on.

-Intending no disrespect to the inhabitants of

-the Ridge, I may perhaps be allowed to say

-that I was considerably impressed by a certain

-unexpected propriety, and even elegance,

-of diction, on the part of my new

-acquaintance. I remember in particular his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>

-description of a pleasant cold spring as

-being situated not far from the "confluence"

-of two streams. <i>Con-fluens</i>, I

-thought, flowing together. Having always

-something else to do, I omitted to call at

-his house, and one day, when we met again

-in the road, I apologized for my neglect,

-and asked another favor. He was familiar

-with the country, and kept a horse. Could

-he not spare a day to take me about? If

-he thought this proposal a bit presumptuous,

-courtesy restrained him from letting the fact

-be seen, and, after a few minutes of deliberation,&mdash;his

-hands being pretty full just

-then, he explained,&mdash;he promised to call

-for me two mornings later, at seven o'clock.

-We would take a luncheon along, and make

-a day of it.</p>

-

-<p>He appeared at the gate in due season,

-and in a few minutes we were driving over

-a road new to me, but through the same

-spacious oak woods to which I had grown

-accustomed. We went first to Burnt Cabin

-Spring, one of the famous chalybeate springs

-of the mountain,&mdash;a place formerly frequented

-by picnic parties, but now, to all appearance,

-fallen into neglect. We stretched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>

-our legs, drank of the water, admired the

-flowers and ferns, talking all the while (it

-was here that my companion told a story of

-a young theologian from Grant University,

-who, in a solemn discourse, spoke repeatedly

-of Jacob as having "euchred his brother

-out of his birthright"), and then, while a

-"pheasant" drummed near by, took our

-places again in the buggy.</p>

-

-<p>Another stage, still through the oak

-woods, and we were at Signal Point, famous&mdash;in

-local tradition, at least&mdash;as the station

-from which General Sherman signaled encouragement

-to the Union army beleaguered

-in Chattanooga, in danger of starvation or

-surrender. I had looked at the bold, jutting

-crags from Lookout Mountain and elsewhere,

-and rejoiced at last to stand upon them.</p>

-

-<p>It would have been delightful to spend

-a long day there, lying upon the cliffs and

-enjoying the prospect, which, without being

-so far-reaching as from Point Lookout, or

-even from the eastern brim of Walden, is

-yet extensive and surpassingly beautiful.

-The visitor is squarely above the river,

-which here, in the straitened valley between

-the Ridge and Raccoon Mountain, grows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>

-narrower and narrower till it rushes through

-the "Suck." Even at that elevation we

-could hear the roar of the rapids. A short

-distance above the Suck, and almost at

-our feet, lay Williams Island. A farmer's

-Eden it looked, with its broad, newly

-planted fields, and its house surrounded by

-out-buildings and orchard-trees. The view

-included Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge,

-and much else; but its special charm was

-its foreground, the part peculiar to itself,&mdash;the

-valley, the river, and Raccoon Mountain.

-Along the river-banks were small clearings,

-each with its one cabin, and generally a

-figure or two ploughing or planting. A

-man in a strangely long boat&mdash;a dugout,

-probably&mdash;was making his difficult way

-upstream with a paddle. The Tennessee,

-in the neighborhood of Chattanooga, at all

-events, is too swift for pleasure-boating.

-Seen from above, as I commonly saw it, it

-looked tranquil enough; but when I came

-down to its edge, now and then, the speed

-and energetic sweep of the smooth current

-laid fast hold upon me. From the mountains

-to the sea is a long, long journey, and no

-wonder the river felt in haste.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>I had gone to Signal Point not as an

-ornithologist, but as a patriot and a lover

-of beauty; but, being there, I added one to

-my list of Tennessee birds,&mdash;a red-tailed

-hawk, one of the very few hawks seen in all

-my trip. Sailing below us, it displayed its

-rusty, diagnostic tail, and put its identity at

-once beyond question.</p>

-

-<p>Our next start&mdash;far too speedy, for the

-day was short&mdash;was for Williams Point;

-but on our way thither we descended into

-the valley of Shoal Creek, down which, with

-the creek to keep it company, runs the old

-mountain road, now disused and practically

-impassable. Here we hitched the horse,

-and strolled downwards for perhaps half a

-mile. I was never in a lovelier spot. The

-mountain brook, laughing over the stones,

-is overhung with laurel and rhododendron,

-which in turn are overhung by precipitous

-rocks broken into all wild and romantic

-shapes, with here and there a cavern&mdash;"rock-house"&mdash;to

-shelter a score of travelers.

-The place was rich in ferns and other

-plants, which, unhappily, I had no time to

-examine, and all the particulars of which

-have faded out of my memory. We walked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>

-far enough to look over the edge of the

-mountain, and up to the Signal Point cliffs.

-If I could have stayed there two or three

-hours, it would have been a memorable

-season. As it was, the stroll was enlivened

-by one little adventure, at which I have

-laughed too many times ever to forget it.</p>

-

-<p>I had been growing rapturous over the

-beauty of things, when my companion said,

-"There are some people whom it is no

-pleasure to take into places like this. They

-can't keep their eyes off the ground, they

-are so bitten with the fear of snakes." He

-was a few paces ahead of me, as he spoke,

-and the sentence was barely finished before

-he shouted, "Look at that huge snake!"

-and sprang forward to snatch up a stone.

-"Get a stick!" he cried. "Get a stick!"

-From his manner I took it for granted that

-the creature was a rattlesnake, and a glance

-at it, lying motionless among the stones

-beside the road, did not undeceive me. I

-turned hurriedly, looking for a stick, but

-somehow could not find one, and in a moment

-more was recalled by shouts of "Come

-and help me! It will get away from us!"

-It was a question of life and death, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>

-thought, and I ran forward and began

-throwing stones. "Look out! Look out!

-You'll bury it!" cried my companion; but

-just then one of my shots struck the snake

-squarely in the head. "That's a good

-one!" exclaimed the other man, and, picking

-up a dead stick, he thrust it under the

-disabled creature and tossed it into the road.

-Then he bent over it, and, with a stone,

-pounded its head to a jelly. Such a fury as

-possessed him! He might have been bruising

-the head of Satan himself, as no doubt

-he was&mdash;in his mind; for my surveyor was

-also a preacher, as had already transpired.</p>

-

-<p>"It isn't a venomous snake, is it?" I

-ventured to ask, when the work was done.</p>

-

-<p>"Oh, I think not," and he pried open its

-jaws to look for its fangs.</p>

-

-<p>"I don't generally kill innocent snakes,"

-I ventured again, a little inopportunely, it

-must be confessed.</p>

-

-<p>"Well, <em>I</em> do," said the preacher. "The

-very sight of a snake stirs my hatred to its

-depths."</p>

-

-<p>After that it was natural to inquire

-whether he often saw rattlesnakes hereabouts.

-(The driver who brought me up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>

-the mountain had said that they were not

-common, but that I "wanted to look out

-sharp for them in the woods.") My companion

-had never seen one, he answered, but

-his wife had once killed one in their dooryard.

-Then, by way of cooling off, after

-the fervor of the conflict, he told me about

-a gentleman and his little boy, who, having

-come to spend a vacation on the Ridge,

-started out in the morning for a stroll.

-They were quickly back again, and the boy,

-quite out of breath, came running into the

-garden.</p>

-

-<p>"Oh, Mr. M.," he cried, "we saw a rattlesnake,

-and papa fired off his pistol!"</p>

-

-<p>"A rattlesnake! Where is it? What

-did it look like?"</p>

-

-<p>"Why, we didn't see it, but we heard it."</p>

-

-<p>"What was the noise like?" asked Mr.

-M., and he took a pencil from his pocket

-and began tapping on a log.</p>

-

-<p>"That's it!" said the boy, "that's it!"</p>

-

-<p>They had heard a woodpecker drilling for

-grubs,&mdash;or drumming for love,&mdash;whereupon

-the man had fired his pistol, and for

-them there was no more walking in the

-woods.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>After our ramble along Shoal Creek we

-rested at the ford, near a brilliant show of

-laurel and rhododendron, and ate our luncheon

-to the music of the stream. I finished

-first, as my evil habit is, and was crossing

-the brook on natural stepping-stones when

-a bird&mdash;a warbler of some unknown kind&mdash;saluted

-me from the thicket. Making

-my companion a signal not to disturb us by

-driving into the stream, I gave myself up

-to discovering the singer; edging this way

-and that, while the fellow moved about also,

-always unseen, and sang again and again,

-now a louder song, now, with charming effect,

-a quieter and briefer one, till I was almost as

-badly beside myself as the preacher had been

-half an hour before. But my warfare was

-less successful than his, for, with all my

-pains, I saw not so much as a feather.

-There is nothing prettier than a jungle of

-laurel and rhododendron in full bloom, but

-there are many easier places in which to

-make out a bird.</p>

-

-<p>Williams Point, which we reached on foot,

-after driving as near it as the roughness of

-the unfrequented road would comfortably

-allow, is not in itself equal to Signal Point,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>

-but affords substantially the same magnificent

-prospect. Near it, in the woods, stood

-a newly built cabin, looking badly out of

-place with its glaring unweathered boards;

-and beside the cabin stood a man and

-woman in a condition of extreme disgust.

-The man had come up the mountain to work

-in some coal-mine, if I understood him correctly;

-but the tools were not ready, there

-was no water, his household goods were

-stranded down in the valley somewhere (the

-hens were starving to death, the woman

-added), and, all in all, the pair were in a

-sorry plight.</p>

-

-<p>Here, as at Signal Point, I made an addition

-to my local ornithology, and this time

-too the bird was a hawk. We were standing

-on the edge of the cliff, when a sparrow

-hawk, after alighting near us, took wing and

-hung for some time suspended over the

-abyss, beating against the breeze, and so

-holding itself steady,&mdash;a graceful piece of

-work, the better appreciated for being seen

-from above. Here, also, for the first time

-in my life, I was addressed as a "you-un."

-"Where be you-uns from?" asked the

-woman at the cabin, after the ordinary greetings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>

-had been exchanged. I believe, in my

-innocence, I had always looked upon that

-word as an invention of story-writers.</p>

-

-<p>Somewhere in this neighborhood we

-traversed a pine wood, in which my first

-Walden pine warbler was trilling. Then,

-for some miles, we drove along the Brow,

-with the glory of the world&mdash;valley, river,

-and mountain&mdash;outspread before us, and

-the Great Smokies looming in the background,

-barely visible through the haze.

-For seven miles, I was told, one could drive

-along that mountain rim. Surely the city

-of Chattanooga is happy in its suburbs.

-Here were many cottages, the greater number

-as yet unopened; and not far beyond

-the one under the piazza of which I had

-weathered the thunderstorm of the day before,

-the road entered the forest again.

-Then, as the way grew more and more difficult,

-we left the horse behind us, and by

-and by came to a foot-path. This brought us

-at last to Falling Water Fall, where Little

-Falling Water&mdash;after threading the swamp

-and passing Mabbitt's Spring, as before

-described&mdash;tumbles over a precipice which

-my companion, with his surveyor's eye, estimated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>

-to be one hundred and fifty feet in

-height. The slender stream, broken into

-jewels as it falls, strikes the bottom at some

-distance from the foot of the cliffs, which

-here form the arc of a circle, and are not

-perpendicular, but deeply hollowed. After

-enjoying the prospect from this point,&mdash;holding

-to a tree and leaning over the edge

-of the rocks,&mdash;we retraced our steps till we

-came to a steep, zigzag path, which took us

-to the foot of the precipice. Here, as well

-as above, were laurel and rhododendron in

-profusion. One big rhododendron-tree grew

-on the face of the cliff, thirty feet over our

-heads, leaning outward, and bearing at least

-fifty clusters of gorgeous rose-purple flowers;

-and a smaller one, in a similar position,

-was equally full. The hanging gardens of

-Babylon may have been more wonderful,

-but I was well content.</p>

-

-<p>From the point where we stood the ledge

-makes eastward for a long distance, almost

-at right angles, and the cliffs for a mile&mdash;or,

-more likely, for two or three miles&mdash;were

-straight before us, broken everywhere

-into angles, light gray and reddish-brown

-intermixed, with the late afternoon sun shining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>

-full upon them, and the green forest

-fringing them above and sweeping away

-from them below.</p>

-

-<p>It was a breathless clamber up the rocks

-again, tired and poorly off as I was, but I

-reached the top with one hand full of rhododendrons

-(it seemed a shame to pick them,

-and a shame to leave them), and in half an

-hour we were driving homeward, our day's

-work done; while my seatmate, who, besides

-being preacher, lawyer, surveyor, and farmer,

-was also a mystic and a saint,&mdash;though he

-would have refused the word,&mdash;fell into a

-strain of reminiscence, appropriate to the

-hour, about the inner life of the soul, its

-hopes, its struggles, and its joys. I listened

-in reverent silence. The passion for perfection

-is not yet so common as to have

-become commonplace, and one need not be

-certain of a theory in order to admire a

-practice. He had already told me who his

-father was, and I had ceased to wonder at

-his using now and then a choice phrase.</p>

-

-<p>My friend (he will allow me that word, I

-am sure) had given me a day of days, and

-with it a new idea of this mountain world;

-where the visitor finds hills and valleys,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>

-creeks and waterfalls, the most beautiful of

-forests, with clearings, isolated cabins, straggling

-settlements, orchards, and gardens,

-and where he forgets again and again that

-he is on a mountain at all. Even now I had

-seen but a corner of it, as I have seen but a

-corner of the larger world on which, for

-these few years back, I have had what I call

-my existence. And even of what I saw,

-much has gone undescribed: stately tulip-trees

-deep in the forest, with humming-birds

-darting from flower to flower among them;

-the flame-colored azalea; the ground flowers

-of the woods, including some tiny yellow

-lady's-slippers, too dainty for the foot of

-Cinderella herself; the road to Sawyer's

-Springs; and numbers of birds, whose names,

-even, I have omitted. It was a wonderful

-world; but if the hobbyist may take the pen

-for a single sentence, it may stand confessed

-that the greatest wonder of all was this,&mdash;that

-in all those miles of oak forest I found

-not one blue jay.</p>

-

-<p>Another surprising circumstance, which I

-do not remember to have noticed, however,

-till my attention was somewhat rudely called

-to it, was the absence of colored people.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>

-With the exception of three servants at the

-hotel, I saw none but whites. Walden's

-Ridge, although stanchly Union in war-time,

-and largely Republican now, as I was told,

-is a white man's country. I had gone to

-bed one night, and was fast asleep, when I

-was wakened suddenly by the noise of some

-one hurrying up the stairs and shouting,

-"Where's the gun? Where's the gun?

-Shorty's been shot!" "Shorty" was the

-colored waiter, and the speaker was a general

-factotum, an English boy. The colored

-people&mdash;Shorty, his wife, and the cook&mdash;had

-been out on the edge of the woods behind

-the house, when three men had fired

-at them, or pretended to do so. It was explained

-the next morning that this was only

-an attempt (on the part of some irresponsible

-young men, as the older residents said) to

-"run the niggers off the mountain,"&mdash;after

-what I understood to be a somewhat regular

-custom. "Niggers" did not belong there;

-their place was down below. If a Chattanooga

-cottager brought up a colored servant,

-he was "respectfully requested" to send

-him back, and save the natives the trouble

-of attending to the matter. In short, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>

-Ridgites appeared to look upon "niggers"

-as Northern laborers look upon non-union

-men&mdash;"scabs."</p>

-

-<p>The hotel-keeper, an Englishman, with an

-Englishman's notions about personal rights,

-was naturally indignant. He would hire his

-own servants, or he would shut the house.

-In any event, the presence of "Whitecaps,"

-real or imaginary, must affect his summer

-patronage. I fully expected to see the colored

-trio pack up and go back to Chattanooga,

-without waiting for further hints;

-but they showed no disposition to do anything

-of the sort, and, I must add, rose in

-my estimation accordingly.</p>

-

-<p>Of the feeling of the community I had a

-slight but ludicrous intimation a day or two

-after the shooting. I passed a boy whom I

-had noticed in the road, some days before,

-playing with a pig, lifting him by the hind

-legs and pitching him over forwards. "He

-can turn a somerset good," he had said to me,

-as I passed. Now, for the sake of being

-neighborly, I asked, "How's the pig to-day?"

-He smiled, and made some reply,

-as if he appreciated the pleasantry; but a

-more serious-looking playmate took up his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>

-parable, and said, "The pig'll be all right,

-if the folks up at the hotel don't shoot him."

-His tone and look were intended to be

-deeply significant. "Oh, I know you," they

-implied: "you are up at the hotel, where

-they threaten to shoot white folks."</p>

-

-<p>For my last afternoon&mdash;wars and rumors

-of wars long since forgotten&mdash;I went to the

-place that had pleased me first, the valley

-of Falling Water Creek. The cross-vine on

-the dead hemlock had by this time dropped

-the greater part of its bells, but even yet

-many were hanging from the uppermost

-branches. The rhododendron was still at

-the height of its splendor. All the gardens

-were nothing to it, I said to myself. Crossing

-the creek on the log, and the branch on

-stepping-stones, I went to quench my thirst

-at the Marshall Spring, which once had a

-cabin beside it, and frequent visitors, but

-now was clogged with fallen leaves and

-seemingly abandoned. It was perhaps more

-beautiful so. Directly behind it rose a steep

-bank, and in front stood an oak and a

-maple, the latter leaning toward it and forming

-a pointed arch,&mdash;a worthy entrance.

-Mossy stones walled it in, and ferns grew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>

-luxuriantly about it. Just over them, an

-azalea still held two fresh pink flowers, the

-last till another May. In such a spot it

-would have been easy to grow sentimental;

-but there came a rumbling of thunder, the

-sky darkened, and, with a final hasty look

-about me, I picked up my umbrella and

-started homeward.</p>

-

-<p>My last walk had ended like many others

-in that showery, fragmentary week. But

-what is bad weather when the time is past?

-All those black clouds have left no shadow

-on Walden's Ridge, and the best of all my

-strolls beside Falling Water, a stroll not yet

-finished,</p>

-

-<p class="center">"The calm sense of seen beauty without sight,"</p>

-

-<p>suffers no harm. As Thoreau says, "It is

-after we get home that we really go over the

-mountain."</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="SOME_TENNESSEE_BIRD_NOTES" id="SOME_TENNESSEE_BIRD_NOTES">SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES.</a></h2>

-

-

-<p>Whoever loves the music of English

-sparrows should live in Chattanooga; there

-is no place on the planet, it is to be hoped,

-where they are more numerous and pervasive.

-Mocking-birds are scarce. To the

-best of my recollection, I saw none in the

-city itself, and less than half a dozen in the

-surrounding country. A young gentleman

-whom I questioned upon the subject told me

-that they used to be common, and attributed

-their present increasing rarity to the persecution

-of boys, who find a profit in selling

-the young into captivity. Their place, in

-the city especially, is taken by catbirds;

-interesting, imitative, and in their own

-measure tuneful, but poor substitutes for

-mocking-birds. In fact, that is a rôle which

-it is impossible to think of any bird as really

-filling. The brown thrush, it is true, sings

-quite in the mocking-bird's manner, and, to

-my ear, almost or quite as well; but he

-possesses no gift as a mimic, and furthermore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>

-without being exactly a bird of the

-forest or the wilderness, is instinctively and

-irreclaimably a recluse. It would be hard,

-even among human beings, to find a nature

-less touched with urbanity. In the mocking-bird

-the elements are more happily

-mingled. Not gregarious, intolerant of

-rivalry, and, as far as creatures of his own

-kind are concerned, a stickler for elbow-room,&mdash;sharing

-with his brown relative in

-that respect,&mdash;he is at the same time a

-born citizen and neighbor; as fond of gardens

-and dooryard trees as the thrasher is

-of scrublands and barberry bushes. "Man

-delights me," he might say, "and woman

-also." He likes to be listened to, it is

-pretty certain; and possibly he is dimly

-aware of the artistic value of appreciation,

-without which no artist ever did his best.

-Add to this endearing social quality the

-splendor and freedom of the mocker's vocal

-performances, multifarious, sensational, incomparable,

-by turns entrancing and amusing,

-and it is easy to understand how he has

-come to hold a place by himself in Southern

-sentiment and literature. A city without

-mocking-birds is only half Southern, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>

-black faces be never so thick upon the sidewalks

-and mules never so common in the

-streets. If the boys have driven the great

-mimic away from Chattanooga, it is time

-the fathers took the boys in hand. Civic

-pride alone ought to bring this about, to

-say nothing of the possible effect upon real

-estate values of the abundant and familiar

-presence of this world-renowned, town-loving,

-town-charming songster.</p>

-

-<p>From my window, on the side of Cameron

-Hill, I heard daily the singing of an orchard

-oriole&mdash;another fine and neighborly bird&mdash;and

-a golden warbler, with sometimes the

-<em>fidgety</em>, <em>fidgety</em> of a Maryland yellow-throat.

-What could <em>he</em> be fussing about in so

-unlikely a quarter? An adjoining yard

-presented the unnatural spectacle&mdash;unnatural,

-but, I am sorry to say, not unprecedented&mdash;of

-a bird-house occupied in partnership

-by purple martins and English

-sparrows. They had finished their quarrels,

-if they had ever had any,&mdash;which can

-hardly be open to doubt, both native and

-foreigner being constitutionally belligerent,&mdash;and

-frequently sat side by side upon the

-ridge-pole, like the best of friends. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>

-oftener I saw them there, the more indignant

-I became at the martins' un-American

-behavior. Such a disgraceful surrender of

-the Monroe Doctrine was too much even for

-a man of peace. I have never called myself

-a Jingo, but for once it would have done me

-good to see the lion's tail twisted.</p>

-

-<p>With the exception of a few pairs of

-rough-wings on Missionary Ridge, the martins

-seemed to be the only swallows in the

-country at that time of the year; and

-though <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Progne subis</i>, in spite of an occasional

-excess of good nature, is a most noble

-bird, it was impossible not to feel that by

-itself it constituted but a meagre representation

-of an entire family. Swallows are

-none too numerous in Massachusetts, in

-these days, and are pretty certainly growing

-fewer and fewer, what with the prevalence

-of the box-monopolizing European sparrow,

-and the passing of the big, old-fashioned,

-widely ventilated barn; for there is

-no member of the family, not even the sand

-martin, whose distribution does not depend

-in great degree upon human agency. Even

-yet, however, if a Massachusetts man will

-make a circuit of a few miles, he will usually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>

-meet with tree swallows, barn swallows, cliff

-swallows, sand martins, and purple martins.

-In other words, he need not go far to find

-all the species of eastern North America,

-with the single exception of the least attractive

-of the six; that is to say, the rough-wing.

-As compared with the people of

-eastern Tennessee, then, we are still pretty

-well favored. It is worth while to travel

-now and then, if only to find ourselves better

-off at home.</p>

-

-<p>It might be easy to suggest plausible

-reasons for the general absence of swallows

-from a country like that about Chattanooga;

-but the extraordinary scarcity of hawks,

-while many persons&mdash;not ornithologists&mdash;would

-account it less of a calamity, is more

-of a puzzle. From Walden's Ridge I saw

-a single sparrow hawk and a single red-tail;

-in addition to which I remember three birds

-whose identity I could not determine. Five

-hawks in the course of three weeks spent

-entirely out of doors, in the neighborhood of

-mountains covered with old forest! Taken

-by itself, this unexpected showing might

-have been ascribed to some queer combination

-of accidents, or to a failure of observation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>

-In fact, I was inclined so to explain

-it till I noticed that Mr. Brewster had

-chronicled a similar state of things in what

-is substantially the same piece of country.

-Writing of western North Carolina, he

-says:<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>

-"The general scarcity&mdash;one may

-almost say absence&mdash;of hawks in this region

-during the breeding season is simply

-unaccountable. Small birds and mammals,

-lizards, snakes, and other animals upon

-which the various species subsist are everywhere

-numerous, the country is wild and

-heavily forested, and, in short, all the necessary

-conditions of environment seem to be

-fulfilled." Certainly, so far as my ingenuity

-goes, the mystery is "unaccountable;" but

-of course, like every other mystery, it would

-open quickly enough if we could find the

-key.</p>

-

-<p>Turkey vultures were moderately numerous,&mdash;much

-less abundant than in

-Florida,&mdash;and twice I saw a single black

-vulture, recognizable, almost as far as it

-could be seen (but I do not mean at a first

-glance, nor without due precaution against

-foreshortened effects), by its docked tail.

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>

-Both are invaluable in their place,&mdash;useful,

-graceful, admirable, and disgusting. The

-vultures, the martins, and the swifts were

-the only common aerial birds. The swifts,

-happily, were everywhere,&mdash;jovial souls in

-a sooty dress,&mdash;and had already begun

-nest-building. I saw them continually pulling

-up against the twigs of a partially dead

-tree near my window. In them nature has

-developed the bird idea to its extreme,&mdash;a

-pair of wings, with just body enough for

-ballast; like a racing-yacht, built for nothing

-but to carry sail and avoid resistance.

-Their flight is a good visual music, as

-Emerson might have said; but I love also

-their quick, eager notes, like the sounds of

-children at play. And while it has nothing

-to do with Tennessee, I am prompted to

-mention here a bird of this species that I

-once saw in northern New Hampshire on

-the 1st of October,&mdash;an extraordinarily

-late date, if my experience counts for anything.

-With a friend I had made an ascent

-of Mount Lafayette (one of the days of a

-man's life), and as we came near the Profile

-House, on our return to the valley, there

-passed overhead a single chimney swift.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>

-What he could be doing there at that season

-was more than either of us could divine. It

-was impossible to feel any great concern

-about him, however. The afternoon was

-nearly done, but at the rate he was traveling

-it seemed as if he might be in Mexico before

-sunrise. And easily enough he may have

-been, if Mr. Gätke is right in his contention

-that birds of very moderate powers of wing

-are capable of flying all night at the rate of

-four miles a minute!</p>

-

-<p>The comparative scarcity of crows about

-Chattanooga, and the amazing dearth of

-jays in the oak forest of Walden's Ridge,

-have been touched upon elsewhere. As for

-the jays, their absence must have been more

-apparent than real, I am bound to believe.

-It was their silent time, probably. Still

-another thing that I found surprising was

-the small number of woodpeckers. For the

-first four days I saw not a single representative

-of the family. It would be next

-to impossible to be so much out of doors in

-Massachusetts at any season of the year

-with a like result. During my three weeks

-in Tennessee I saw eight flickers, seven

-hairy woodpeckers, two red-heads, and two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>

-or three red-cockaded woodpeckers, besides

-which I heard one downy and one "logcock."

-The last-named bird, which is big

-enough for even the careless to notice,

-seemed to be well known to the inhabitants

-of Walden's Ridge, where I heard it. By

-what they told me, it should be fairly common,

-but I saw nothing of its "peck-holes."

-The first of my two red-headed woodpeckers

-was near the base of Missionary Ridge,

-wasting his time in exploring pole after pole

-along the railway. Did he mistake them

-for so many dead trees still standing on

-their own roots? Dry and seemingly undecayed,

-they appeared to me to offer small

-encouragement to a grub-seeker; but probably

-the fellow knew his own business best.

-On questions of economic entomology, I

-fear I should prove but a lame adviser for

-the most benighted woodpecker that ever

-drummed. And yet, being a man, I could

-not help feeling that this particular red-head

-was behaving uncommonly like a fool.

-Was there ever a man who did not take it

-as a matter of course that he should be wiser

-than the "lower animals"?</p>

-

-<p>Humming-birds cut but a small figure in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>

-my daily notes till I went to Walden's

-Ridge. There, in the forest, they were

-noticeably abundant,&mdash;for humming-birds,

-that is to say. It seemed to be the time of

-pairing with them; more than once the two

-sexes were seen together,&mdash;an unusual

-occurrence, unless my observation has been

-unfortunate, after the nest is built, or even

-while it is building. One female piqued my

-curiosity by returning again and again to

-the bole of an oak, hovering before it as

-before a flower, and more than once clinging

-to its rough upright surface. At first I

-took it for granted that she was picking

-off bits of lichen with which to embellish

-the outer wall of her nest; but after each

-browsing she alighted here or there on a

-leafless twig. If she had been gathering

-nest material, she would have flown away

-with it, I thought.</p>

-

-<p>At another time, in a tangle of shrubbery,

-I witnessed a most lively encounter between

-two humming-birds; a case of fighting or

-love-making,&mdash;two things confusingly alike

-to an outsider,&mdash;in the midst of which one

-of the contestants suddenly displayed so

-dazzling a gorget that for an instant I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>

-mistook it for a scarlet flower. I did not

-"wipe my eye," not being a poet, nor even

-a "rash gazer," but I admired anew the

-wonderful flashing jewel, now coal-black,

-now flaming red, with which, perhaps, the

-male ruby-throat blinds his long-suffering

-mate to all his shameful treatment of her

-in her season of watchfulness and motherly

-anxiety. Does she never remind him, I

-wonder, that there are some things whose

-price is far above rubies? I had never

-seen the humming-bird so much a forest-dweller

-as here, and gladly confessed that

-I had never seen him when he looked so

-romantically at home and in place. The

-tulip-trees, in particular, might have been

-made on purpose for him.</p>

-

-<p>As the Chattanooga neighborhood was

-poorly supplied with hawks, woodpeckers,

-and swallows, so was it likewise with sparrows,

-though in a less marked degree. The

-common species&mdash;the only resident species

-that I met with, but my explorations were

-nothing like complete&mdash;were chippers, field

-sparrows, and Bachman sparrows; the first

-interesting for their familiarity, the other

-two for their musical gifts. In a comparison<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>

-between eastern Tennessee&mdash;as I saw

-it&mdash;and eastern Massachusetts, the Bachman

-sparrow must be set against the song

-sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and the swamp

-sparrow. It is a brilliant and charming

-songster, one of the very finest; but it

-would be too costly a bargain to buy its

-presence with loss of the song sparrow's

-abounding versatility and high spirits, and

-the vesper sparrow's unfailing sweetness,

-serenity, and charm.</p>

-

-<p>So much for the sparrows, commonly so

-called. If we come to the family as a whole,

-the goodly family of sparrows and finches,

-we miss in Tennessee the rose-breasted grosbeak

-and the purple finch, two of our best

-esteemed Massachusetts birds, both for

-music and for beauty; to offset which we

-have the cardinal grosbeak, whose whistle is

-exquisite, but who can hardly be ranked as

-a singer above either the rose-breast or the

-linnet, to say nothing of the two combined.</p>

-

-<p>At the season of my visit,&mdash;in the latter

-half of the vernal migration,&mdash;the preponderance

-of woodland birds, especially of the

-birds known as wood warblers, was very

-striking. Of ninety-three species observed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>

-twenty-eight belonged to the warbler family.

-In this list it was curious to remark the

-absence of the Nashville and the Tennessee.

-The circumstance is significant of the comparative

-worthlessness&mdash;except from a historical

-point of view&mdash;of locality names as

-they are applied to American birds in general.

-Here were Maryland yellow-throats,

-Cape May warblers, Canada warblers, Kentucky

-warblers, prairie warblers, palm warblers,

-Acadian flycatchers, but not the two

-birds (the only two, as well as I remember)

-that bear Tennessee names.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The

-absence of the Nashville was a matter of

-wonderment to me. Dr. Rives, I have since

-noticed, records it as only a rare migrant

-in Virginia. Yet by some route it reaches

-eastern New England in decidedly handsome

-numbers. Its congener, the blue golden-wing,

-surprised me in an opposite direction,&mdash;by

-its commonness, both in the lower

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>

-country near the river and on Walden's

-Ridge. This, too, is a rare bird in Virginia;

-so much so that Dr. Rives has never met

-with it there. In certain places about Chattanooga

-it was as common as it is locally in

-the towns about Boston, where, to satisfy a

-skeptical friend, I once counted eleven males

-in song in the course of a morning's walk.

-That the Chattanooga birds were on their

-breeding grounds I had at the time no question,

-although I happened upon no proof of

-the fact.</p>

-

-<p>In the same way, from the manner in

-which the oven-birds were scattered over

-Walden's Ridge in the middle of May, I

-assumed, rather hastily, that they were at

-home for the summer. Months afterward,

-however, happening to notice their southern

-breeding limits as given by the best of

-authorities,&mdash;"breeding from ... Virginia

-northward,"&mdash;I saw that I might easily

-have been in error. I wrote, therefore, to

-a Chattanooga gentleman, who pays attention

-to birds while disclaiming acquaintance

-with ornithology, and he replied that if the

-oven-bird summered in that country he did

-not know it. The case seemed to be going<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>

-against me, but I bethought myself of Mr.

-Brewster's "Ornithological Reconnaissance

-in Western North Carolina," and there I

-read,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>

-"The open oak woodlands, so prevalent

-in this region, are in every way adapted

-to the requirements of the oven-bird, and

-throughout them it is one of the commonest

-and most characteristic summer birds."

-"Open oak woodlands" is exactly descriptive

-of the Walden's Ridge forest; and eastern

-Tennessee and western North Carolina

-being practically one, I resume my assured

-belief (personal and of no authority) that

-the birds I saw and heard were, as I first

-thought, natives of the mountain. Birds

-which are at home have, as a rule, an air

-of being at home; a certain manner hard

-to define, but felt, nevertheless, as a pretty

-strong kind of evidence&mdash;not proof&mdash;by a

-practiced observer.</p>

-

-<p>Several of the more northern species of

-the warbler family manifested an almost exclusive

-preference for patches of evergreens.

-I have elsewhere detailed my experience in

-a grove of stunted pines on Lookout Mountain.

-A similar growth is found on Cameron

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>

-Hill,&mdash;in the city of Chattanooga,&mdash;one

-side of which is occupied by dwellings,

-while the other drops to the river so precipitously

-as to be almost inaccessible, and is

-even yet, I was told, an abode of foxes. On

-the day after my arrival I strolled to the

-top of the hill toward evening, and in the

-pines found a few black-polls and yellow-rumps.

-I was in a listless mood, having

-already taken a fair day's exercise under an

-intolerable sun, but I waked up with a start

-when my glass fell on a bird which at a

-second glance showed the red cheeks of a

-Cape May warbler. For a moment I was

-almost in poor Susan's case,&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">"I looked, and my heart was in heaven."<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>Then, all too soon, as happened to poor

-Susan also, the vision faded. But I had

-seen it. Yes, here it was in Tennessee, the

-rarity for which, spring after spring, I had

-been so many years on the watch. I had

-come South to find it, after all,&mdash;a bird

-that breeds from the northern border of New

-England to Hudson's Bay!</p>

-

-<p>It is of the nature of such excitements

-that, at the time, the subject of them has no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>

-thought of analyzing or justifying his emotions.

-He is better employed. Afterward,

-in some vacant mood, with no longer anything

-actively to enjoy, he may play with

-the past, and from an evil habit, or flattering

-himself with a show of intellectuality,

-may turn his former delight into a study;

-tickling his present conceit of himself by

-smiling at the man he used to be. How

-very wise he has grown, to be sure! All

-such refinements, nevertheless, if he did but

-know it, are only a poorer kind of child's

-play; less spontaneous, infinitely less satisfying,

-and equally irrational. Ecstasy is

-not to be assayed by any test that the reason

-is competent to apply; nor does it need

-either defense or apology. It is its own

-end, and so, like beauty, its own excuse for

-being. That is one of the crowning felicities

-of this present order of things,&mdash;the

-world, as we call it. What dog would hunt

-if there were no excitement in overhauling

-the game? And how would elderly people

-live through long evenings if there were no

-exhilaration in the odd trick?</p>

-

-<p>"What good does it do?" a prudent

-friend and adviser used to say to me, smiling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>

-at the fervor of my first ornithological enthusiasm.

-He thought he was asking me

-a poser; but I answered gayly, "It makes

-me happy;" and taking things as they run,

-happiness is a pretty substantial "good."

-So was it now with the sight of this long-desired

-warbler. It taught me nothing; it

-put nothing into my pocket; but it made

-me happy,&mdash;happy enough to sing and

-shout, though I am ashamed to say I did

-neither. And even a sober son of the Puritans

-may be glad to find himself, in some

-unexpected hour, almost as ineffably delighted

-as he used to be with a new plaything

-in the time when he had not yet tasted of

-the tree of knowledge, and knew not that

-the relish for playthings could ever be outgrown.

-I cannot affirm that I went quite

-as wild over my first Cape May warbler as

-I did over my first sled (how well the rapture

-of that frosty midwinter morning is remembered,&mdash;a

-hard crust on the snow, and the

-sun not yet risen!), but I came as near to

-that state of heavenly felicity&mdash;to reënter

-which we must become as little children&mdash;as

-a person of my years is ever likely to do,

-perhaps.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>It is one precious advantage of natural

-history studies that they afford endless opportunities

-for a man to enjoy himself in

-this sweetly childish spirit, while at the same

-time his occupation is dignified by a certain

-scientific atmosphere and relationship. He

-is a collector of insects, let us say. Whether

-he goes to the Adirondacks for the summer,

-or to Florida for the winter, he is surrounded

-with nets and cyanide bottles. He travels

-with them as another travels with packs of

-cards. Every day's catch is part of the

-game; and once in a while, as happened to

-me on Cameron Hill, he gets a "great hand,"

-and in imagination, at least, sweeps the

-board. Commonplace people smile at him,

-no doubt; but that is only amusing, and

-he smiles in turn. He can tell many good

-stories under that head. He delights to be

-called a "crank." It is all because of people's

-ignorance. They have no idea that he

-is Mr. So-and-So, the entomologist; that he

-is in correspondence with learned men the

-country over; that he once discovered a new

-cockroach, and has had a grasshopper named

-after him; that he has written a book, or is

-going to write one. Happy man! a contributor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>

-to the world's knowledge, but a pleasure-seeker;

-a little of a savant, and very much

-of a child; a favorite of Heaven, whose work

-is play. No wonder it is commonly said

-that natural historians are a cheerful set.</p>

-

-<p>For the supplying of rarities and surprises

-there are no birds like the warblers. Their

-pursuit is the very spice of American ornithology.

-The multitude of species (Mr.

-Chapman's "Handbook of the Birds of Eastern

-North America" enumerates forty-five

-species and sub-species) is of itself an incalculable

-blessing in this respect. No single

-observer is likely ever to come to the end of

-them. They do not warble, it must be owned,

-and few of them have much distinction as

-singers, the best that I know being the

-black-throated green and the Kentucky; but

-they are elegant and varied in their plumage,

-with no lack of bright tints, while their

-extreme activity and their largely arboreal

-habits render their specific determination and

-their individual study a work most agreeably

-difficult and tantalizing. The ornithologist

-who has seen all the warblers of his own

-territory, say of New England, and knows

-them all by their notes, and has found all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>

-their nests,&mdash;well, he is himself a pretty

-rare specimen.</p>

-

-<p>As for my experience with the family in

-Tennessee, I was glad, of course, to scrape

-acquaintance&mdash;or to renew it, as the case

-might be&mdash;with the more southern species,

-the Kentucky, the hooded, the cerulean, the

-blue-wing, and the yellow-throat: that was

-partly why I was here; but perhaps I enjoyed

-quite as keenly the sight of our own

-New England birds moving homeward; tarrying

-here and there for a day, but not to

-be tempted by all the allurements of this

-fine country; still pushing on, northward,

-and still northward, as if for them there

-were no place in the world but the woods

-where they were born. Of the southern

-species just named, the Kentucky was the

-most abundant, with the hooded not far behind.

-The prairie warbler seemed about as

-common here as in its favored Massachusetts

-haunts; but unless my ear was at fault

-its song went somewhat less trippingly: it

-sounded labored,&mdash;too much like the scarlet

-tanager's in the way of effort and jerkiness.

-Unlike the golden warbler, the prairie was

-found not only in the lower country, but&mdash;in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>

-less numbers&mdash;on Walden's Ridge. The

-two warblers that I listed every day, no

-matter where I went, were the chat and the

-black-and-white creeper.</p>

-

-<p>When all is said, the Kentucky, with its

-beauty and its song, is the star of the family,

-as far as eastern Tennessee is concerned. I

-can hear it now, while Falling Water goes

-babbling past in the shade of laurel and

-rhododendron. As for the chat, it was omnipresent:

-in the valley, along the river, on

-Missionary Ridge, on Lookout Mountain,

-on Walden's Ridge, in the national cemetery,

-at Chickamauga,&mdash;everywhere, in short,

-except within the city itself. In this regard

-it exceeded the white-eyed vireo, and even

-the indigo-bird, I think. Black-polls were

-seen daily up to May 13, after which they

-were missing altogether. The last Cape

-May and the last yellow-rump were noted on

-the 8th, the last redstart and the last palm

-warbler on the 11th, the last chestnut-side,

-magnolia, and Canadian warbler on the 12th.

-On the 12th, also, I saw my only Wilson's

-blackcap. In my last outing, on the 18th,

-on Walden's Ridge, I came upon two Blackburnians

-in widely separate places. At the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>

-time, I assumed them to be migrants, in spite

-of the date. One of them was near the

-hotel, on ground over which I had passed

-almost daily. Why they should be so behindhand

-was more than I could tell; but

-only the day before I had seen a thrush

-which was either a gray-cheek or an olive-back,

-and of course a bird of passage. "The

-flight of warblers did not pass entirely until

-May 19," says Mr. Jeffries, writing of what

-he saw in western North

-Carolina.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>

-

-<p>The length of time occupied by some

-species in accomplishing their semi-annual

-migration is well known to be very considerable,

-and is best observed&mdash;in spring, at

-least&mdash;at some southern point. It is admirably

-illustrated in Mr. Chapman's "List of

-Birds seen at Gainesville,

-Florida."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Tree

-swallows, he tells us, were abundant up to

-May 6, a date at which Massachusetts tree

-swallows have been at home for nearly or

-quite a month. Song sparrows were noted

-March 31, two or three weeks after the

-grand irruption of song sparrows into

-Massachusetts usually occurs. Bobolinks,

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>

-which reach Massachusetts by the 10th of

-May, or earlier, were still very abundant&mdash;both

-sexes&mdash;May 25! Such dates are not

-what we should have expected, I suppose,

-especially in the case of a bird like the

-bobolink, which has no very high northern

-range; but they seem not to be exceptional,

-and are surprising only because we have not

-yet mastered the general subject. Nothing

-exists by itself, and therefore nothing can

-be understood by itself. One thing the

-most ignorant of us may see,&mdash;that the

-long period covered by the migratory journeys

-is a matter for ornithological thankfulness.

-In Massachusetts, for example, spring

-migrants begin to appear in late February

-or early March, and some of the most interesting

-members of the procession&mdash;notably

-the mourning warbler and the yellow-bellied

-flycatcher&mdash;are to be looked for after the

-first of June. The autumnal movement is

-equally protracted; so that for at least half

-the year&mdash;leaving winter with its arctic

-possibilities out of consideration&mdash;we may

-be on the lookout for strangers.</p>

-

-<p>One of the dearest pleasures of a southern

-trip in winter or early spring is the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>

-thing at which I have just now hinted, the

-sight of one's home birds in strange surroundings.

-You leave New England in

-early February, for instance, and in two or

-three days are loitering in the sunny pine-lands

-about St. Augustine, with the trees

-full of robins, bluebirds, and pine warblers,

-and the savanna patches full of meadow

-larks. Myrtle warblers are everywhere.

-Ph&oelig;bes salute you as you walk the city

-streets, and flocks of chippers and vesper

-sparrows enliven the fields along the country

-roads. In a piece of hammock just outside

-the town you find yourself all at once surrounded

-by a winter colony of summer birds.

-Here are solitary vireos, Maryland yellow-throats,

-black-and-white creepers, prairie

-warblers, red-poll warblers, hermit thrushes,

-red-eyed chewinks, thrashers, catbirds, cedar-birds,

-and many more. White-eyed vireos

-are practicing in the smilax thickets,&mdash;though

-they have small need of practice,&mdash;and

-white-bellied swallows go flashing and

-twittering overhead. The world is good,

-you say, and life is a festival.</p>

-

-<p>My vacation in Tennessee afforded less of

-contrast and surprise, for a twofold reason:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>

-it was near the end of April, instead of early

-in February, so that migrants had been arriving

-in Massachusetts for six or seven weeks

-before my departure; and Tennessee has nothing

-of the foreign, half-tropical look which

-Florida presents to Yankee eyes; but even

-so, it was no small pleasure to step suddenly

-into a world full of summer music.

-Such multitudes of birds as were singing

-on Missionary Ridge on that first bright

-forenoon! The number of species was not

-great, when it came to counting them,&mdash;morning

-and afternoon together yielded but

-forty-two; but the whole country seemed

-alive with wings. And of the forty-two

-species, thirty-two were such as summer in

-Massachusetts or pass through it to their

-homes beyond. Here were already (April

-27) the olive-backed thrush, and northern

-warblers like the black-poll, the bay-breast,

-and the Cape May, none of which would be

-due in Massachusetts for at least a fortnight.

-Here, too, were yellow-rumps and white-throated

-sparrows, though the advance

-guard of both species had reached New England

-before I left home. The white-throats

-lingered on Walden's Ridge on the 13th of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>

-May, a fact which surprised me more at the

-time than it does in the review.</p>

-

-<p>One bird was seen on this first day, and

-not afterward. I had been into the woods

-north of the city, and was returning, when

-from the bridge over the Tennessee I caught

-sight of a small flock of black birds, which

-at first, even with the aid of my glass, I

-could not make out, the bridge being so

-high above the river and its banks. While

-I was watching them, however, they began

-to sing. They were bobolinks. Probably

-the species is not common in eastern Tennessee,

-as the name is wanting in Dr. Fox's

-"List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee,

-during April, 1884, and March and

-April, 1885."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>

-

-<p>I have ventured upon some slight ornithological

-comparison between southeastern

-Tennessee and eastern Massachusetts, and,

-writing as a patriot (or a partisan), have

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>

-seen to it that the scale inclined northward.

-To this end I have made as much as possible

-of the absence of robins, song sparrows, and

-vesper sparrows, and of the comparative

-dearth of swallows; but of course the loyal

-Tennessean is in no want of a ready answer.

-Robins, song sparrows, vesper sparrows, and

-swallows are <em>not</em> absent, except as breeding

-birds. He has them all in their

-season,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>

-and probably hears them sing. On the

-whole, then, he may fairly retort, he has

-considerably the advantage of us Yankees:

-he sees our birds on their passage, and

-drinks his fill of their music before we have

-caught the first spring notes; while we, on

-the other hand, see nothing of his distinctively

-southern birds unless we come South

-for the purpose. Well, they are worth the

-journey. Bachman's finch alone&mdash;yes, the

-one dingy, shabbily clad little genius by

-the Chickamauga well&mdash;might almost have

-repaid me for my thousand miles on the rail.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>It was a strange mingling of sensations

-that possessed me in Chattanooga. The

-city itself was like other cities of its age

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>

-and size, with some appearance of a community

-that had been in haste to grow,&mdash;a

-trifle impatient, shall we say (impatience

-being one of the virtues of youth), to pull

-down its barns and build greater; just now

-a little checked in its ambition, as things

-looked; yet still enterprising, still fairly

-well satisfied with itself, with no lack of

-energy and bustle. As it happened, there

-was a stir in local politics at the time of my

-visit (possibly there always is), and at the

-street corners all patriotic citizens were exhorted

-to do their duty. "Vote for Tom

-&mdash;&mdash; for sheriff," said one placard. "Vote

-for Bob &mdash;&mdash;," said another, in capitals

-equally importunate. In Tennessee, as

-everywhere else, the politician knows his

-trade. Familiarity, readiness with the hand,

-freedom with one's own name (Tom, not

-Thomas, if you please), and a happy knack

-at remembering the names of other people,&mdash;these

-are some of the preëlection tests of

-statesmanship.</p>

-

-<p>All in all, then, between politics and

-business, the city was "very much alive," as

-the saying goes; but somehow it was not so

-often the people about me that occupied my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>

-thoughts as those who had been here thirty

-years before. Precious is the power of a

-first impression. Because I was newly in

-the country I was constantly under the feeling

-of its past. Hither and thither I went

-in the region round about, listening at every

-turn, spying into every bush at the stirring

-of a leaf or the chirp of a bird; yet I had

-always with me the men of '63, and felt

-always that I was on holy ground.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="A_LIST_OF_BIRDS" id="A_LIST_OF_BIRDS">A LIST OF BIRDS</a></h2>

-

-<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Found in the Neighborhood of Chattanooga

-from April 27 to May 18, 1894.</span></p>

-

-

-<p class="p2">1. Green Heron. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ardea virescens.</i>&mdash;A single individual

-seen from a car window. No other water birds were

-observed except three or four ducks and a single wader,

-all upon the wing and unidentified.</p>

-

-<p>2. Bob White. Quail. Partridge. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Colinus virginianus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>3. Ruffed Grouse. "Pheasant." <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Bonasa umbettus.</i>&mdash;Heard

-drumming on Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>4. Carolina Dove. Mourning Dove. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Zenaidura macroura.</i>&mdash;A

-small number seen.</p>

-

-<p>5. Turkey Vulture. Turkey Buzzard. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cathartes aura.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>6. Black Vulture. Carrion Crow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Catharista atrata.</i>&mdash;Two

-birds seen.</p>

-

-<p>7. Red-tailed Hawk. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Buteo borealis.</i>&mdash;One bird seen

-from Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>8. Sparrow Hawk. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Falco sparverius.</i>&mdash;One bird, on

-Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>9. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Coccyzus americanus.</i>&mdash;Common.

-First noticed April 29.</p>

-

-<p>10. Black-billed Cuckoo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Coccyzus erythrophthalmus.</i>&mdash;Seen

-twice on Lookout Mountain, May 7 and 8, and

-once on Walden's Ridge, May 12.</p>

-

-<p>11. Belted Kingfisher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ceryle alcyon.</i>&mdash;A single bird

-heard on Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>12. Hairy Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates villosus.</i>&mdash;My notes

-record seven birds. No attempt was made to determine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>

-their specific or sub-specific identity, but they are presumed

-to have been <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">D. villosus</i>, not <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">D. villosus audubonii</i>.</p>

-

-<p>13. Downy Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates pubescens.</i>&mdash;A

-single bird was heard (not seen) on Walden's Ridge,&mdash;a

-noticeable reversal of the usual relative commonness of

-this species and the preceding.</p>

-

-<p>14. Red-cockaded Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates borealis.</i>&mdash;Found

-only at Chickamauga, on Snodgrass Hill, in long-leaved

-pines&mdash;two or three birds.</p>

-

-<p>15. Pileated Woodpecker. "Logcock." <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ceophl&oelig;us

-pileatus.</i>&mdash;Said to be common on Walden's Ridge, where

-I heard its flicker-like shout.</p>

-

-<p>16. Red-headed Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Melanerpes erythrocephalus.</i>&mdash;One

-seen near Missionary Ridge and one at Chickamauga.

-The scarcity of this bird, and the absence of

-the red-bellied and the yellow-bellied, were among the

-surprises of my visit.</p>

-

-<p>17. Flicker. Golden-winged Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Colaptes

-auratus.</i>&mdash;Not common. Three birds were seen at Chickamauga,

-and it was occasional on Walden's Ridge, where

-I listed it five days of the seven.</p>

-

-<p>18. Whippoorwill. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Antrostomus vociferus.</i>&mdash;Undoubtedly

-common. I heard it only on Walden's Ridge,

-the only place where I went into the woods after dark.</p>

-

-<p>19. Nighthawk. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Chordeiles virginianus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>20. Chimney Swift. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Chætura pelagica.</i>&mdash;Abundant.</p>

-

-<p>21. Ruby-throated Humming-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Trochilus colubris.</i>&mdash;Common

-in the forests of Walden's Ridge. Seen but

-twice elsewhere. First seen April 28.</p>

-

-<p>22. Kingbird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Tyrannus tyrannus.</i>&mdash;Seen but three

-times&mdash;nine specimens in all. First seen April 29.</p>

-

-<p>23. Crested Flycatcher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Myiarchus crinitus.</i>&mdash;Noticed

-daily, with two exceptions.</p>

-

-<p>24. Ph&oelig;be. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sayornis ph&oelig;be.</i>&mdash;Common on Lookout

-Mountain and Walden's Ridge. Not seen elsewhere.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>25. Wood Pewee. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Contopus virens.</i>&mdash;Very common.

-Much the most numerous member of the family. Present

-in good force April 27, and gathering nest materials

-April 29.</p>

-

-<p>26. Acadian Flycatcher. Green-crested Flycatcher.

-<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Empidonax virescens.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>27. Blue Jay. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cyanocitta cristata.</i>&mdash;Scarce (for the

-blue jay), and not seen on Walden's Ridge!</p>

-

-<p>28. Crow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Corvus americanus.</i>&mdash;Apparently much less

-common than in Eastern Massachusetts.</p>

-

-<p>29. Bobolink. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dolichonyx oryzivorus.</i>&mdash;A small flock

-seen, and heard singing, April 27.</p>

-

-<p>30. Orchard Oriole. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Icterus spurius.</i>&mdash;Common, but

-not found on Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>31. Baltimore Oriole. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Icterus galbula.</i>&mdash;A single bird,

-at Chickamauga, May 3.</p>

-

-<p>32. Crow Blackbird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Quiscalus quiscula?</i>&mdash;Seen on

-sundry occasions in the valley country, but specific distinction

-not made out. Both forms&mdash;<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Q. quiscula</i> and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Q.

-quiscula æneus</i>&mdash;are found in Tennessee. See Dr. Fox's

-List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee. "The

-Auk," vol. iii. p. 315. My own list of the Icteridæ is

-remarkable for its omissions, especially of the cowbird,

-the red-winged blackbird (which, however, I am pretty

-certain that I saw on the wing) and the meadow lark.</p>

-

-<p>33. House Sparrow. English Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Passer domesticus.</i>&mdash;Distressingly

-superabundant in the city and its

-suburbs.</p>

-

-<p>34. Goldfinch. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Spinus tristis.</i>&mdash;Abundant. Still in

-flocks.</p>

-

-<p>35. White-crowned Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Zonotrichia leucophrys.</i>&mdash;Seen

-but once (May 1), two birds, in the national cemetery.</p>

-

-<p>36. White-throated Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Zonotrichia albicollis.</i>&mdash;Common.

-Still present on Walden's Ridge (in two

-places) May 13. Sang very little.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>37. Chipping Sparrow. Doorstep Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Spizella

-socialis.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>38. Field Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Spizella pusilla.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>39. Bachman's Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Peucæa æstivalis bachmanii.</i>&mdash;Common.

-One of the best of singers.</p>

-

-<p>40. Chewink. Towhee. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pipilo erythrophthalmus.</i>&mdash;Rather

-common. Much less numerous than I should

-have expected from the nature of the country.</p>

-

-<p>41. Cardinal Grosbeak. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cardinalis cardinalis.</i>&mdash;Seen

-daily, but seemingly not very numerous.</p>

-

-<p>42. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Habia ludoviciana.</i>&mdash;A

-single female, May 11.</p>

-

-<p>43. Indigo-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Passerina cyanea.</i>&mdash;Very abundant.

-For the first time I saw this tropical-looking beauty in

-flocks.</p>

-

-<p>44. Scarlet Tanager. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Piranga erythromelas.</i>&mdash;Common

-on the mountains, but seemingly rare in the valley.</p>

-

-<p>45. Summer Tanager. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Piranga rubra.</i>&mdash;Common

-throughout.</p>

-

-<p>46. Purple Martin. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Progne subis.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>47. Rough-winged Swallow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Stelgidopteryx serripennis.</i>&mdash;A

-few birds seen.</p>

-

-<p>48. Red-eyed Vireo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vireo olivaceus.</i>&mdash;Common.

-One of the species listed every day.</p>

-

-<p>49. Yellow-throated Vireo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vireo flavifrons.</i>&mdash;Common.

-Seen or heard every day except April 27.</p>

-

-<p>50. White-eyed Vireo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vireo noveboracensis.</i>&mdash;Abundant.

-Heard every day.</p>

-

-<p>51. Black-and-white Creeper. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mniotilta varia.</i>&mdash;Very

-common.</p>

-

-<p>52. Blue-winged Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Helminthophila pinus.</i>&mdash;One

-bird seen at Chickamauga, and a pair on Missionary

-Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>53. Golden-winged Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Helminthophila chrysoptera.</i>&mdash;Common,

-especially in the broken woods north of

-the city.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>54. Panda Warbler. Blue Yellow-backed Warbler.

-<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Compsothlypis americana.</i>&mdash;Only on Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>55. Cape May Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica tigrina.</i>&mdash;One bird

-seen on Cameron Hill, and a small company on Lookout

-Mountain&mdash;April 27, and May 7 and 8.</p>

-

-<p>56. Yellow Warbler. Golden Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica

-æstiva.</i>&mdash;Common, but not observed on Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>57. Black-throated Blue Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica cærulescens.</i>&mdash;Common,

-April 27 to May 14.</p>

-

-<p>58. Myrtle Warbler. Yellow-rumped Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica

-coronata.</i>&mdash;Noted April 27 and 28, and May 7

-and 8.</p>

-

-<p>59. Magnolia Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica maculosa.</i>&mdash;Not

-uncommon, May 1 to 12.</p>

-

-<p>60. Cerulean Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica c&oelig;rulea.</i>&mdash;One bird,

-a male in song, on Lookout Mountain.</p>

-

-<p>61. Chestnut-sided Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica pensylvanica.</i>&mdash;Listed

-on six dates&mdash;April 27 to May 12.</p>

-

-<p>62. Bay-breasted Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica castanea.</i>&mdash;Seven

-or eight individuals&mdash;April 27 to May 10.</p>

-

-<p>63. Black-poll Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica striata.</i>&mdash;Common

-to May 13.</p>

-

-<p>64. Blackburnian Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica blackburniæ.</i>&mdash;Seven

-birds&mdash;May 1 to 18.</p>

-

-<p>65. Yellow-throated Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica dominica.</i>

-(<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Albilora?</i>)&mdash;Found only at Chickamauga (Snodgrass

-Hill), where it seemed to be common.</p>

-

-<p>66. Black-throated green Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica virens.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>67. Pine Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica vigorsii.</i>&mdash;Not numerous,

-but found in appropriate places.</p>

-

-<p>68. Palm Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica palmarum.</i>&mdash;The specific&mdash;or sub-specific&mdash;identity

-of this bird was not certainly

-determined, but I judged the specimens&mdash;seen

-on four dates, April 29 to May 11&mdash;to be as above given,

-rather than <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">D. palmarum hypochrysea</i>.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>69. Prairie Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica discolor.</i>&mdash;Very common.</p>

-

-<p>70. Oven-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Seiurus aurocapillus.</i>&mdash;Common on

-Lookout Mountain and Walden's Ridge. Seen but once

-in the lower country.</p>

-

-<p>71. Louisiana Water-thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Seiurus motacilla.</i>&mdash;A

-few birds seen on Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>72. Kentucky Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Geothlypis formosa.</i>&mdash;Very

-common, and in places very unlike.</p>

-

-<p>73. Maryland Yellow-throat. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Geothlypis trichas.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>74. Yellow-breasted Chat. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Icteria virens.</i>&mdash;Very common.</p>

-

-<p>75. Hooded Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sylvania mitrata.</i>&mdash;Common,

-especially along the woodland streams on Walden's Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>76. Wilson's Blackcap. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sylvania pusilla.</i>&mdash;A single

-bird on Walden's Ridge, May 12, in free song.</p>

-

-<p>77. Canadian Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sylvania canadensis.</i>&mdash;Seen

-on three dates&mdash;May 6, 11, and 12.</p>

-

-<p>78. Redstart. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Setophaga ruticilla.</i>&mdash;Common. Not

-seen after May 14.</p>

-

-<p>79. Mocking-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mimus polyglottos.</i>&mdash;Rare. Not

-found on the mountains.</p>

-

-<p>80. Catbird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Galeoscoptes carolinensis.</i>&mdash;Very common,

-both in the city and in the country round about.</p>

-

-<p>81. Brown Thrasher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Harporhynchus rufus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>82. Carolina Wren. Mocking Wren. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Thryothorus ludovicianus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>83. Bewick's Wren. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Thryothorus bewickii.</i>&mdash;Not common.

-Seen only on Missionary Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>84. White-breasted Nuthatch. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sitta carolinensis.</i>&mdash;Common

-at Chickamauga and on Walden's Ridge. A

-single bird noticed on Lookout Mountain.</p>

-

-<p>85. Tufted Titmouse. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Parus bicolor.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>

-

-<p>86. Carolina Chickadee. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Parus carolinensis.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>87. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Polioptila cærulea.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>

-

-<p>88. Wood Thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus mustelinus.</i>&mdash;Very common.

-A bird with its beak full of nest materials was

-seen April 29, at the base of Missionary Ridge.</p>

-

-<p>89. Wilson's Thrush. Veery. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus fuscescens.</i>&mdash;Rare.</p>

-

-<p>90. Gray-cheeked Thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus aliciæ</i>, or <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">T. aliciæ

-bicknelli</i>.&mdash;Two birds, May 2 and 13.</p>

-

-<p>91. Swainson's Thrush. Olive-backed Thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus

-ustulatus swainsonii.</i>&mdash;In good numbers and free

-song. Seen on four dates, the latest being May 12.</p>

-

-<p>92. Robin. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Merula migratoria.</i>&mdash;Five birds in the

-national cemetery, April 29.</p>

-

-<p>93. Bluebird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sialia sialis.</i>&mdash;Common. Young birds

-out of the nest, April 28.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>

-

-

-

-

-<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX">INDEX.</a></h2>

-

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Arbutus, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>

-<li>Azalea:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>flame-colored, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li>

-  <li>pink, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li>

-  <li>white, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Baptisia, blue, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>

-<li>Blackbird:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>crow, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li>

-  <li>red-winged, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Bluebird, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-<li>Bobolink, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>

-<li>Buzzard, turkey, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Catbird, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-<li>Catchfly, scarlet, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>

-<li>Cedar-bird, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-<li>Chat, yellow-breasted, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-<li>Chewink, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-<li>Chickadee, blackcap, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li>

-<li>Chickadee, Carolina, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li>

-<li>Cowslip, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>

-<li>Cranesbill, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>

-<li>Creeper, black-and-white, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-<li>Cross-vine, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>

-<li>Crow, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li>

-<li>Cuckoo:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>black-billed, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>

-  <li>yellow-billed, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Dogwood, flowering, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>

-<li>Dove, mourning, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Fern:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>cinnamon, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li>

-  <li>maiden-hair, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Finch:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>Bachman's, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>

-  <li>purple, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Flicker, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li>

-<li>Flycatcher:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>Acadian, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>

-  <li>crested, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>

-  <li>yellow-bellied, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Fringe-tree, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Ginger, wild, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>

-<li>Gnatcatcher, blue-gray, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>

-<li>Goldfinch, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li>

-<li>Gromwell, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li>

-<li>Grosbeak:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>cardinal, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li>

-  <li>rose-breasted, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Grouse, ruffed (pheasant), <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Hawk:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>red-tailed, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>

-  <li>sparrow, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Hieracium, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>

-<li>Houstonia, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>

-<li>Humming-bird, ruby-throated, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Indigo-bird, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Jay, blue, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Kingbird, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>

-<li>Kinglet, golden-crowned, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Lady's-slipper, yellow, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li>

-<li>Lizard, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>

-<li>Locust, seventeen-year, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Magnolia, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li>

-<li>Martin, purple, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>

-<li>Maryland yellow-throat, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>

-<li>Milkweed, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>

-<li>Mistletoe, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>

-<li>Mocking-bird, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li>

-<li>Mountain Laurel, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Nuthatch, white-breasted (Carolina), <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Oriole:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>Baltimore, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>

-  <li>orchard, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Oven-bird, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>

-<li>Oxalis:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>violet, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>

-  <li>yellow, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Pentstemon, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>

-<li>Pewee, wood, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>

-<li>Phlox, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>

-<li>Ph&oelig;be, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-<li>Pink, Indian, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Quail, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Ragwort (Senecio), <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>

-<li>Raven, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li>

-<li>Redstart, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>

-<li>Rhododendron, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>

-<li>Robin, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>

-<li>Rue anemone, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Saxifrage, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>

-<li>Sparrow:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>Bachman's (see <span class="smcap">Finch</span>).</li>

-  <li>chipping, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  <li>field, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li>

-  <li>house (English) <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>

-  <li>song, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>

-  <li>vesper, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>

-  <li>white-crowned, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li>

-  <li>white-throated, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Specularia, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>

-<li>Spring beauty, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>

-<li>Stonecrop, white, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>

-<li>Swallow:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>rough-winged, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>

-  <li>tree (white-bellied), <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Sweet bush, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>

-<li>Swift, chimney, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Tanager:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>scarlet, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li>

-  <li>summer, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Thrasher (brown thrush), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-<li>Thrush:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>gray-cheeked, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li>

-  <li>hermit, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  <li>Louisiana water, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li>

-  <li>olive-backed (Swainson's), <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>

-  <li>Wilson's (veery), <a href="#Page_13">13</a>,  <a href="#Page_14">14</a>,  <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></li>

-  <li>wood, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Titmouse, tufted, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>

-<li>Tulip-tree, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li>

-<li>Tupelo, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>

-<li>Turkey, wild, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Viburnum, maple-leaved, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>

-<li>Violet, bird-foot, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>

-<li>Vireo:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>red-eyed, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>

-  <li>solitary, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  <li>white-eyed, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  <li>yellow-throated, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Vulture:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>black (carrion crow), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li>

-  <li>turkey, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-</ul>

-

-<ul class="IX">

-<li>Warbler:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>bay-breasted, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>

-  <li>Blackburnian, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-  <li>black-poll, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>

-  <li>black-throated blue, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li>

-  <li>black-throated green, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>

-  <li>blue-winged, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li>

-  <li>blue yellow-backed, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>

-  <li>Canadian, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-  <li>Cape May, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>

-  <li>cerulean, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>

-  <li>chestnut-sided, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-  <li>Connecticut, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>

-  <li>golden-winged, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li>

-  <li>hooded, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li>

-  <li>Kentucky, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-  <li>magnolia, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-  <li>mourning, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li>

-  <li>myrtle (yellow-rumped), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>

-  <li>Nashville, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li>

-  <li>palm (red-poll), <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  <li>pine, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  <li>prairie, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>

-  <li>Tennessee, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li>

-  <li>Wilson's blackcap, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>

-  <li>yellow (golden), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>,</li>

-  <li>yellow-throated, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Water-thrush, Louisiana, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li>

-<li>Whippoorwill, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li>

-<li>Wintergreen, striped, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>

-<li>Woodpecker:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>downy, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>

-  <li>golden-winged, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li>

-  <li>hairy, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li>

-  <li>pileated, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>

-  <li>red-cockaded, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>

-  <li>red-headed, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-<li>Wren:&mdash;

-  <ul class="IX">

-  <li>Bewick's, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>

-  <li>Carolina (mocking), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li>

-  </ul></li>

-</ul>

-

-

-

-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>

-If I could have my way, he should be known as the

-doorstep sparrow. The name would fit him to a nicety.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>

-It was <em>not</em> the top of the mountain; so I am now informed,

-on the best of authority. I followed the map,

-but misunderstood the man who drew it. It was a map

-of some other route, and I did not see the top of the

-mountain, after all.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>

-<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. iii. p. 103.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>

-Both these warblers&mdash;the Nashville and the Tennessee&mdash;were

-named by Wilson from the places where the

-original specimens were shot. Concerning the Tennessee

-warbler he sets down the opinion that "it is most probably

-a native of a more southerly climate." It would be

-a pity for men to cease guessing, though the shrewdest

-are certain to be sometimes wrong.</p></div>

-

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>

-<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. iii. p. 175.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>

-<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. vi. p. 120.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>

-<i>Ibid.</i>, vol. v. p. 267.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a>

-<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. iii. p. 315. Of sixty-two species seen

-by me during the last four days of April, eleven are not

-given by Dr. Fox, namely, Wilson's thrush, black-poll

-warbler, bay-breasted warbler, Cape May warbler, black-throated

-blue warbler, palm warbler, chestnut-sided warbler,

-blue golden-winged warbler, bobolink, Acadian flycatcher,

-yellow-billed cuckoo.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a>

-See Dr. Fox's list.</p></div>

-</div>

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-<pre>

-

-

-

-

-

-End of Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey

-

-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE ***

-

-***** This file should be named 45708-h.htm or 45708-h.zip *****

-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:

-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/7/0/45708/

-

-Produced by JoAnn Greenwood, and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

-

-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions

-will be renamed.

-

-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no

-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation

-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without

-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,

-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to

-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to

-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project

-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you

-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you

-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the

-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose

-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and

-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do

-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is

-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial

-redistribution.

-

-

-

-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

-

-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

-

-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free

-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work

-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project

-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project

-Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at

-  www.gutenberg.org/license.

-

-

-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic works

-

-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to

-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property

-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all

-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy

-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.

-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the

-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or

-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

-

-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be

-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who

-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few

-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works

-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See

-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement

-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

-

-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"

-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the

-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an

-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are

-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from

-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative

-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg

-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project

-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by

-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of

-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with

-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by

-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project

-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

-

-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern

-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in

-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check

-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement

-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or

-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project

-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning

-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United

-States.

-

-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

-

-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate

-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently

-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the

-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project

-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,

-copied or distributed:

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

-

-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived

-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is

-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied

-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees

-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work

-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the

-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1

-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the

-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or

-1.E.9.

-

-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted

-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution

-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional

-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked

-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the

-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

-

-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this

-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

-

-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without

-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project

-Gutenberg-tm License.

-

-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,

-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any

-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or

-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than

-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version

-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),

-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a

-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon

-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other

-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

-

-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works

-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-

-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided

-that

-

-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from

-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method

-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is

-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he

-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the

-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments

-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you

-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax

-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and

-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the

-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to

-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

-

-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies

-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he

-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-     License.  You must require such a user to return or

-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium

-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of

-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

-

-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any

-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the

-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days

-     of receipt of the work.

-

-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free

-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

-

-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set

-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from

-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael

-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the

-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

-

-1.F.

-

-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread

-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm

-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain

-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or

-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual

-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a

-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by

-your equipment.

-

-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right

-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project

-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all

-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal

-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

-DAMAGE.

-

-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can

-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a

-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you

-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with

-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with

-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a

-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity

-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to

-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy

-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further

-opportunities to fix the problem.

-

-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth

-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER

-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO

-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

-

-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.

-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the

-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be

-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by

-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any

-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

-

-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone

-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance

-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,

-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,

-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,

-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do

-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm

-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any

-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

-

-

-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of

-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers

-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists

-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from

-people in all walks of life.

-

-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's

-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will

-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure

-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.

-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4

-and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org

-

-

-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

-Foundation

-

-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit

-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the

-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal

-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification

-number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg

-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent

-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

-

-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.

-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered

-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809

-North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email

-contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the

-Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

-

-For additional contact information:

-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby

-     Chief Executive and Director

-     gbnewby@pglaf.org

-

-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg

-Literary Archive Foundation

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide

-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of

-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be

-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest

-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations

-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt

-status with the IRS.

-

-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United

-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a

-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up

-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations

-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To

-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any

-particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

-

-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition

-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who

-approach us with offers to donate.

-

-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from

-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

-

-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation

-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other

-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.

-To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate

-

-

-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works.

-

-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm

-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared

-with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project

-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed

-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.

-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily

-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

-

-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

-

-     www.gutenberg.org

-

-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,

-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to

-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

-

-

-</pre>

-

-</body>

-</html>

+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Spring Notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey.
+    </title>
+
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover-page.jpg"/>
+
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+    h1,h2,h3 {
+    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+p {
+    margin-top: .51em;
+    text-align: justify;
+    margin-bottom: .49em;
+}
+
+.p2       {margin-top: 2em;}
+
+hr {
+    width: 33%;
+    margin-top: 2em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    margin-left: 33.5%;
+    margin-right: 33.5%;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+hr.tb   {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;}
+hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;}
+hr.r5  {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;}
+
+ul li {list-style-type: none;}
+
+
+.break-before {page-break-before: always;} /* p class */
+
+
+big { font-size:140%; }
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+
+
+.spaced {
+        line-height: 1.5;
+}
+
+.signature {
+  margin-right: 25%;
+   text-align: right;}
+
+
+.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+    /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+    position: absolute;
+    left: 92%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+} /* page numbers */
+
+
+.bbox     {border: solid thin;
+        width: 28em; margin: 0 auto;}
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+
+/* Images */
+.figcenter   {
+    margin: auto;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+
+/* Footnotes */
+.footnotes        {border: dashed thin;}
+
+.footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+
+.footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+
+.fnanchor {
+    vertical-align: super;
+    font-size: .8em;
+    text-decoration:
+    none;
+}
+
+/* Poetry */
+
+.cpoem {width: 19em; margin: 0 auto;}
+.cpoem br {display: none;}
+.cpoem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .cpoem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .cpoem span.i8     {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .cpoem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45708 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 502px;">
+<img src="images/cover-page.jpg" width="502" height="800" alt="" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<p class="center"><b>Books by Mr. Torrey.</b></p>
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.</p>
+
+<p>A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.</p>
+
+<p>THE FOOT-PATH WAY. 16mo, gilt top,
+$1.25.</p>
+
+<p>A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK. 16mo, $1.25.</p>
+
+<p>SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.
+16mo, $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="center spaced">HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN &amp; CO.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston and New York.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h1>SPRING NOTES FROM
+TENNESSEE</h1>
+
+<p class="center spaced">BY<br />
+<big>BRADFORD TORREY</big><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We travelled in the print of olden wars;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Yet all the land was green.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="signature"><span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson.</span><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 233px;">
+<img src="images/i003.jpg" width="233" height="300" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="p2 center">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />
+HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br />
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br />
+1896</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<p class="break-before center spaced">Copyright, 1896,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By BRADFORD TORREY</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center"><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.</i><br />
+
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<p class="break-before center"><big>CONTENTS.</big></p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#AN_IDLER_ON_MISSIONARY_RIDGE"><span class="smcap">An Idler on Missionary Ridge</span></a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#LOOKOUT_MOUNTAIN"><span class="smcap">Lookout Mountain</span></a></td><td align="right">28</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHICKAMAUGA"><span class="smcap">Chickamauga</span></a></td><td align="right">57</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ORCHARD_KNOB_AND_THE_NATIONAL"><span class="smcap">Orchard Knob and the National Cemetery</span></a></td><td align="right">89</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#AN_AFTERNOON_BY_THE_RIVER"><span class="smcap">An Afternoon by the River</span></a></td><td align="right">102</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#A_MORNING_IN_THE_NORTH_WOODS"><span class="smcap">A Morning in the North Woods</span></a></td><td align="right">113</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#A_WEEK_ON_WALDENS_RIDGE"><span class="smcap">A Week on Walden's Ridge</span></a></td><td align="right">124</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#SOME_TENNESSEE_BIRD_NOTES"><span class="smcap">Some Tennessee Bird Notes</span></a></td><td align="right">183</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#A_LIST_OF_BIRDS"><span class="smcap">A List of Birds</span></a></td><td align="right">213</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#INDEX"><span class="smcap">Index</span></a></td><td align="right">221</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p class="break-before"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><big>SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.</big></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<h2><a name="AN_IDLER_ON_MISSIONARY_RIDGE" id="AN_IDLER_ON_MISSIONARY_RIDGE">AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE.</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>I reached Chattanooga on the evening
+of April 26th, in the midst of a rattling
+thunder-shower,&mdash;which, to look back upon
+it, seems to have been prophetic,&mdash;and the
+next morning, after an early breakfast,
+took an electric car for Missionary Ridge.
+Among my fellow-passengers were four
+Louisiana veterans fresh from their annual
+reunion at Birmingham, where, doubtless,
+their hearts had been kindled by much fervent
+oratory, as well as by much private
+talk of those bygone days when they did
+everything but die for the cause they loved.
+As the car mounted the Ridge, one of them
+called his companions' attention to a place
+down the valley where "the Rebels and the
+Yankees" (his own words) used to meet to
+play cards. "A regular gambling-hole,"
+he called it. Their boys brought back lots<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+of coffee. In another direction was a spot
+where the Rebels once "had a regular picnic,"
+killing some extraordinary number of
+Yankees in some incredibly brief time. I
+interrupted the conversation, and at the
+same time made myself known as a stranger
+and a Northerner, by inquiring after
+the whereabouts of Orchard Knob, General
+Grant's headquarters; and the same man,
+who seemed to be the spokesman of the
+party, after pointing out the place, a savin-sprinkled
+knoll between us and the city,
+kindly invited me to go with him and his
+comrades up to the tower,&mdash;on the site of
+General Bragg's headquarters,&mdash;where he
+would show me the whole battlefield and
+tell me about the fight.</p>
+
+<p>We left the car together for that purpose,
+and walked up the slope to the foot of the
+observatory,&mdash;an open structure of iron,
+erected by the national government; but
+just then my ear caught somewhere beyond
+us the song of a Bachman's finch,&mdash;a song
+I had heard a year before in the pine woods
+of Florida, and, in my ignorance, was unprepared
+for here. I must see the bird and
+make sure of its identity. It led me a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+chase, and when I had seen it I must look
+also at a summer tanager, a chat, and so on,
+one thing leading to another; and by the
+time I returned to the observatory the veterans
+had come down and were under some
+apple-trees, from one of which the spokesman
+was cutting a big walking-stick. He
+had stood under those trees&mdash;which were
+now in bloom&mdash;thirty years before, he said,
+with General Bragg himself.</p>
+
+<p>I was sorry to have missed his story of
+the battle, and ashamed to have seemed ungrateful
+and rude, but I forget what apology
+I offered. At this distance it is hard to see
+how I could have got out of the affair with
+much dignity. I might have heard all about
+the battle from a man who was there, and
+instead I went off to listen to a sparrow
+singing in a bush. I thought, to be sure,
+that the men would be longer upon the observatory,
+and that I should still be in season.
+Probably that was my excuse, if I
+made one; and in all likelihood the veteran
+was too completely taken up with his own
+concerns to think twice about the vagaries
+of a stray Yankee, who seemed to be an odd
+stick, to say nothing worse of him. Well,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+the loss, such as it was, was mine, not his;
+and I have lost too much time in the way
+of business to fret over a little lost (or
+saved) in the way of pleasure. As for any
+apparent lack of patriotic feeling, I suppose
+that the noblest patriot in the world, if he
+chanced to be also an ornithologist, would
+notice a bird even amid the smoke of battle;
+and why should not I do as much on a
+field from which the battle smoke had vanished
+thirty years before?</p>
+
+<p>So I reason now; at the time I had no
+leisure for such sophistries. Every moment
+brought some fresh distraction. The long
+hill&mdash;woodland, brambly pasture, and
+shrubby dooryard&mdash;was a nest of singing
+birds; and when at last I climbed the
+tower, I came down again almost as suddenly
+as my Louisiana friends had done.
+The landscape,&mdash;the city and its suburbs,
+the river, the mountains,&mdash;all this would
+be here to-morrow; just now there were
+other things to look at. Here in the grass,
+almost under my nose, were a pair of Bewick
+wrens, hopping and walking by turns,
+as song sparrows may sometimes be found
+doing; conscious through and through of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+my presence, yet affecting to ignore it; carrying
+themselves with an indescribable and
+pretty demureness, as if a nest were something
+never dreamed of by birds of their
+kind; the female, nevertheless, having at
+that moment her beak bristling with straws,
+while the male, a proud young husband,
+hovered officiously about her with a continual
+sweetly possessive manner and an
+occasional burst of song. Till yesterday
+Bewick's wren had been nothing but a name
+to me. Then, somewhere after crossing the
+state line, the train stopped at a station, and
+suddenly through the open window came a
+song. "That's a Bewick wren," I said to
+myself, as I stepped across the aisle to look
+out; and there he stood, on the fence beside
+the track, his long tail striking the eye on
+the instant. He sang again, and once again,
+before the train started. Tennessee was
+beginning well with a visiting bird-gazer.</p>
+
+<p>There must be some wrennish quality
+about the Bewick's song, it would seem:
+else how did I recognize it so promptly?
+And yet, so far as I am able to give an
+account of my own impressions, it had in
+my ears no resemblance to any wren song I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+had ever heard. I think it never suggested
+to me any music except the song sparrow's.
+The truth is, I suppose, that we <em>feel</em> resemblances
+and relationships of which the mind
+takes no cognizance.</p>
+
+<p>I wandered at a venture down the further
+slope, turning this way and that as a song
+invited me. Here were Southerners and
+Northerners fraternally commingled: summer
+tanagers, Carolina wrens, blue-gray
+gnatcatchers, cardinal grosbeaks, chats,
+Bachman finches, field sparrows, chippers,
+white-throated sparrows, chewinks, indigo
+buntings, black-poll warblers, myrtle-birds,
+prairie warblers, a Maryland yellow-throat,
+a bay-breasted warbler, a black-and-white
+creeper, a redstart, brown thrushes, catbirds,
+a single mocking-bird, wood
+thrushes, red-eyed vireos, white-eyed vireos,
+wood pewees, a quail, and, in the air, purple
+martins and turkey buzzards. On the
+Ridge, as well as near the foot on our way
+up, a mocking-bird and a wood thrush sang
+within hearing of each other. Comparison as
+between birds so dissimilar is useless and out
+of place; but how shall a man avoid it? The
+mocking-bird is a great vocalist,&mdash;yes, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+a great singer; but to my Northern ears the
+wood thrush carried the day with his <em>voice</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Having climbed the Ridge again,&mdash;though
+climbing might be thought rather
+too laborious a word for so gradual a slope,&mdash;and
+started down on the side toward the
+city, I came to a patch of blackberry vines,
+in the midst of which sat a thrasher on her
+nest, all a mother's anxiety in her staring
+yellow eyes. Close by her stood an olive-backed
+thrush. There, too, was my first
+hooded warbler, a female. She escaped me
+the next instant, though I made an eager
+chase, not knowing yet how common birds
+of her sort were to prove in that Chattanooga
+country.</p>
+
+<p>In my delight at finding Missionary Ridge
+so happy a hunting-ground for an opera-glass
+naturalist, I went thither again the very
+next morning. This time some Virginia
+veterans were in the car (they all wore
+badges), and when we had left it, and were
+about separating,&mdash;after a bit of talk about
+the battle, of course,&mdash;one of them, with
+almost painful scrupulosity, insisted upon assuring
+me that if the thing were all to be
+done over again, he should do just as before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+One of his comrades, seeing me a Northerner,
+interrupted him more than once in a vain
+attempt to smooth matters over. They had
+buried the hatchet, he said; let bygones be
+bygones. But the first man was not to be
+cajoled with a phrase. He spoke without
+passion, with no raising of the voice, quite
+simply and amicably: he too accepted the
+result; the thing never <em>would</em> be done over
+again; only let his position be understood,&mdash;he
+had nothing to take back. It was impossible
+not to respect such conscientiousness.
+For my own part, at any rate, I felt
+no prompting to argue against it, being sufficiently
+"opinionated" to appreciate a difficulty
+which some obstinate people experience
+in altering their convictions as circumstances
+change, or accepting the failure of a cause as
+proof of its injustice. If a man is not <em>too</em>
+obstinate, to be sure, time and the course of
+events may bring him new light; but that
+is another matter. Once, when the men
+were talking among themselves, I overheard
+one say, as he pointed down the hill, "The
+Rebels were there, and the Union men yonder."
+That careless recurrence of the word
+"Rebel" came to me as a surprise.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The principal excitement of the morning
+was a glimpse of a Kentucky warbler, a bird
+most peculiarly desired. I had finished my
+jaunt, and was standing beside the bramble
+patch not far from the railway, where I had
+seen the hooded warbler the day before, when
+the splendid creature flashed into sight, saw
+me, uttered a volley of quick, clear notes,
+and vanished up the hillside. I ran after
+him, but might as well have remained where
+I was. "He <em>is</em> a beauty!" I find written
+in my notebook. And so he is, clothed
+in lustrous olive and the most gorgeous of
+yellows with trimmings of black, all in the
+best of taste, with nothing patchy, nothing
+fantastic or even fanciful. I was again impressed
+with the abundance of chats, indigo-birds,
+and white-eyed vireos. Bachman sparrows
+were numerous, also, in appropriate
+localities,&mdash;dry and bushy,&mdash;and I noted a
+bluebird, a yellow-throated vireo, and, shouting
+from a dead treetop, a great crested flycatcher.</p>
+
+<p>My most vivid recollection of this second
+visit, however, is of the power of the sun, an
+old enemy of mine, by whom, in my ignorance
+of spring weather in Tennessee, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+allowed myself to be taken at a cruel noonday
+disadvantage. Even now, in the deep
+frigidity of a Massachusetts winter, I cannot
+think of Missionary Ridge without seeing
+again those long stretches of burning sunshine,
+wherein the least spot of shade was
+like a palm in the desert. In every such
+shelter I used to stand awhile, bareheaded;
+then, marking the next similar haven, so
+many rods ahead, I would hoist my umbrella
+and push forward, cringing at every step as
+if I were crossing a field under fire. Possibly
+I exaggerate, but, if I do, it is very little;
+and though it be an abuse of an exquisite
+poem, I say over to myself again and again
+a couplet of Miss Guiney's:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Weather on a sunny ridge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Showery weather, far from here."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In truth, early as the season was, the excessive
+heat, combined with a trying dog-day
+humidity, sadly circumscribed all my Tennessee
+rambles. As for my umbrella, my
+obligations to it were such that nothing but
+a dread of plagiarism has restrained me from
+entitling this sketch "An Umbrella on Missionary
+Ridge." Nature never intended me
+for a tropical explorer. Often I did nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+more than seek a shady retreat and stay
+there, letting the birds come to me, if they
+would.</p>
+
+<p>Improved after this indolent fashion, one
+of the hottest of my forenoons became also
+one of the most enjoyable. I left the car
+midway up the Ridge,&mdash;at the angle of the
+Y,&mdash;and, passing my thrasher's blackberry
+tangle and descending a wooded slope, found
+myself unexpectedly in a pleasant place, half
+wood, half grassy field, through which ran a
+tiny streamlet, the first one I had seen in
+this dry and thirsty land. Near the streamlet,
+on the edge of the wood, quite by itself,
+stood a cabin of most forlorn appearance,
+with a garden patch under the window,&mdash;if
+there <em>was</em> a window, as to which I do not
+remember, and the chances seem against it,&mdash;the
+whole closely and meanly surrounded
+by a fence. In the door stood an aged white
+woman, looking every whit as old and forlorn
+as the cabin, with a tall mastiff on one
+side of her and a black cat on the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Your dog and cat are good friends," I
+remarked, feeling it polite to speak even to
+a stranger in so lonesome a spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered gruffly, "they're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+good friends, only once in a while he wants
+to kill her."</p>
+
+<p>She said nothing more, and her manner
+did not encourage further attempts at neighborly
+intercourse; but as I passed the cabin
+now and then during the forenoon, the birds
+leading me about, I heard her muttering
+often and at considerable length to her hens
+and ducks. Evidently she enjoyed conversation
+as well as most people, only she liked
+to pick her own company. She was "Aunt
+Tilly," I learned afterwards, and had lived
+there by herself for many years; one of the
+characters of the city, a fortune-teller, whose
+professional services were in frequent request.</p>
+
+<p>In this favored nook, especially along the
+watercourse, were many birds, some of them
+at home for the summer, but the greater
+part, no doubt, lying over for a day or two
+on their long northward journey. Not one
+of them but was interesting to me here
+in a new country, however familiar it might
+have become in New England. Here were
+at least eleven kinds of warblers: black-polls
+of both sexes, black-throated blues, chestnut-sides,
+myrtle-birds, golden warblers, black-and-white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+creepers, redstarts (have we
+anything handsomer?), Maryland yellow-throats,
+blue golden-wings, chats, and Kentuckies.
+Here were blue-gray gnatcatchers,
+bluebirds, wood thrushes, veeries, an olive-backed
+thrush, catbirds, thrashers, Carolina
+wrens, tufted titmice, a Carolina chickadee,
+summer tanagers uncounted, orchard orioles,
+field sparrows, chippers, a Bachman sparrow
+(unseen), a cardinal, a chewink, flocks of
+indigo-birds and goldfinches, red-eyed vireos,
+white-eyed vireos, a yellow-throated vireo,
+kingbirds, and a crested flycatcher.</p>
+
+<p>In an oak at the corner of Aunt Tilly's
+cabin a pair of gnatcatchers had built a nest;
+an exquisite piece of work, large and curiously
+cylindrical,&mdash;not tapering at the base,&mdash;set
+off with a profusion of gray lichens,
+and saddled upon one limb directly under
+another, as if for shelter. If the gnatcatcher
+is not a great singer (his voice is slender,
+like himself), he is near the head of his profession
+as an architect and a builder. Twice,
+in the most senseless manner, one of the
+birds&mdash;the female, I had no doubt, in spite
+of the adjective just applied to her conduct&mdash;stood
+beside the nest and scolded at me;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+then, having freed her mind and attracted
+my attention, she got inside and began pecking
+here and there at the rim, apparently
+giving it the final touches. The tufted tits
+whistled unseen with all their characteristic
+monotony. The veeries and the olive-back
+kept silence, but the wood thrushes, as was
+their daily habit, made the woods ring. One
+of them was building a nest.</p>
+
+<p>Most admired of all were the Kentucky
+warblers, of which there were at least five.
+It was my first real sight of them, and, fortunately,
+they were not in the least bashful.
+They spent the time mostly on the ground,
+in open, grassy places, especially about the
+roots of trees and thorn-bushes,&mdash;the latter
+now snowy with bloom,&mdash;once in a while
+hopping a few inches up the bole, as if to
+pick off insects. In movement and attitude
+they made me think often of the Connecticut
+warbler, although when startled they
+took a higher perch. Once I saw one of
+them under a pretty tuft of the showy blue
+baptisia (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">B. australis</i>),&mdash;a new bird in
+the shadow of a new flower! Who says
+that life is an old story? From the general
+manner of the birds,&mdash;more easily felt than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+defined,&mdash;as well as from their presence in
+a group and their silence, I inferred, rightly
+or wrongly, that they had but recently arrived.
+For aught I yet knew, they might
+be nothing but wayfarers,&mdash;a happy uncertainty
+which made them only the more interesting.
+Of their beauty I have already
+spoken. It would be impossible to speak of
+it too highly.</p>
+
+<p>As I took the car at noon, I caught sight
+of a wonderfully bright blood-red flower on
+the bank above the track, and, as I was the
+only passenger, the conductor kindly waited
+for me to run up and pluck it. It turned
+out to be a catchfly, and, like the Kentucky
+warbler, it became common a little later.
+"Indian pink," one of my Walden's Ridge
+friends said it was called; a pretty name,
+but to me "battlefield pink" or "carnage
+pink" would have seemed more appropriate.</p>
+
+<p>I had found an aviary, I thought, this
+open grove of Aunt Tilly's, with its treasure
+of a brook, and at the earliest opportunity I
+went that way again. Indeed, I went more
+than once. But the birds were no longer
+there. What I had seen was mainly a flock
+of "transients," a migratory "wave." On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+the farther side of the Ridge, however, I by
+and by discovered a spot more permanently
+attractive,&mdash;a little valley in the hillside.
+Here was a spring, and from it, nearly dry
+as it was, there still oozed a slender rill,
+which trickled halfway down the slope
+before losing itself in the sand, and here
+and there dribbled into a basin commodious
+enough for a small bird's bath. Several
+times I idled away an hour or two in this
+retreat, under the shadow of red maples,
+sweet-gums, sycamores, and tupelos, making
+an occasional sortie into the sun as an adventurous
+mood came over me or a distant
+bird-call proved an irresistible attraction.</p>
+
+<p>They were pleasant hours, but I recall
+them with a sense of waste and discomfort.
+In familiar surroundings, such waitings
+upon Nature's mood are profitable, wholesome
+for body and soul; but in vacation
+time, and away from home, with new paths
+beckoning a man this way and that, and a
+new bird, for aught he can tell, singing beyond
+the next hill,&mdash;at such a time, I think,
+sitting still becomes a burden, and the cheerful
+practice of "a wise passiveness" a virtue
+beyond the comfortable reach of ordinary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+flesh and blood. Along the upper edge of
+the glen a road ran downward into the valley
+east of the Ridge, and now and then a
+carriage or a horseman passed. It would
+have been good to follow them. All that
+valley country, as I surveyed it from the
+railway and the tower, had an air of invitingness:
+beautiful woods, with footpaths
+and unfrequented roads. In them I must
+have found birds, flowers, and many a delightful
+nook. If the Fates could have sent
+me one cool day!</p>
+
+<p>Yet for all my complaining, I have lived
+few more enjoyable Sunday forenoons than
+one that I passed most inactively in this
+same hillside hollow. As I descended the
+bank to the spring, two or three goldfinches
+were singing (goldfinch voices go uncommonly
+well in chorus, and the birds seem to
+know it); a female tanager sat before me
+calling <em>clippity</em>, <em>clippity</em>; a field sparrow,
+a mocking wren, and a catbird sang in as
+many different directions; and a pair of
+thrashers&mdash;whose nest could not be far
+away&mdash;flitted nervously about, uttering
+characteristic moaning whistles. If they
+felt half as badly as their behavior indicated,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+their case was tragical indeed; but
+at the moment, instead of pitying them,
+I fell to wondering just when it is that
+the thrasher <em>smacks</em> (all friends of his are
+familiar with his resounding imitation of a
+kiss), and when it is that he whistles. I
+have never made out, although I believe I
+know pretty well the states of mind thus
+expressed. The thrasher is to a peculiar
+degree a bird of passion; ecstatic in song,
+furious in anger, irresistibly pitiful in lamentation.
+How any man can rob a thrasher's
+nest with that heartbroken whistle in his
+ears is more than I can imagine.</p>
+
+<p>Indigo-birds are here, of course. Their
+number is one of the marvels of this country,&mdash;though
+indeed the country seems
+made for them, as it is also for chats and
+white-eyed vireos. A bit farther down the
+valley, as I come to the maples and tupelos,
+with their grateful density of shade, a wood
+pewee sings, and then a wood thrush. At
+the same moment, an Acadian flycatcher,
+who is always here (his nest is building
+overhead, as, after a while, I discover), salutes
+me with a quick, spiteful note. "No
+trespassing," he says. Landowners are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+pretty much alike. I pass on, but not far,
+and beside a little thicket I take up my
+stand, and wait. It is pleasant here, and
+patience will be rewarded. Yes, there is
+a magnolia warbler, my second Tennessee
+specimen; a great beauty, but without that
+final perfection of good taste (simplicity)
+which distinguishes the Kentucky. I see
+him, and he is gone, and I am not to be
+drawn into a chase. Now I have a glimpse
+of a thrush; an olive-back, from what I can
+see, but I cannot be sure. Still I keep my
+place. A blue-gray gnatcatcher is drawling
+somewhere in the leafy treetops. Thence,
+too, a cuckoo fires off a lively fusillade of
+<em>kuks</em>,&mdash;a yellow-bill, by that token. Next
+a black-poll warbler shows himself, still
+far from home, though he has already traveled
+a long way northward; and then, in
+one of the basins of the stream (if we may
+call it a stream, in which there is no semblance
+of a current), a chat comes to wash
+himself. Now I see the thrush again; or
+rather, I hear him whistle, and by moving a
+step or two I get him with my eye. He <em>is</em>
+an olive-back, as his whistle of itself would
+prove; and presently he begins to sing, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+my intense delight. Soon two others are in
+voice with him. Am I on Missionary Ridge
+or in the Crawford Notch? I stand motionless,
+and listen and listen, but my enjoyment
+is interrupted by a new pleasure. A
+warbler, evidently a female, from a certain
+quietness and plainness, and, as I take it,
+a blue-winged yellow, though I have never
+seen a female of that species (and only once
+a male&mdash;three days ago at Chickamauga),
+comes to the edge of the pool, and in another
+minute her mate is beside her. Him
+there is no mistaking. They fly away in a
+bit of lovers' quarrel, a favorite pastime
+with mated birds. And look! there is a
+scarlet tanager; the same gorgeous fellow,
+I suppose, that was here two days ago, and
+the only one I have seen in this lower country.
+What a beauty he is! One of the finest;
+handsomer, so I think, than the handsomest
+of his all-red cousins. Now he calls
+<em>chip-cherr</em>, and now he breaks into song.
+There he falls behind; his cousin's voice is
+less hoarse, and his style less labored and
+jerky.</p>
+
+<p>Now straight before me, up a woody aisle,
+an olive-backed thrush stands in full view<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+and a perfect light, facing me and singing,
+a lovely chorister. Looking at him, I catch
+a flutter of yellow and black among the
+leaves by the streamlet; a Kentucky warbler,
+I suspect, but I dare not go forward to see,
+for now the thrushes are in chorus again.
+By and by he comes up from his bath, and
+falls to dressing his feathers: not a Kentucky,
+after all, but a Canadian flycatcher,
+my first one here. He, too, is an exquisite,
+with fine colors finely laid on, and a most
+becoming jet necklace. While I am admiring
+him, a blue yellow-back begins to practice
+his scales&mdash;still a little blurred, and
+needing practice, a critic might say&mdash;somewhere
+at my right among the hillside oaks;
+another exquisite, a beauty among beauties.
+I see him, though he is out of sight. And
+what seems odd, at this very moment his
+rival as a singer of the scale, the prairie warbler,
+breaks out on the other side of me.
+Like the chat and the indigo-bird, he is
+abundantly at home hereabout.</p>
+
+<p>All this woodland music is set off by
+spaces of silence, sweeter almost than the
+music itself. Here is peace unbroken; here
+is a delicious coolness, while the sun blazes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+upon the dusty road above me. How amiable
+a power is contrast&mdash;on its softer side! I
+think of the eager, bloody, sweaty, raging
+men, who once stormed up these slopes, killing
+and being killed. The birds know nothing
+of all that. It might have been thousands
+of years ago. The very trees have forgotten
+it. Two or three cows come feeding
+down the glade, with the lazy tinkle of a bell.
+And now my new friend, the blue-winged
+yellow warbler, sings across the path (across
+the aisle, I was going to say), but only two
+or three times, and with only two insignificant
+lisping syllables. The chary soul! He
+sings to the eye, I suppose. I go over to
+look at him, and my sudden movement startles
+the thrushes, who, finding themselves
+again in the singers' gallery, cannot refrain
+from another chorus. At the same moment
+the Canadian warbler comes into sight again,
+this time in a tupelo. The blue-wings are
+found without difficulty; they have a call
+like the black-and-white creeper's. A single
+rough-winged swallow skims above the treetops.
+I have seen him here before, and one
+or two others like him.</p>
+
+<p>As I return to the bed of the valley, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+female cardinal grosbeak flutters suspiciously
+about a thicket of tall blackberry vines. Her
+nest should be there, I think, but a hasty
+look reveals nothing. Again I come upon
+the Canadian warbler. If there is only one
+here, he is often in my way. I sit down
+upon the leaning, almost horizontal, bole of
+a large tupelo,&mdash;a new tree to me, but common
+in this country. The thick dark-colored
+bark is broken deeply into innumerable geometrical
+figures, giving the tree a noticeable,
+venerable appearance, as wrinkles lend distinction
+and character to an old man's face.
+Another species, which, as far as I can tell,
+should be our familiar tupelo of Massachusetts,
+is equally common,&mdash;a smaller tree,
+with larger leaves. The moisture here, slight
+as it now is, gives the place a vegetation of
+its own and a peculiar density of leafage.
+From one of the smaller tupelos (I repeat
+that word as often as I can, for the music of
+it) cross-vine streamers are swinging, full of
+red-and-yellow bells. Scattered thinly over
+the ground are yellow starflowers, the common
+houstonia, a pink phlox, and some unknown
+dark yellow blossom a little like the
+fall dandelion,&mdash;Cynthia, I guess.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My thoughts are recalled by a strong,
+sharp <em>chip</em> in a voice I do not recognize,&mdash;a
+Kentucky warbler's, as presently turns
+out. He walks about the ground amid the
+short, thin grass, seemingly in the most placid
+of moods; but at every few steps, for
+some inscrutable reason, he comes out with
+that quick, peremptory call. And all the
+while I keep saying to myself, "What a
+beauty!" But my forenoon is past. I rise
+to go, and at the motion he takes flight.
+Near the spring the goldfinches are still in
+full chorus, and just beyond them in the path
+is a mourning dove.</p>
+
+<p>That was a good season: hymns without
+words, "a sermon not made with hands,"
+and the world shut out. Three days afterward,
+fast as my vacation was running away,
+I went to the same place again. The olive-backed
+thrushes were still singing, to my
+surprise, and the Kentucky warblers were
+still feeding in the grass. The scarlet tanager
+sang (it is curious how much oftener I
+mention him than the comparatively unfamiliar,
+but here extremely common summer
+tanager), the cuckoo called, the Acadian
+flycatcher was building her nest,&mdash;on a horizontal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+limb of a maple,&mdash;and a goldfinch
+warbled as if he could never cease. A veery
+sang, also (I heard but one other in Tennessee),
+with a chestnut-sided warbler, two
+redstarts (one of them in the modest garb
+of his mother), a Carolina chickadee, a
+mocking wren, a pine warbler, a prairie warbler,
+and a catbird. In time, probably, all
+the birds for a mile around might have been
+heard or seen beside that scanty rill.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, however, my mood was less Sundayish
+than before, and in spite of the heat
+I ventured across an open pasture,&mdash;where
+a Bachman's finch was singing an ingenious
+set of variations, and a rabbit stamped with
+a sudden loudness that made me jump,&mdash;and
+then through a piece of wood, till I came
+to another hollow like the one I had left,
+but without water, and therefore less thickly
+shaded. Here was the inevitable thicket of
+brambles (since I speak so much of chats
+and indigo-birds, the presence of a sufficiency
+of blackberry bushes may be taken for
+granted), and I waited to see what it would
+bring forth. A field sparrow sang from the
+hillside,&mdash;a sweet and modest tune that
+went straight to the heart, and had nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+to fear from a comparison with Bachman's
+finch or any other. What a contrast in this
+respect between him and his gentle-seeming
+but belligerent and tuneless cousin whom
+we call "chippy."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+Here, likewise, were a
+pair of complaining Carolina wrens and an
+Acadian flycatcher. A thrush excited my
+curiosity, having the look of a gray-cheek,
+but showing a buff eye-ring; and while I
+was coaxing him to whistle, and so declare
+himself,&mdash;often a ready means of identification,
+and preferable on all accounts to shooting
+the bird,&mdash;there came a furious outburst
+from the depths of the brier patch,
+with a grand flurry of wings: a large bird
+and two smaller ones engaged in sudden
+battle, as well as I could make out. At
+the close of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mêlée</i>, which ended as abruptly
+as it had begun, the thicket showed
+two wrens, a white-throated sparrow, and a
+female cardinal. The cardinal flew away;
+the affair was no business of hers, apparently;
+but in a minute she was back
+again, scolding. Then, while my back was
+turned, everything became quiet; and on my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>stepping up to reconnoitre, there she sat in
+her nest with four eggs under her. At that
+moment a chat's loud voice was heard, and,
+turning quickly, I caught the fellow in the
+midst of a brilliant display of his clownish
+tricks, ridiculous, indescribable. At a little
+distance, it is hard to believe that it can be
+a bird, that dancing, shapeless thing, balancing
+itself in the air with dangling legs and
+prancing, swaying motions. Well, that is
+the chat's way. What more need be said?
+Every creature must express himself, and
+birds no less than other poets are entitled
+to an occasional "fine frenzy."</p>
+
+<p>My little excursion had brought me nothing
+new, and, like all my similar ventures
+on Missionary Ridge, it ended in defeat.
+The sun was too much for me; to use a word
+suggested by the place, it carried too many
+guns. I took a long and comfortable siesta
+under a magnificent chestnut oak. Then it
+was near noon, and, with my umbrella spread,
+I mounted the hill to the railway, and waited
+for a car.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="LOOKOUT_MOUNTAIN" id="LOOKOUT_MOUNTAIN">LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>Lookout Mountain was at first a disappointment.
+I went home discouraged.
+The place was spoiled, I thought. About
+the fine inn were cheap cottages,&mdash;as if
+one had come to a second-class summer
+resort; while the lower slopes of the mountain,
+directly under Lookout Point on the
+side toward the city, were given up to a
+squalid negro settlement, and, of all things, a
+patent-medicine factory,&mdash;a shameful desecration,
+it seemed to me. I was half ready
+to say I would go there no more. The prospect
+was beautiful,&mdash;so much there was no
+denying; but the air was thick with smoke,
+and, what counted for ten times more, the
+eye itself was overclouded. A few northern
+warblers were chirping in the evergreens
+along the edge of the summit, between the
+inn and the Point,&mdash;black-polls and bay-breasts,
+with black-throated greens and Carolina
+wrens; and near them I saw with
+pleasure my first Tennessee ph&oelig;bes. In the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+street car, on the way back to Chattanooga,
+I had for my fellow-passengers a group of
+Confederate veterans from different parts of
+the South, one of whom, a man with an
+empty sleeve, was showing his comrades an
+interesting war-time relic,&mdash;a bit of stone
+bearing his own initials. He had cut them
+in the rock while on duty at the Point thirty
+years before, I heard him say, and now, remembering
+the spot, and finding them still
+there, he had chipped them off to carry home.
+These are all the memories I retain of my
+first visit to a famous and romantic place
+that I had long desired to see.</p>
+
+<p>My second visit was little more remunerative,
+and came to an untimely and inglorious
+conclusion. Not far from the inn I noticed
+what seemed to be the beginning of an old
+mountain road. It would bring me to St.
+Elmo, a passing cottager told me; and I
+somehow had it fast in my mind that St.
+Elmo was a particularly wild and attractive
+woodland retreat somewhere in the valley,&mdash;a
+place where a pleasure-seeking naturalist
+would find himself happy for at least an
+hour or two, if the mountain side should
+insufficiently detain him. The road itself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+looked uncommonly inviting, rough and deserted,
+with wild crags above and old forest
+below; and without a second thought I took
+it, idling downward as slowly as possible,
+minding the birds and plants, or sitting for
+a while, as one shady stone after another
+offered coolness and a seat, to enjoy the
+silence and the prospect. Be as lazy as I
+could, however, the road soon gave signs of
+coming to an end; for Lookout Mountain,
+although it covers much territory and presents
+a mountainous front, is of a very modest
+elevation. And at the end of the way
+there was no sylvan retreat, but a village;
+yes, the same dusty little suburb that I had
+passed, and looked away from, on my way
+up. <em>That</em> was St. Elmo!&mdash;and, with my
+luncheon still in my pocket, I boarded the
+first car for the city. One consolation remained:
+I had lived a pleasant hour, and
+the mountain road had made three additions
+to my local ornithology,&mdash;a magnolia warbler,
+a Blackburnian warbler, and a hairy
+woodpecker.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing for it but to laugh at
+myself, and try again; but it was almost a
+week before I found the opportunity. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+(May 7) I made a day of it on the mountain,
+mostly in the woods along the western bluffs.
+An oven-bird's song drew me in that direction,
+to begin with; and just as the singer
+had shown himself, and been rewarded with
+an entry as "No. 79" in my Tennessee catalogue,
+a cuckoo, farther away, broke into a
+shuffling introductory measure that marked
+him at once as a black-bill. Till now I had
+seen yellow-bills only, and though the voice
+was perhaps a sufficient identification, a
+double certainty would be better, especially
+in the retrospect. Luckily it was a short
+chase, and there sat the bird, his snowy
+throat swelling as he cooed, while his red
+eye-ring and his abbreviated tail-spots gave
+him a clear title to count as "No. 80."</p>
+
+<p>As I approached the precipitous western
+edge of the mountain, I heard, just below,
+the sharp, wiry voice of a Blackburnian
+warbler; a most splendid specimen, for in
+a moment more his orange-red throat shone
+like fire among the leaves. From farther
+down rose the hoarse notes of a black-throated
+blue warbler and two or three black-throated
+greens.</p>
+
+<p>Here were comfortable, well-shaded boulders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+and delightful prospects,&mdash;a place to
+stay in; but behind me stood a grove of
+small pine-trees, out of which came now and
+then a warbler's <em>chip</em>; and in May, with
+everything on the move, and anything possible,
+invitations of that kind are not to be
+refused. Warbler species are many, and
+there is always another to hope for. I
+turned to the pines, therefore, as a matter of
+course, and was soon deeply engaged with a
+charming bevy of northward-bound passengers,&mdash;myrtle-birds,
+palm warblers, black-throated
+blues (of both sexes), a female
+Cape May warbler (the first of her sex that
+I had seen) magnolias, bay-breasts, and
+many black-polls. It makes a short story
+in the telling; but it was long in the doing,
+and yielded more excitement than I dare
+try to describe. To and fro I went among
+the low trees (their lowness a most fortunate
+circumstance), slowly and with all
+quietness, putting my glass upon one bird
+after another as something stirred among the
+needles, and hoping every moment for some
+glorious surprise. In particular, I hoped
+for a cerulean warbler; but this was not the
+cerulean's day, and, if I had but known it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+these were not the cerulean's trees. None
+but enthusiasts in the same line will be able
+to appreciate the delight of such innocent
+"collecting,"&mdash;birds in the memory instead
+of specimens in a bag. Even on one's home
+beat it quickens the blood; how much more,
+then, in a new field, where a man is almost a
+stranger to himself, and rarities and novelties
+seem but the order of the day. Again and
+again, morning and afternoon, I traversed
+the little wood, leaving it between whiles for
+a rest under the big oaks on the edge of the
+cliffs, whence, through green vistas, I gazed
+upon the farms of Lookout Valley and
+the mountains beyond. A scarlet tanager
+called,&mdash;my second one here,&mdash;wood thrush
+voices rang through the mountain side forest,
+a single thrasher was doing his bravest from
+the tip of a pine (our "brown mocking-bird"
+is anything but a skulker when the
+lyrical mood is on him), while wood pewees,
+red-eyed vireos, yellow-throated vireos, black-and-white
+creepers, and I do not remember
+what else, joined in the chorus. Just after
+noon an oven-bird gave out his famous aerial
+warble. To an aspiring soul even a mountain
+top is but a perch, a place from which
+to take wing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All these birds, it will be noticed, were
+such as I might have seen in Massachusetts;
+and indeed, the general appearance of things
+about me was pleasantly homelike. Here
+was much of the pretty striped wintergreen,
+a special favorite of mine, with bird-foot
+violets, the common white saxifrage (dear
+to memory as the "Mayflower" of my childhood),
+the common wild geranium (cranesbill,
+which we were told was "good for
+canker"), and maple-leaved viburnum. One
+of the loveliest flowers was the pink oxalis,
+and one of the commonest was a pink phlox;
+but I was most pleased, perhaps, with the
+white stonecrop (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sedum ternatum</i>), patches
+of which matted the ground, and just now
+were in full bloom. The familiar look of
+this plant was a puzzle to me. I cannot
+remember to have seen it often in gardens,
+and I am confident that I never found it before
+in a wild state except once, fifteen years
+ago, at the Great Falls of the Potomac.
+Yet here on Lookout Mountain it seemed
+almost as much an old friend as the saxifrage
+or the cranesbill.</p>
+
+<p>I ate my luncheon on Sunset Rock, which
+literally overhangs the mountain side, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+commands the finest of valley prospects;
+and then, after another turn through the
+pines, where the warblers were still busy
+with their all-day meal,&mdash;but not the new
+warbler, for which I was still looking,&mdash;I
+crossed the summit and made the descent
+by the St. Elmo road, as before. How long
+I was on the way I am unable to tell; I had
+learned the brevity of the road, and, like a
+schoolboy with his tart, I made the most
+of it. Midway down I caught sudden sight
+of an olive bird in the upper branch of a
+tree, with something black about the crown
+and the cheek. "What's that?" I exclaimed;
+and on the instant the stranger flew across
+the road and up the steep mountain side.
+I pushed after him in hot haste, over the
+huge boulders, and there he stood on the
+ground, singing,&mdash;a Kentucky warbler.
+Seeing him so hastily, and on so high a
+perch, and missing his yellow under-parts, I
+had failed to recognize him. As it was, I
+now heard his song for the first time, and
+rejoiced to find it worthy of its beautiful
+author: <em>klurwée</em>, <em>klurwée</em>, <em>klurwée</em>, <em>klurwée</em>,
+<em>klurwée</em>; a succession of clear, sonorous dis-syllables,
+in a fuller voice than most warblers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+possess, and with no flourish before or after.
+Like the bird's dress, it was perfect in its
+simplicity. I felt thankful, too, that I had
+waited till now to hear it. Things should
+be desired before they are enjoyed. It was
+another case of the schoolboy and his tart;
+and I went home good-humored. Lookout
+Mountain was not wholly ruined, after all.</p>
+
+<p>The next day found me there again, to
+my own surprise, for I had promised myself
+a trip down the river to Shellmound. In
+all the street cars, as well as in the city
+newspapers, this excursion was set forth as
+supremely enjoyable, a luxury on no account
+to be missed,&mdash;a fine commodious steamer,
+and all the usual concomitants. The kind
+people with whom I was sojourning, on Cameron
+Hill, hastened the family breakfast
+that I might be in season; but on arriving
+at the wharf I found no sign of the steamer,
+and, after sundry attempts to ascertain the
+condition of affairs, I learned that the
+steamer did not run now. The river was
+no longer high enough, it was explained; a
+smaller boat would go, or might be expected
+to go, some hours later. Little disposed to
+hang about the landing for several hours,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+and feeling no assurance that so doing would
+bring me any nearer to Shellmound, I made
+my way back to the Read House, and took
+a car for Lookout Mountain. In it I sat
+face to face with the same conspicuous placard,
+announcing an excursion for that day
+by the large and commodious steamer So-and-So,
+from such a wharf, at eight o'clock.
+But I then noticed that intending passengers
+were invited, in smaller type, to call at
+the office of the company, where doubtless
+it would be politely confided to them that
+the advertisement was a "back number."
+So the mistake was my own, after all, and,
+as the American habit is, I had been blaming
+the servants of the public unjustly.</p>
+
+<p>I was no sooner on the summit than I
+hastened to the pine wood. At first it
+seemed to be empty, but after a little, hearing
+the drawling <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, of a black-throated
+blue, I followed it, and found the
+bird. Next a magnolia dropped into sight,
+and then a red-cheeked Cape May, the second
+one I had ever seen, after fifteen or
+twenty years of expectancy. He threaded
+a leafless branch back and forth on a level
+with my eyes. I was glad I had come.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+Soon another showed himself, and presently
+it appeared that the wood, as men speak of
+such things, was full of them. There were
+black-polls, also, with a Blackburnian, a bay-breast,
+and a good number of palm warblers,
+(typical <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">palmarum</i>, to judge from the pale
+tints); but especially there were Cape Mays,
+including at least two females. As to the
+number of males it is impossible to speak;
+I never had more than two under my eye
+at once, but I came upon them continually,&mdash;they
+were always in motion, of course,
+being warblers,&mdash;till finally, as I put my
+glass on another one, I caught myself saying,
+in a tone of disappointment, "Only a
+Cape May." But yesterday I might as well
+have spoken of a million dollars as "only a
+million." So soon does novelty wear off.
+The magnolia and the Blackburnian were in
+high feather, and made a gorgeous pair as
+chance brought them side by side in the
+same tree. They sang with much freedom;
+but the Cape Mays kept silence, to my deep
+regret, notwithstanding the philosophical
+remarks just now volunteered about the advantages
+derivable from a bird's gradual
+disclosure of himself. Such pieces of wisdom,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+I have noticed, when by chance they
+do not fall into the second or third person,
+are commonly applied to the past rather
+than the present; a man's past being, in
+effect, not himself, but another. In morals,
+as in archery, the target should be set at a
+fair distance. The Cape May's song is next
+to nothing,&mdash;suggestive of the black-poll's,
+I am told,&mdash;but I would gladly have bought
+a ticket to hear it.</p>
+
+<p>The place might have been made on purpose
+for the use to which it was now put.
+The pinery, surrounded by hard-wood forest,
+was like an island; and the warblers,
+for the most part, had no thought of leaving
+it. Had they been feeding in the hard
+wood,&mdash;miles of tall trees,&mdash;I should have
+lost them in short order. At the same time,
+the absence of undergrowth enabled me to
+move about with all quietness, so that none
+of them took the least alarm. Not a black-throated
+green was seen or heard, though
+yesterday they had been in force both
+among the pines and along the cliffs. A
+flock of myrtle warblers were surprisingly
+late, it seemed to me; but it was my last
+sight of them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The reader will perceive that I was not
+exploring Lookout Mountain, and am in no
+position to set forth its beauties. It is
+eighty odd miles long, we are told, and in
+some places more than a dozen miles wide.
+I visited nothing but the northern point, the
+Tennessee end, the larger part of the mountain
+being in Georgia; and even while there
+I looked twice at the birds, and once at the
+mountain itself.</p>
+
+<p>At noon, I lay for a long time upon a
+flat boulder under the tall oaks of the western
+bluff, looking down upon the lower
+woods, now in tender new leaf and most
+exquisitely colored. There are few fairer
+sights than a wooded mountain side seen
+from above; only one must not be too far
+above, and the forest should be mainly deciduous.
+The very thought brings before
+my eyes the long, green slopes of Mount
+Mansfield as they show from the road near
+the summit,&mdash;beauty inexpressible and
+never to be forgotten; and miles of autumn
+color on the sides of Kinsman, Cannon,
+and Lafayette, as I have enjoyed it by the
+hour, stretched in the September sunshine on
+the rocks of Bald Mountain. Perhaps the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+earth itself will never be fully enjoyed till
+we are somewhere above it. The Lookout
+woods, as I now saw them, were less magnificent
+in sweep, but hardly less beautiful.
+And below them was the valley bottom,&mdash;Lookout
+Valley, once the field of armies,
+now the abode of peaceful industry: acres
+of brown earth, newly sown, with no trace
+of greenness except the hedgerows along the
+brooks and on the banks of Lookout Creek.
+And beyond the valley was Raccoon Mountain,
+wooded throughout; and behind that,
+far away, the Cumberland range, blue with
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>A ph&oelig;be came and perched at my elbow,
+dropping a curtsey with old-fashioned politeness
+by way of "How are you, sir?" and a
+little afterward was calling earnestly from
+below. This is one of the characteristic
+birds of the mountain, and marks well the
+difference in latitude which even a slight
+elevation produces. I found it nowhere in
+the valley country, but it was common on
+Lookout and on Walden's Ridge. Then,
+behind me on the summit, another northern
+bird, the scarlet tanager, struck up a
+labored, rasping, breathless tune, hearty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+but broken and forced. I say labored and
+breathless; but, happily, the singer was unaware
+of his infirmity (or can it be I was
+wrong?), and continued without interruption
+for at least half an hour. If he was
+uncomfortably short-breathed, he was very
+agreeably long-winded. Oven-birds sang at
+intervals throughout the day, and once I
+heard again the black-billed cuckoo. Yes,
+Hooker was right: Lookout Mountain is
+Northern, not Southern. But then, as if to
+show that it is not exactly Yankee land, in
+spite of oven-bird and black-bill, and notwithstanding
+all that Hooker and his men
+may have done, a cardinal took a long turn
+at whistling, and a Carolina wren came to
+his support with a <em>cheery</em>, <em>cheery</em>. A far-away
+crow was cawing somewhere down the
+valley, no very common sound hereabout;
+a red-eye, our great American missionary,
+was exhorting, of course; a black-poll, on his
+way to British America, whispered something,
+it was impossible to say what; and a
+squirrel barked. I lay so still that a black-and-white
+creeper took me for a part of the
+boulder, and alighted on the nearest tree-trunk.
+He goes round a bole just as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+sings, in corkscrew fashion. Now and then
+I caught some of the louder phrases of a
+distant brown thrush, and once, when every
+one else fell silent, a catbird burst out spasmodically
+with a few halting, disjointed eccentricities,
+highly characteristic of a bird
+who can sing like a master when he will,
+but who seems oftener to enjoy talking to
+himself. Lizards rustled into sight with
+startling suddenness; and one big fellow
+disappeared so instantaneously&mdash;in "less
+than no time," as the Yankee phrase is&mdash;that
+I thought "quick as a lizard" might
+well enough become an adage. Here and
+there I remarked a chestnut-tree, the burs
+of last year still hanging; and chestnut
+oaks were among the largest and handsomest
+trees of the wood, as they were among
+the commonest. The temperature was perfect,&mdash;so
+says my penciled note. Let the
+confession not be overlooked, after all my
+railing at the fierce Tennessee sun. It
+made all the pleasure of the hour, too, that
+there were no troublesome insects. I had
+been in that country for ten days, the mercury
+had been much of the time above 90°,
+and I had not seen ten mosquitoes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I left my boulder at last, though it would
+have been good to remain there till night,
+and wandered along the bluffs to the Point.
+Here it was apparent at once that the wind
+had shifted. For the first time I caught
+sight of lofty mountains in the northeast;
+the Great Smokies, I was told, and could
+well believe it. I sat down straightway and
+looked at them, and had I known how
+things would turn, I would have looked at
+them longer; for in all my three weeks'
+sojourn in Chattanooga, that was the only
+half-day in which the atmosphere was even
+approximately clear. It was unfortunate,
+but I consoled myself with the charm of the
+foreground,&mdash;a charm at once softened and
+heightened, with something of the magic of
+distance, by the very conditions that veiled
+the horizon and drew it closer about us.</p>
+
+<p>It is truly a beautiful world that we see
+from Lookout Point: the city and its suburbs;
+the river with its broad meanderings,
+and, directly at our feet, its great Moccasin
+Bend; the near mountains,&mdash;Raccoon
+and Sand mountains beyond Lookout Valley,
+and Walden's Ridge across the river;
+and everywhere in the distance hills and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+high mountains, range beyond range, culminating
+in the Cumberland Mountains in
+one direction, and the Great Smokies in
+another. And as we look at the fair picture
+we think of what was done here,&mdash;of historic
+persons and historic deeds. At the
+foot of the cliffs on which we stand is White
+House plateau, the battlefield of Lookout
+Mountain. Chattanooga itself is spread
+out before us, with Orchard Knob, Cameron
+Hill, and the national cemetery. Yonder
+stretches the long line of Missionary Ridge,
+and farther south, recognizable by at least
+one of the government towers, is the battlefield
+of Chickamauga. Here, if anywhere, we
+may see places that war has made sacred.</p>
+
+<p>The feeling of all this is better enjoyed
+after one has grown oblivious to the things
+which at first do so much to cheapen the
+mountain,&mdash;the hotels, the photographers'
+shanties, the placards, the hurrying tourists,
+and the general air of a place given over to
+showmen. Much of this seeming desecration
+is unavoidable, perhaps; at all events,
+it is the part of wisdom to overlook it, as,
+fortunately, by the time of my third visit I
+was pretty well able to do. If that proves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+impossible, if the visitor is of too sensitive a
+temperament,&mdash;to call his weakness by no
+worse a name,&mdash;he can at least betake himself
+to the woods, and out of them see
+enough, as I did from my boulder, to repay
+him for all his trouble.</p>
+
+<p>The battlefield, as has been said, lies at
+the base of the perpendicular cliffs which
+make the bold northern tip of the mountain,&mdash;Lookout
+Point. I must walk over it,
+though there is little to see, and after a final
+look at the magnificent panorama I descended
+the steps to the head of the "incline,"
+or, as I should say, the cable road.
+The car dropped me at a sentry-box marked
+"Columbus" (it was easy to guess in what
+year it had been named), and thence I
+strolled across the plateau,&mdash;so called in
+the narratives of the battle, though it is far
+from level,&mdash;past the Craven house and
+Cloud Fort, to the western slope looking
+down into Lookout Valley, out of which the
+Union forces marched to the assault. The
+place was peaceful enough on that pleasant
+May afternoon. The air was full of music,
+and just below me were apple and peach
+orchards and a vineyard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In such surroundings, half wild, half tame,
+I had hope of finding some strange bird; it
+would be pleasant to associate him with a
+spot so famous. But the voices were all
+familiar: wood thrushes, Carolina wrens,
+bluebirds, summer tanagers, catbirds, a
+Maryland yellow-throat, vireos (red-eyes and
+white-eyes), goldfinches, a field sparrow (the
+dead could want no sweeter requiem than he
+was chanting, but the wood pewee should
+have been here also), indigo-birds, and chats.
+In one of the wildest and roughest places
+a Kentucky warbler started to sing, and I
+plunged downward among the rocks and
+bushes (here was maiden-hair fern, I remember),
+hoping to see him. It was only my
+second hearing of the song, and it would
+be prudent to verify my recollection; but
+the music ceased, and I saw nothing. At the
+turn, where the land begins to decline westward,
+I came to a low, semicircular wall
+of earth. Here, doubtless, on that fateful
+November morning, when clouds covered the
+mountain sides, the Confederate troops
+meant to make a stand against the invader.
+Now a wilderness of young blue-green persimmon-trees
+had sprung up about it, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+about the Craven house was a similar growth
+of sassafras. I had already noticed the extreme
+abundance of sassafras (shrubs rather
+than trees) in all this country, and especially
+on Missionary Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>With my thoughts full of the past, while
+my senses kept watch of the present, I returned
+slowly to the "incline," where I had
+five minutes to wait for a downward car. It
+had been a good day, a day worth remembering;
+and just then there came to my ear the
+new voice for which I had been on the alert:
+a warbler's song, past all mistake, sharp,
+thin, vivacious, in perhaps eight syllables,&mdash;a
+song more like the redstart's than anything
+else I could think of. The singer was
+in a tall tree, but by the best of luck, seeing
+how short my time was, the opera-glass fell
+upon him almost of itself,&mdash;a hooded warbler;
+my first sight of him in full dress (he
+might have been rigged out for a masquerade,
+I thought), as it was my first hearing
+of his song. If it had been also my last
+hearing of it, I might have written that the
+hooded warbler, though a frequenter of low
+thickets, chooses a lofty perch to sing from.
+So easy is it to generalize; that is, to tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+more than we know. The fellow sang again
+and again, and, to my great satisfaction,
+a Kentucky joined him,&mdash;a much better
+singer in all respects, and much more becomingly
+dressed; but I gave thanks for
+both. Then the car stopped for me, and we
+coasted to the base, where the customary
+gang of negroes, heavily chained, were repairing
+the highway, while the guard, a
+white man, stood over them with a rifle. It
+was a strange spectacle to my eyes, and suggested
+a considerable postponement of the
+millennium; but I was glad to see the men
+at work.</p>
+
+<p>Two days afterward (May 10), in spite of
+"thunder in the morning" and one of the
+safest of weather saws, I made my final excursion
+to Lookout, going at once to the
+warblers' pines. There were few birds in
+them. At all events, I found few; but
+there is no telling what might have happened,
+if the third specimen that came under my
+glass&mdash;after a black-poll and a bay-breast&mdash;had
+not monopolized my attention till I
+was driven to seek shelter. That was the
+day when I needed a gun; for I suppose it
+must be confessed that even an opera-glass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+observer, no matter how much in love he
+may be with his particular method of study,
+and no matter how determined he may be to
+stick to it, sees a time once in a great while
+when a bird in the hand would be so much
+better than two in the bush that his fingers
+fairly itch for something to shoot with.
+From what I know of one such man, I am
+sure it would be exaggerating their tenderness
+of heart to imagine observers of this
+kind incapable of taking a bird's life under
+any circumstances. In fact, it may be
+partly a distrust of their own self-restraint,
+under the provocations of curiosity, that
+makes them eschew the use of firearms altogether.</p>
+
+<p>My mystery on the present occasion was
+a female warbler,&mdash;of so much I felt reasonably
+assured; but by what name to call
+her, that was a riddle. Her upper parts
+were "not olive, but of a neutral bluish
+gray," with light wing-bars, "not conspicuous,
+but distinct," while her lower parts
+were "dirty, but unstreaked." What at
+once impressed me was her "bareheaded
+appearance" (I am quoting my penciled
+memorandum), with a big eye and a light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+eye-ring,&mdash;like a ruby-crowned kinglet, for
+which, at the first glance, I mistook her.
+If my notes made mention of any dark
+streaks or spots underneath, I would pluck
+up courage and hazard a glorious guess, to
+be taken for what it might be worth. As it
+is, I leave guessing to men better qualified,
+for whose possible edification or amusement
+I have set down these particulars.</p>
+
+<p>While I was pursuing the stranger, but
+not till I had seen her again and again, and
+secured as many "points" as a longer ogling
+seemed likely to afford me, it began thundering
+ominously out of ugly clouds, and I
+edged toward some woodland cottages not
+far distant. Then the big drops fell, and I
+took to my heels, reaching a piazza just in
+time to escape a torrent against which pine-trees
+and umbrella combined would have
+been as nothing. The lady of the house and
+her three dogs received me most hospitably,
+and as the rain lasted for some time we had
+a pleasant conversation (I can speak for one,
+at least) about dogs in general and particular
+(a common interest is the soul of talk);
+in illustration and furtherance of which the
+spaniel of the party, somewhat against his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+will, was induced to "sit up like a gentleman,"
+while I boasted modestly of another
+spaniel, Antony by name, who could do
+that and plenty of tricks beside,&mdash;a perfect
+wonder of a dog, in short. Thus happily
+launched, we went on to discuss the climate
+of Tennessee (whatever may be the soul of
+talk, the weather supplies it with members
+and a bodily substance) and the charms of
+Lookout Mountain. She lived there the
+year round, she said (most of the cottagers
+make the place a summer resort only), and
+always found it pleasant. In winter it
+wasn't so cold there as down below; at any
+rate, it didn't feel so cold,&mdash;which is the
+main thing, of course. Sometimes when she
+went to the city, it seemed as if she should
+freeze, although she hadn't thought of its
+being cold before she left home. It is one
+form of patriotism, I suppose,&mdash;parochial
+patriotism, perhaps we may call it,&mdash;that
+makes us stand up pretty stoutly for our
+own dwelling-place before strangers, however
+we may grumble against it among ourselves.
+In the present instance, however,
+no such qualifying explanation seemed necessary.
+In general, I was quite prepared to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+believe that life on a mountain top, in a cottage
+in a grove, would be found every whit
+as agreeable as my hostess pictured it.</p>
+
+<p>The rain slackened after a while, though
+it was long in ceasing altogether, and I went
+to the nearest railway station (Sunset Station,
+I believe) and waited half an hour for
+a train to the Point, chatting meanwhile
+with the young man in charge of the relic-counter.
+Then, at the Point, I waited again&mdash;this
+time to enjoy the prospect and see
+how the weather would turn&mdash;till a train
+passed on "the broad gauge" below. Just
+beyond Fort Cloud it ran into a fine old
+forest, and a sudden notion took me to go
+straight down through the woods and spend
+the rest of the day rambling in that direction.
+The weather had still a dubious aspect, but,
+with motive enough, some things can be
+trusted to Providence, and, the steepness of
+the descent accelerating my pace, I was soon
+on the sleepers, after which it was but a little
+way into the woods. Once there, I quickly
+forgot everything else at the sound of a new
+song. But <em>was</em> it new? It bore some resemblance
+to the ascending scale of the blue
+yellow-back, and might be the freak of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+individual of that species. I stood still, and
+in another minute the singer came near and
+sang under my eye; the very bird I had been
+hoping for,&mdash;a cerulean warbler in full
+dress; as Dr. Coues says, "a perfect little
+beauty." He continued in sight, feeding in
+rather low branches,&mdash;an exception to his
+usual habit, I have since found,&mdash;and sang
+many times over. His complaisance was a
+piece of high good fortune, for I saw no second
+specimen. The strain opens with two
+pairs of notes on the same pitch, and concludes
+with an upward run much like the
+blue yellow-back's, or perhaps midway between
+that and the prairie warbler's. So
+I heard it, I mean to say. But everything
+depends upon the ear. Audubon speaks of
+it as "extremely sweet and mellow" (the
+last a surprising word), while Mr. Ridgway
+is quoted as saying that the bird possesses
+"only the most feeble notes."</p>
+
+<p>The woods of themselves were well worth
+a visit: extremely open, with broad barren
+spaces; the trees tall, largely oak,&mdash;chestnut
+oak, especially,&mdash;but with chestnut, hickory,
+tupelo, and other trees intermingled. Here,
+as afterward on Walden's Ridge, I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+struck with the almost total absence of
+mosses, and the dry, stony character of the
+soil,&mdash;a novel and not altogether pleasing
+feature in the eyes of a man accustomed to
+the mountain forests of New England, where
+mosses cover every boulder, stump, and
+fallen log, while the feet sink into sphagnum
+as into the softest of carpets.</p>
+
+<p>Comfortable lounging-places continually
+invited me to linger, and at last I sat down
+under a chestnut oak, with a big broken-barked
+tupelo directly before me. Over the
+top of a neighboring boulder a lizard leaned
+in a praying attitude and gazed upon the
+intruder. Once in a while some loud-voiced
+tree-frog, as I suppose, uttered a grating cry.
+A blue-gray gnatcatcher was complaining,&mdash;snarling,
+I might have said; a red-eye, an
+indigo-bird, a field sparrow, and a Carolina
+wren took turns in singing; and a sudden
+chat threw himself into the air, quite unannounced,
+and, with ludicrous teetering
+motions, flew into the tupelo and eyed me
+saucily. A few minutes later, a single cicada
+(seventeen-year locust) followed him.
+With my glass I could see its monstrous red
+eyes and the orange edge of its wing. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+kept silence; but without a moment's cessation
+the musical hum of distant millions
+like it filled the air,&mdash;a noise inconceivable.</p>
+
+<p>I would gladly have sat longer, as I would
+gladly have gone much farther into the
+woods, for I had seen none more attractive;
+but a rumbling of thunder, a rapid blackening
+of the sky, and a recollection of the
+forenoon's deluge warned me to turn back.
+And now, for the first time, although I had
+been living within sound of locusts for a
+week or more, I suddenly came to trees in
+which they were congregated. The branches
+were full of them. Heard thus near, the
+sound was no longer melodious, but harsh
+and shrill.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed cruel that my last day on Lookout
+Mountain should be so broken up, and
+so abruptly and unseasonably concluded,
+but so the Fates willed it. My retreat became
+a rout, and of the remainder of the
+road I remember only the hurry and the
+warmth, and two pleasant things,&mdash;a few
+wild roses, and the scent of a grapevine in
+bloom; two things so sweet and homelike
+that they could be caught and retained by a
+man on the run.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHICKAMAUGA" id="CHICKAMAUGA">CHICKAMAUGA.</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>The field of Chickamauga&mdash;a worthily
+resounding name for one of the great battlefields
+of the world&mdash;lies a few miles south
+of the Tennessee and Georgia boundary, and
+is distant about an hour's ride by rail from
+Chattanooga. A single morning train outward,
+and a single evening train inward,
+made an all-day excursion necessary, and the
+time proved to be none too long. Unhappily,
+as I then thought, the sun was implacable,
+with the mercury in the nineties,
+though it was only the 3d of May; and as I
+was on foot, and the national reservation
+covers nine or ten square miles, I saw hardly
+more than a corner of the field. This would
+have been a more serious disappointment
+had my errand been of a topographical or
+historical nature. As the case was, being
+only a sentimental pilgrim, I ought perhaps
+to have welcomed the burning heat as a circumstance
+all in my favor; suiting the spirit
+of the place, and constraining me to a needful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+moderation. When a man goes in search
+of a mood, he must go neither too fast nor
+too far. As the Scripture saith, "Bodily
+exercise profiteth little." So much may
+readily be confessed now; for wisdom comes
+with reflection, and it is no great matter to
+bear a last year's toothache.</p>
+
+<p>From the railway station I followed, at a
+venture, a road that soon brought me to a
+comfortable, homelike house, with fine shade
+trees and an orchard. This was the Dyer
+estate,&mdash;so a tablet informed all comers.
+Here, in September, 1863, lived John Dyer,
+who suddenly found his few peaceful acres
+surrounded and overrun by a hundred thousand
+armed men, and himself drafted into
+service&mdash;if he needed drafting&mdash;as guide
+to the Confederate commander. Since then
+strange things had happened to the little
+farmhouse, which now was nothing less than
+a sort of government headquarters, as I
+rightly inferred from the general aspect of
+things round about, and the American flag
+flying above the roof. I passed the place
+without entering, halting only to smile at the
+antics of a white-breasted nuthatch,&mdash;my
+first Tennessee specimen,&mdash;which was hopping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+awkwardly about the yard. It was a
+question of something to eat, I suppose, or
+perhaps of a feather for the family nest, and
+precedents and appearances went for nothing.
+Two or three minutes afterward I came face
+to face with another apparition, a horseman
+as graceful and dignified, not to say majestic,
+as the nuthatch had been lumbering and ungainly;
+a man in civilian's dress, but visibly
+a soldier, with a pose and carriage that made
+shoulder-straps superfluous; a man to look
+at; every inch a major-general, at the very
+least; of whom, nevertheless,&mdash;the heat or
+something else giving me courage,&mdash;I ventured
+to inquire, from under my umbrella, if
+there were any way of seeing some of the
+more interesting portions of the battlefield
+without too much exposure to the sun. He
+showed a little surprise (military gentlemen
+always do, so far as I have observed, when
+strangers address them), but recovered himself,
+and answered almost with affability.
+Yes, he said, if I would take the first turn to
+the left, I should pass the spot over which
+Longstreet made the charge that decided the
+fate of the contest, and as he spoke he pointed
+out the field, which appeared to be part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+the Dyer farm; then I should presently
+come within sight of the Kelly house, about
+which the fighting was of the hottest; and
+from there I should do well to go to the Snodgrass
+Hill tower and the Snodgrass house.
+To do as much as that would require little
+walking, and at the same time I should have
+seen a good share of what was best worth
+a visitor's notice. I thanked him, and followed
+his advice.</p>
+
+<p>The left-hand road, of which my informant
+had spoken, ran between the forest&mdash;mostly
+of tall oaks and long-leaved pines&mdash;and the
+grassy Dyer field. Here it was possible to
+keep in the shade, and life was comparatively
+easy; so that I felt no stirrings of
+envious desire when two gentlemen, whom
+I recognized as having been among my fellow-passengers
+from Chattanooga, came up
+behind me in a carriage with a pair of horses
+and a driver. As they overtook me, and
+while I was wondering where they could
+have procured so luxurious a turnout, since
+I had discovered no sign of a public conveyance
+or a livery stable, the driver reined
+in his horses, and the older of the gentlemen
+put out his head to ask, "Were you in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+battle, sir?" I answered in the negative;
+and he added, half apologetically, that he and
+his companion wished to get as many points
+as possible about the field. In the kindness
+of my heart, I told him that I was a stranger,
+like himself, but that the gentleman yonder,
+on horseback, seemed to be well acquainted
+with the place, and would no doubt answer
+all inquiries. With a queer look in his face,
+and some remark that I failed to catch, my
+interlocutor dropped back into his seat, and
+the carriage drove on. It was only afterward
+that I learned&mdash;on meeting him again&mdash;that
+he was no other than General Boynton,
+the man who is at the head of all things
+pertaining to Chickamauga and its history.</p>
+
+<p>In the open field several Bachman finches
+were singing, while the woods were noisier,
+but less musical, with Maryland yellow-throats,
+black-poll warblers, tufted titmice,
+and two sorts of vireos. Sprinkled over the
+ground were the lovely spring beauty and
+the violet wood sorrel, with pentstemon,
+houstonia, and a cheerful pink phlox. Here
+I soon heard a second nuthatch, and fell into
+a kind of fever about its notes, which were
+clearer, less nasal, than those of our New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+England birds, it seemed to me, and differently
+phrased. Such peculiarities might indicate
+a local race, I said to myself, with
+that predisposition to surprise which is one
+of the chief compensations of life away from
+home. As I went on, a wood pewee and a
+field sparrow began singing,&mdash;two birds
+whose voices might have been tuned on purpose
+for such a place. Of the petulant,
+snappish cry of an Acadian flycatcher not
+quite the same could be said. One of the
+"unreconstructed," I was tempted to call
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The Kelly house, on the way to which
+through the woods my Yankee eyes were
+delighted with the sight of loose patches of
+rue anemones, was duly marked with a tablet,
+and proved to be a cabin of the most
+primitive type, standing in the usual bit of
+fenced land (the smallness of the houseyards,
+as contrasted with the miles of open country
+round about, is a noticeable feature of Southern
+landscapes), with a corn-house near by,
+and a tumble-down barn across the way.
+For some time I sat beside the road, under
+an oak; then, seeing two women, older and
+younger, inside the house, I asked leave to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+enter, the doors being open, and was made
+welcome with apparent heartiness. The
+elderly woman soon confided to me that she
+was seventy-six years old,&mdash;a marvelous
+figure she seemed to consider it; and when
+I tried to say something about her comparative
+youthfulness, and the much greater
+age of some ladies of my acquaintance (no
+names being mentioned, of course), she
+would only repeat that she was awful old,
+and shouldn't live much longer. She meant
+to improve the time, however,&mdash;and the
+unusual fortune of a visitor,&mdash;and fairly
+ran over with talk. She didn't belong about
+here. Oh no; she came from "'way up in
+Tennessee, a hundred and sixty miles!"
+"'Pears like I'm a long way from home,"
+she said,&mdash;"a hundred and sixty miles!"
+Again I sought to comfort her. That wasn't
+so very far. What did she think of me,
+who had come all the way from Massachusetts?
+She threw up her hands, and ejaculated,
+"Oh, Lor'!" with a fervor to which
+a regiment of exclamation points would
+scarcely do justice. Yet she had but a
+vague idea of where Massachusetts was, I
+fancy; for pretty soon she asked, "Where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+did you say you was from? Pennsylvany?"
+And when I said, "Oh no, Massachusetts,
+twice as far as that," she could only repeat,
+"Oh, Lor'!" Her grandson was at work
+in the park, and she had come down to live
+with him and his wife. But she shouldn't
+live long.</p>
+
+<p>The wonder of this new world was still
+strong upon her. "Them moniment things
+they've put up," she said, "have you seen
+'em? Men cut in a rock!&mdash;three of 'em?
+Have you seen 'em? Ain't they a sight to
+see?" She referred to the granite monuments
+of the regulars, on which are life-size
+figures in high relief. And had I seen the
+tower on the hill, she proceeded to ask,&mdash;an
+open iron structure,&mdash;and what did I think
+of <em>that</em>? She wouldn't go up in it for a
+bushel of money. "Oh yes, you would," I
+told her. "You would like it, I'm sure."
+But she stuck to her story. She wouldn't
+do it for a bushel of money. She should
+be dizzy; and she threw up her hands, literally,
+at the very thought, while her granddaughter
+sat and smiled at my waste of
+breath. I asked if many visitors came here.
+"Oh, Lor', yes!" the old lady answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+"More'n two dozen have been here from
+'way up in Chicago."</p>
+
+<p>The mention of visitors led the younger
+woman to produce a box of relics, and I
+paid her a dime for three minie-balls. "I
+always get a nickel," she said, when I inquired
+the price; but when I selected two,
+and handed her a ten-cent piece, she insisted
+upon my taking another. Wholesale customers
+deserved handsome treatment. She
+had picked up such things herself before
+now, but her husband found most of them
+while grubbing in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>The cabin was a one-room affair, of a sort
+common in that country ("cracker-boxes,"
+one might call them, if punning were not so
+frowned upon), with a big fireplace, two
+opposite doors, two beds in diagonally opposite
+corners, and, I think, no window. Here
+was domestic life in something like its pristine
+simplicity, a philosopher might have
+said: the house still subordinate to the man,
+and the housekeeper not yet a slave to furniture
+and bric-à-brac. But even a philosopher
+would perhaps have tolerated a second
+room and a light of glass. As for myself,
+I remembered that I used to read of "poor
+white trash" in anti-slavery novels.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By this time the sun had so doubled its
+fury that I would not cross the bare Kelly
+field, and therefore did not go down to look at
+the "men cut in a rock;" but after visiting
+a shell pyramid which marks the spot where
+Colonel King fell,&mdash;and near which I saw
+my first Tennessee flicker,&mdash;I turned back
+toward Snodgrass Hill, keeping to the woods
+as jealously as any soldier can have done on
+the days of the battle. At the foot of the
+hill was a well, with a rude bucket and a
+rope to draw with. Here I drank,&mdash;having
+to stand in the sun, I remember,&mdash;and
+then sat down in the shelter of large trees
+near by, with guideboards and index-fingers
+all about me, while a Bachman finch, who
+occupied a small brush-heap just beyond the
+well (<em>he</em> had no fear of sunshine), entertained
+me with music. He was a master.
+I had never heard his equal of his own kind,
+and seldom a bird of any kind, that seemed
+so much at home with his instrument. He
+sang "like half a dozen birds," to quote my
+own pencil; now giving out a brief and simple
+strain, now running into protracted and
+intricate warbles; and all with the most bewitching
+ardor and sweetness, and without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+the slightest suggestion of attempting to
+make a show. A field sparrow sang from
+the border of the grass land at the same
+moment. I wished he could have refrained.
+Nothing shall induce me to say a word
+against him; but there are times when one
+would rather be spared even the opportunity
+for a comparison.</p>
+
+<p>As I went up the hill under the tall trees,
+largely yellow pines, a crested flycatcher
+stood at the tip of one of the tallest of them,
+screaming like a bird of war; and further
+on was a red-cockaded woodpecker, flitting
+restlessly from trunk to trunk, its flight
+marked with a musical woodpeckerish wing-beat,&mdash;like
+the downy's purr, but louder.
+I had never seen the bird before except in
+the pine-lands of Florida, nor did I see it
+afterward except on this same hill, at a second
+visit. It is a congener of the downy
+and the hairy, ranking between them in size,
+and by way of distinction wears a big white
+patch, an ear-muff, one might say, on the
+side of its head. Its habitat is strictly
+southern, so that its name, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates borealis</i>,
+though easily rememberable, seems but
+moderately felicitous.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the
+day&mdash;the most comfortable, certainly, but
+the words are not synonymous&mdash;was a two-hour
+siesta on the Snodgrass Hill tower,
+above the tops of the highest trees. The
+only two landmarks of which I knew the
+names were Missionary Ridge and Lookout
+Mountain; the latter running back for
+many miles into Georgia, like a long wooded
+plateau, till it rises into High Point at its
+southern end, and breaks off precipitously.</p>
+
+<p>Farther to the south were low hills followed
+by a long mountain of beautiful shape,&mdash;Pigeon
+Mountain, I heard it called,&mdash;with
+elevations at each end and in the middle.
+And so my eye made the round of the
+horizon, hill after hill in picturesque confusion,
+till it returned to Missionary Ridge,
+with Walden's Ridge rising beyond, and
+Lookout Point on the left: a charming prospect,
+especially for its atmosphere and color.
+The hard woods, with dark pines everywhere
+among them to set them off, were just coming
+into leaf, with all those numberless,
+nameless, delicate shades of green that make
+the glory of the springtime. The open
+fields were not yet clear green,&mdash;if they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+ever would be,&mdash;but green and brown intermixed,
+while the cultivated hillsides, especially
+on Missionary Ridge, were of a deep
+rich reddish-brown. The air was full of
+beautifying haze, and cumulus clouds in the
+south and west threw motionless shadows
+upon the mountain woods.</p>
+
+<p>Around me, in different parts of the
+battlefield, were eight or ten houses and
+cabins, the nearest of them, almost at my
+feet, being the Snodgrass house, famous as
+the headquarters of General Thomas, the
+hero of the fight,&mdash;the "Rock of Chickamauga,"&mdash;who
+saved the Union army after
+the field was lost. All was peaceful enough
+there now, with the lines full of the week's
+washing, which a woman under a voluminous
+sunbonnet was at that moment taking
+in (in that sun things would dry almost before
+the clothes-pins could be put on them,
+I thought), while a red-gowned child, and a
+hen with a brood of young chickens, kept
+close about her feet. Her husband, like the
+occupant of the Kelly house, was no doubt
+one of the government laborers, who to-day
+were burning refuse in the woods,&mdash;invisible
+fires, from each of which a thin cloud<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+of blue smoke rose among the trees. The
+Dyer house, in a direction nearly opposite
+the Snodgrass house, stood broadly in the
+open, with an orchard behind it, and dark
+savins posted here and there over the outlying
+pasture.</p>
+
+<p>Even at noonday the air was full of
+music: first an incessant tinkle of cow-bells
+rising from all sides, wondrously sweet and
+soothing; then a continuous, far-away hum,
+like a sawmill just audible in the extreme
+distance, or the vibration of innumerable
+wires, miles remote, perhaps,&mdash;a noise which
+I knew neither how to describe nor how to
+guess the origin of, the work of seventeen-year
+locusts, I afterward learned; and then,
+sung to this invariable instrumental accompaniment,&mdash;this
+natural pedal point, if I
+may call it so,&mdash;the songs of birds.</p>
+
+<p>The singers were of a quiet and unpretentious
+sort, as befitted the hour: a summer
+tanager; a red-eyed vireo; a tufted titmouse;
+a Maryland yellow-throat, who cried, "What
+a pity! What a pity! What a pity!" but
+not as if he felt in the least distressed about
+it; a yellow-throated vireo, full-voiced and
+passionless; a field sparrow, pretty far off;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+a wood pewee; a yellow-billed cuckoo; a
+quail; a Carolina wren, with his "Cherry,
+cherry, cherry!" and a Carolina chickadee,&mdash;a
+modest woodland chorus, interrupted
+now by the jubilant cackling of a hen at the
+Snodgrass house (if a man's daily achievements
+only gave him equal satisfaction!)
+and now by the scream of a crested flycatcher.</p>
+
+<p>The most interesting member of the choir,
+though one of the poorest of them all as a
+singer, is not included in the foregoing enumeration.
+While I lay dreaming on the
+iron floor of the tower, enjoying the breeze,
+the landscape, the music, and, more than all,
+the place, I was suddenly brought wide
+awake by a hoarse drawling note out of the
+upper branches of a tall oak a little below
+my level. I caught a glimpse of the bird,
+having run down to a lower story of the
+tower for that purpose. Then he disappeared,
+but after a while, from the same
+tree, he called again; and again I saw him,
+but not well. Another long absence, and
+once more, still in the same tree, he sang
+and showed himself: a blue-winged yellow
+warbler, an exquisite bunch of feathers, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+with a song of the oddest and meanest,&mdash;two
+syllables, the first a mere nothing, and
+the second a husky drawl, in a voice like
+the blue golden-wing's. Insignificant and
+almost contemptible as it was, a shabby expression
+of connubial felicity, to say the
+least, I counted myself happy to have heard
+it, for novelty covers a multitude of sins.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow-throated warblers were hardly
+less interesting than the blue-wing, though
+they threw me into less excitement. For
+a long time I heard them without heeding
+them. From the day of my arrival in Chattanooga
+I had been surrounded by indigo-birds
+in numbers beyond anything that a
+New England mind ever dreams of. As a
+matter of course they were singing here on
+Snodgrass Hill, or so I thought. But by
+and by, as the lazy notes were once more
+repeated, there came over me a sudden sense
+of difference. "<em>Was</em> that an indigo-bird?"
+I said to myself. "Wasn't it a yellow-throated
+warbler?" I was sitting among
+the tops of the pine-trees; the birds had
+been droning almost in my very ears, and
+without a thought I had listened to them as
+indigo-birds. It confirmed what I had written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+in Florida, that the two songs are much
+alike; but it was a sharp lesson in caution.
+When a prudent man finds himself thus befooled,
+he begins to wonder how it may be
+with the remainder of that precious body of
+notions, inherited and acquired, to which, in
+all but his least complacent moods, he has
+been accustomed to give the name of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a lesson, also, in the close relation
+that everywhere subsists between the
+distribution of plants and the distribution
+of animals. These were the only yellow
+pines noticed in the neighborhood of Chattanooga;
+and in them, and nowhere else, I
+found two birds of the Southern pine-barrens,
+the red-cockaded woodpecker and the
+yellow-throated warbler.</p>
+
+<p>At the base of the tower, when I finally
+descended, I paused a moment to look at
+a cluster of graves, eight or ten in all, unmarked
+save by a flagging of small stones;
+one of those family or neighborhood burying-grounds,
+the occupants of which&mdash;happier
+than most of us, who must lie in crowded
+cities of the dead&mdash;repose in decent privacy,
+surrounded by their own, with no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+ugly staring white slabs to publish their immemorable
+names to every passer-by.</p>
+
+<p>From the hill it was but a few steps to
+the Snodgrass house, where a woman stood
+in the yard with a young girl, and answered
+all my inquiries with cheerful and easy politeness.
+None of the Snodgrass family
+now occupied the house, she said, though one
+of the daughters still lived just outside the
+reservation. The woman had heard her describe
+the terrible scenes on the days of the
+battle. The operating-table stood under this
+tree, and just there was a trench into which
+the amputated limbs were thrown. Yonder
+field, now grassy, was then planted with
+corn; and when the Federal troops were
+driven through it, they trod upon their own
+wounded, who begged piteously for water
+and assistance. A large tree in front of the
+house was famous, the woman said; and
+certainly it was well hacked. A picture of
+it had been in "The Century." General
+Thomas was said to have rested under it;
+but an officer who had been there not long
+before to set up a granite monument near
+the gate told her that General Thomas
+didn't rest under that tree, nor anywhere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+else. Two things he did, past all dispute:
+he saved the Federal army from destruction
+and made the Snodgrass farmhouse an
+American shrine.</p>
+
+<p>When our talk was ended I returned to
+the hill, and thence sauntered through the
+woods&mdash;the yellow-throated warblers singing
+all about me in the pine-tops&mdash;down to
+the vicinity of the railroad. Here, finding
+myself in the sun again, I made toward a
+shop near the station,&mdash;shop and post-office
+in one,&mdash;where fortunately there were such
+edibles, semi-edibles, as are generally to be
+looked for in country groceries. Meanwhile
+there came on a Tennessee thunder shower,
+lightning of the closest and rain by the
+bucketful; and, driven before it, an Indiana
+soldier made his appearance, a wiry little
+man of fifty or more. He had been spending
+the day on the field, he told me. In
+one hand he carried a battered and rusty
+cartridge-box, and out of his pockets he produced
+and laid on the counter a collection of
+bullets. His were relics of the right stamp,&mdash;found,
+not purchased,&mdash;and not without
+a little shamefacedness I showed him my
+three minie-balls. "Oh, you have got all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+Federal bullets," he said; and on my asking
+how he could tell that, he placed a Confederate
+ball beside them, and pointed out a
+difference in shape. He was a cheery, communicative
+body, good-humored but not
+jocose, excellent company in such an hour,
+though he had small fancy for the lightning,
+it seemed to me. Perhaps he had been
+under fire so often as to have lost all relish
+for excitement of that kind. He was not at
+the battle of Chickamauga, he said, but at
+Vicksburg; and he gave me a vivid description
+of his work in the trenches, as well as
+of the surrender, and the happiness of the
+half-starved defenders of the city, who were
+at once fed by their captors.</p>
+
+<p>All his talk showed a lively sense of the
+horrors of war. He had seen enough of
+fighting, he confessed; but he couldn't keep
+away from a battlefield, if he came anywhere
+near one. He had been to the national
+cemetery in Chattanooga, and agreed with
+me that it was a beautiful place; but he had
+heard that Southern soldiers were lying in
+unmarked graves just outside the wall (a
+piece of misinformation, I have no doubt),
+and he didn't think it right or decent for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+the government to discriminate in that way.
+The Confederates were just as sincere as the
+Union men; and anyhow, vengeance ought
+not to follow a man after he was dead.
+Evidently he had fought against an army
+and a cause, not against individuals.</p>
+
+<p>When the rain was over, or substantially
+so, I proposed to improve an hour of coolness
+and freshness by paying another visit
+to headquarters; but my Indiana veteran
+was not to be enticed out of shelter. It was
+still rather wet, he thought. "I'm pretty
+careful of my body," he added, by way of
+settling the matter. It had been through
+so much, I suppose, that he esteemed it
+precious.</p>
+
+<p>I set out alone, therefore, and this time
+went into the Dyer house, after drinking
+from a covered spring across the way. But
+there was little to see inside, and the three
+or four officers and clerks were occupied
+with maps and charts,&mdash;courteous, no doubt,
+but with official and counting-house courtesy;
+men of whom you could well enough ask a
+definite question, but with whom it would be
+impossible to drift into random talk. There
+was far better company outside. Even while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+I stood in the back door, on my way thither,
+there suddenly flashed upon me from a treetop
+by the fence a splendid Baltimore oriole.
+He fairly "gave me a start," and I broke
+out to the young fellow beside me, "Why,
+there's a Baltimore oriole!" The exclamation
+was thrown away, but I did not mind.</p>
+
+<p>It was the birds' own hour,&mdash;late afternoon,
+with sunshine after rain. The orchard
+and shade-trees were alive with wings,
+and the air was loud. How brilliant a company
+it was a list of names will show: a
+mocking-bird, a thrasher, several catbirds, a
+pair of bluebirds, a pair of orchard orioles,
+a summer tanager, a wood pewee, and a
+flicker, with goldfinches and indigo-birds,
+and behind the orchard a Bachman finch.
+For bright colors and fine voices that was a
+chorus hard to beat. As for the Baltimore
+oriole, the brightest bird of the lot, and the
+only one of his race that I found in all that
+country, he looked most uncommonly at
+home&mdash;to me&mdash;in the John Dyer trees.
+I was never gladder to see him.</p>
+
+<p>A strange fate this that had befallen these
+Georgia farms, owned once by Dyer, Snodgrass,
+Kelly, Brotherton, and the rest: the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+plainest and most ordinary of country houses,
+in which lived the plainest of country people,
+with no dream of fame, or of much else, perhaps,
+beyond the day's work and the day's
+ration. Then comes Bragg retreating before
+Rosecrans, who is man&oelig;uvring him out of
+Tennessee. Here the Confederate leader
+turns upon his pursuers. Here he&mdash;or rather,
+one of his subordinates&mdash;wins a great
+victory, which nevertheless, as a Southern
+historian says, "sealed the fate of the
+Southern Confederacy." Now the farmers
+are gone, but their names remain; and as
+long as the national government endures,
+pilgrims from far and near will come to
+walk over the historic acres. "This is the
+Dyer house," they will say, "and this is
+the Kelly house, and this is the Snodgrass
+house." So Fame catches up a chance
+favorite, and consigns the rest to oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>My first visit to Chickamauga left so
+pleasant a taste that only two days afterward
+I repeated it. In particular I remembered
+my midday rest among the treetops, and my
+glimpse of the blue-winged warbler. It
+would be worth a day of my vacation to idle
+away another noon so agreeably, and hear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+again that ridiculous makeshift of a bird-song.
+Field ornithology has this for one
+of its distinguishing advantages, that every
+excursion leaves something for another to
+verify or finish.</p>
+
+<p>This time I went straight to Snodgrass
+Hill through the woods, and was barely on
+the steps of the tower before I heard the
+blue-wing. As well as I could judge, the
+voice came from the same oak that the bird
+had occupied two days before. I was in
+luck, I thought; but the miserly fellow
+vouchsafed not another note, and I could
+not spend the forenoon hours in waiting for
+him. Two red-cockaded woodpeckers were
+playing among the trees, where, like the blue-wing
+and the yellow-throats, they were doubtless
+established in summer quarters. "Sap-suckers,"
+one of the workmen called them.
+They were common, he said, but likely
+enough he failed to discriminate between
+them and their two black-and-white relatives.
+Red-headed woodpeckers were <em>not</em> common
+here (I had seen a single bird, displaying its
+colors from a lofty dead pine), but were
+abundant and very destructive, so my
+informant declared, on Lookout Mountain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+Turkeys were still numerous on the mountain,
+and only the Sunday before one had
+been seen within the park limits.</p>
+
+<p>The Bachman finch was again in tune at
+his brush-heap near the well, and between
+the music and a shady seat I was in no haste
+to go further. Finally, I experimented to
+see how near the fellow would let me approach,
+taking time enough not to startle
+him in the process. It was wonderful how
+he held his ground. The "Rock of Chickamauga"
+himself could not have been more
+obstinate. I had almost to tread on him before
+he would fly. He was a great singer,
+a genius, and a poet,</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"with modest looks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And clad in homely russet brown,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and withal a lover of the sun,&mdash;a bird never
+to be forgotten. I wish I knew how to
+praise him.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, as on my previous visit, I remarked
+a surprising scarcity of migrants.
+With the exception of black-poll warblers,
+I am not certain that I saw any, though I
+went nowhere else without finding them in
+good variety. Had my imagination been
+equal to such a stretch, I might have suspected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+that Northern birds did not feel at
+home on the scene of a great Southern victory.
+Here and there a nuthatch called,
+and again I seemed to perceive a decided
+strangeness in the voice. From the tip of a
+fruit-tree in the Kelly yard a thrasher or a
+mocker was singing like one possessed. It
+was impossible to be sure which it was, and
+the uncertainty pleased me so much, as a
+testimony to the thrasher's musical powers,
+that I would not go round the house in the
+sun to get a nearer observation. Instead, I
+went down to look at the monuments of the
+regulars, with their "men cut in a rock."
+Thence I returned to Snodgrass Hill for my
+noonday rest, stopping once more at the
+well, of course, and reading again some of
+the placards, the number of which just here
+bore impressive witness to the fierceness of
+the battle at this point. One inscription I
+took pains to copy:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><big>&#9758;</big><span class="smcap">Gen. J. B. Hood was wounded
+11.10 a.&nbsp;m. 20 Sept. '63 in edge
+of timber on Cove Road &frac12; mile
+East of South, loosing his leg.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was exactly eleven o'clock as I went up
+the hill toward the tower, and the workmen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+were already taking down their dinner-pails.
+Standard time, so called, is an unquestioned
+convenience, but the stomach of a day-laborer
+has little respect for convention, and
+is not to be appeased by a setting back of
+the clock. For my own part, I was not
+hungry,&mdash;in that respect, as in some others,
+I might have envied the day-laborers,&mdash;but
+as men of a certain amusing sort are
+said to turn up their trousers in New York
+when it rains in London, so I felt it patriotic
+to nibble at my luncheon as best I
+could, now that the clocks were striking
+twelve in Boston.</p>
+
+<p>The hour (but it was two hours) calls for
+little description. The breeze was delicious,
+and the hazy landscape beautiful. The cow-bells
+and the locusts filled the air with music,
+the birds kept me company, and for half
+an hour or more I had human society that
+was even more agreeable. When the workmen
+had eaten their dinner at the foot of
+the tower, four of them climbed the stairs,
+and my field-glass proved so pleasing a
+novelty that they stayed till their time was
+up, to the very last minute. One after another
+took the glass, and no sooner had it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+gone the rounds once than it started again;
+for meanwhile every man had thought of
+something else that he wanted to look at.
+They were above concealing their delight,
+or affecting any previous acquaintance with
+such a toy, and probably I never before
+gave so much pleasure by so easy a means.
+I believe I was as happy as if the blue-wing
+had sung a full hour. They were rough-looking
+men, perhaps, at least they were
+coarsely dressed, but none of them spoke
+a rude word; and when the last moment
+came, one of them, in the simplest and gentlest
+manner, asked me to accept three relics
+(bullets) which he had picked up in the
+last day or two on the hill. It was no great
+thing, to be sure, but it was better: it was
+one of those little acts which, from their
+perfect and unexpected grace, can never be
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>A jaunt through the woods past the Kelly
+house, after luncheon, brought me to a
+superfine, spick-and-span new road,&mdash;like
+the new government "boulevard" on Missionary
+Ridge, of which it may be a continuation,&mdash;following
+which I came to the
+Brotherton house, another war-time landmark,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+weather-beaten and fast going to ruin.
+In the woods&mdash;cleared of underbrush, and
+with little herbage&mdash;were scattered ground
+flowers: houstonia, yellow and violet oxalis,
+phlox, cranesbill, bird-foot violets, rue anemones,
+and spring beauties. I remarked
+especially a bit of bright gromwell, such as
+I had found first at Orchard Knob, and a
+single tuft of white American cowslip (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dodecatheon</i>),
+the only specimen I had ever
+seen growing wild. The flower that pleased
+me most, however, was the blood-red catchfly,
+which I had seen first on Missionary
+Ridge. Nothing could have been more appropriate
+here on the bloody field of Chickamauga.
+Appealing to fancy instead of
+to fact, it nevertheless spoke of the battle
+almost as plainly as the hundreds of decapitated
+trees, here one and there one, which
+even the most careless observer could not
+fail to notice.</p>
+
+<p>From the Brotherton house to the post-office
+was a sunny stretch, but under the
+protection of my umbrella I compassed it;
+and then, passing the Widow Glenn's
+(Rosecrans's headquarters), on the road to
+Crawfish Springs, I came to a diminutive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+body of water,&mdash;a sink-hole,&mdash;which I
+knew at once could be nothing but Bloody
+Pond. At the time of the fight it contained
+the only water to be had for a long distance.
+It was fiercely contended for, therefore, and
+men and horses drank from it greedily,
+while other men and horses lay dead in it,
+having dropped while drinking. Now a
+fence runs through it, leaving an outer segment
+of it open to the road for the convenience
+of passing teams; and when I came in
+sight of the spot, two boys were fishing
+round the further edge. Not far beyond
+was an unfinished granite tower, on which
+no one was at work, though a derrick still
+protruded from the top. It offered the best
+of shade,&mdash;the shadow of a great rock,&mdash;in
+the comfort of which I sat awhile, thinking
+of the past, and watching the peaceful
+labors of two or three men who were cultivating
+a broad ploughed field directly before
+me, crossing and recrossing it in the sun.
+Then I took the road again; but by this
+time I had relinquished all thought of walking
+to Crawfish Springs, and so did nothing
+but idle along. Once, I remember, I turned
+aside to explore a lane running up to a hillside<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+cattle pasture, stopping by the way to
+admire the activities&mdash;and they <em>were</em> activities&mdash;of
+a set of big scavenger beetles.
+Next, I tried for half a mile a fine new road
+leading across the park to the left, with
+thick, uncleared woods on one side; and
+then I went back to Bloody Pond.</p>
+
+<p>The place was now deserted, and I took
+a seat under a tree opposite. Prodigious
+bullfrogs, big enough to have been growing
+ever since the war, lay here and there upon
+the water; now calling in the lustiest bass,
+now falling silent again after one comical
+expiring gulp. It was getting toward the
+cool of the afternoon. Already the birds
+felt it. A wood thrush's voice rang out
+at intervals from somewhere beyond the
+ploughed land, and a field sparrow chanted
+nearer by. At the same time my eye was
+upon a pair of kingbirds,&mdash;wayfarers hereabout,
+to judge from their behavior; a
+crested flycatcher stood guard at the top of
+a lofty dead tree, and a rough-winged swallow
+alighted on the margin of the pool, and
+began bathing with great enjoyment. It
+made me comfortable to look at him. By
+and by two young fellows with fishing-poles
+came down the railroad.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why is this called Bloody Pond?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there were a lot of soldiers killed
+here in the war, and the pond got bloody."</p>
+
+<p>The granite tower in the shadow of which
+I had rested awhile ago was General
+Wilder's monument, they said. His headquarters
+were there. Then they passed on
+down the track out of sight, and all was
+silent once more, till a chickadee gave out
+his sweet and quiet song just behind me, and
+a second swallow dropped upon the water's
+edge. The pond was of the smallest and
+meanest,&mdash;muddy shore, muddy bottom,
+and muddy water; but men fought and
+died for it in those awful September days
+of heat and dust and thirst. There was no
+better place on the field, perhaps, in which
+to realize the horrors of the battle, and I
+was glad to have the chickadee's voice the
+last sound in my ears as I turned away.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="ORCHARD_KNOB_AND_THE_NATIONAL" id="ORCHARD_KNOB_AND_THE_NATIONAL">ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL
+CEMETERY.</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>The street cars that run through the open
+valley country from Chattanooga to Missionary
+Ridge, pass between two places of peculiar
+interest to Northern visitors,&mdash;Orchard
+Knob on the left, and the national cemetery
+on the right. Of these, the Knob remains
+in all the desolation of war-time; unfenced,
+and without so much as a tablet to inform
+the stranger where he is and what was done
+here; a low, round-topped hill, dry, stony,
+thin-soiled, with out-cropping ledges and
+a sprinkling of stunted cedars and pines.
+Some remains of rifle-pits are its only monument,
+unless we reckon as such a cedar
+rather larger than its fellows, which must
+have been of some size thirty years ago, and
+now bears the marks of abundant hard usage.</p>
+
+<p>The hill was taken by the Federal troops
+on the 23d of November, 1863, by way of
+"overture to the battle of Chattanooga,"
+Grant, Thomas, Hooker, Granger, Howard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+and others overlooking the engagement from
+the ramparts of Fort Wood. The next day,
+as all the world knows, Hooker's men carried
+Lookout Mountain, while the multitude below,
+hearing the commotion, wondered what
+could be going on above them, till suddenly
+the clouds lifted, and behold, the Confederates
+were in full flight. Then, says an eye-witness,
+there "went up a mighty cheer from
+the thirty thousand in the valley, that was
+heard above the battle by their comrades on
+the mountain." On the day following, for
+events followed each other fast in that spectacular
+campaign, Grant and Thomas had
+established themselves on Orchard Knob,
+and late in the afternoon the Union army,
+exceeding its orders, stormed Missionary
+Ridge, put the army of Bragg to sudden
+rout, and completed one of the really decisive
+victories of the war.</p>
+
+<p>For a man who wishes to feel the memory
+of that stirring time there is no better place
+than Orchard Knob, where Grant stood and
+anxiously watched the course of the battle,
+a battle of which he declared that it was
+won "under the most trying circumstances
+presented during the war." For my own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+part, I can see the man himself as I read the
+words of one who was there with him. The
+stormers of Missionary Ridge, as I have
+said, after making the demonstration they
+had been ordered to make, kept on up the
+slope, thinking "the time had come to finish
+the battle of Chickamauga." "As soon as
+this movement was seen from Orchard
+Knob," writes General Fullerton, "Grant
+turned quickly to Thomas, who stood by his
+side, and I heard him say angrily, 'Thomas,
+who ordered those men up the ridge?'
+Thomas replied in his usual slow, quiet manner,
+'I don't know; I did not.' Then, addressing
+General Gordon Granger, he said,
+'Did you order them up, Granger?' 'No,'
+said Granger; 'they started up without
+orders. When those fellows get started all
+hell can't stop them.'" In the heat of battle
+a soldier may be pardoned, I suppose, if his
+speech smells of sulphur; and after the event
+an army is hardly to be censured for beating
+the enemy a day ahead of time. I speak as
+a civilian. Military men, no doubt, find insubordination,
+even on the right side, a less
+pardonable offense; a fact which may explain
+why General Grant, in his history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+the battle, written many years afterward,
+makes no mention of this its most dramatic
+incident, so that the reader of his narrative
+would never divine but that everything had
+been done according to the plans and orders
+of the general in command.</p>
+
+<p>Orders or no orders, the fight was won.
+That was more than thirty years ago. It
+was now a pleasant May afternoon, the
+afternoon of May-day itself. The date, indeed,
+was the immediate occasion of my
+presence. I had started from Chattanooga
+with the intention of going once more to
+Missionary Ridge, which just now offered
+peculiar attractions to a stranger of ornithological
+proclivities. But the car was full
+of laughing, smartly dressed colored people;
+they were bound for the same place, it appeared,
+on their annual picnic; and, being
+in a quiet mood, I took the hint and dropped
+out by the way.</p>
+
+<p>There was much to feel but little to see at
+Orchard Knob; and yet I recall two plants
+that I found there for the first time; a low
+gromwell (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Lithospermum canescens</i>), with
+clustered bright yellow flowers, and an odd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+and homely greenish milkweed (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Asclepias
+obovata</i>). The yarrow-leaved ragwort was
+there also, and the tall blue baptisia; but
+as well as I can recollect, not one dainty
+and modest nosegay-blossom; not even the
+houstonia, which seemed to grow everywhere,
+though after a strangely sparse and depauperate
+fashion. As I said to begin with, the
+Knob is a desolate place. It made me think
+of the Scriptural phrase about "the besom
+of destruction." I can imagine that mourners
+of the "Lost Cause," if such there still
+be, might see upon it the signs of a place
+accursed.</p>
+
+<p>Far otherwise is it with the national cemetery.
+That is a spot of which the nation
+takes care. Here are shaven lawns, which,
+nevertheless, you are permitted to walk over;
+and shrubbery and trees, both in grateful
+profusion, but not planted so thickly as to
+make the inclosure either a wood or a garden;
+and where the ledge crops out, it is
+pleasingly and naturally draped with vines
+of the Virginia creeper. One thing I noticed
+upon the instant; there were no English
+sparrows inside the wall. The city is
+overrun with them beyond anything I have
+seen elsewhere; within two hundred feet of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+the cemetery gate, as I passed out, there
+were at least two hundred sparrows; but
+inside, on three visits, I saw not one! How
+this exemption had been brought about, I
+did not learn; but it makes of the cemetery
+a sort of heavenly place. I felt the silence
+as the sweetest of music (it was a Sunday
+afternoon), and thought instantly of Comus
+and his "prisoned soul" lapped in Elysium.
+If I knew whom to thank, I would name
+him.</p>
+
+<p>A mocking-bird, aloft upon the topmost
+twig of a tall willow near the entrance, was
+pouring forth a characteristic medley, in the
+midst of which he suddenly called <em>wick-a-wick</em>,
+<em>wick-a-wick</em>, in the flicker's very happiest
+style. "So flickers must now and then
+come to Chattanooga," I said to myself, for
+up to that time I had seen none. It was
+a pleasure to hear this great songster of
+the South singing above these thousands of
+Northern graves. It seemed <em>right</em>; for time
+and the event will prove, if, indeed, they
+have not proved already, that the South,
+even more than the North, has reason to be
+glad of the victory which these deaths went
+far to win.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A tablet on one of the cannons which
+stand upright on the highest knoll informs
+visitors that the cemetery was "established"
+in 1863. The number of burials is given as
+12,876, of which nearly five thousand are of
+bodies unidentified. A great proportion of
+the stones bear nothing but a number. On
+others is a name, or part of a name, with
+the name of the State underneath. One I
+noticed that was inscribed:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">JOHN</p>
+
+<p class="center">N. Y.</p>
+
+
+<p>An attendant of whom I inquired if any
+New England men were here, answered that
+there were a few members of the Thirty-third
+Massachusetts. I hope the New Englanders
+resident in Chattanooga do not forget
+them on Memorial Day.</p>
+
+<p>Twice in the year, at least, the place has
+many Northern visitors. They arrive on
+wings, mostly by night, and such of them as
+came under my eye acted as if they appreciated
+the quiet of the inclosure, a quiet which
+their own presence made but the more appreciable.
+Scattered over the lawns were
+silent groups of white-throated sparrows,&mdash;on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+their way to New Hampshire, perhaps, or
+it might be to upper Michigan; and not far
+from the entrance, and almost directly under
+the mocking-bird, were two or three white-crowned
+sparrows, the only ones found in
+Tennessee. On an earlier visit (April 29)
+I saw here my only Tennessee robins&mdash;five
+birds; and most welcome they were.
+Months afterward, a resident of Missionary
+Ridge wrote to me that a pair had nested in
+the cemetery that year, though to his great
+regret he did not know of it till too late.
+He had never seen a robin's nest, he added,
+and was acquainted with the bird only as a
+migrant. Such are some of the deprivations
+of life in eastern Tennessee. May and June
+without robins or song sparrows!</p>
+
+<p>On the last of my three visits, a small
+flock of black-poll warblers were in the trees,
+and two of them gave me a pleasant little
+surprise by dropping to the ground, and
+feeding for a long time upon the lawn.
+That was something new for black-polls, so
+far as my observation had gone, and an encouraging
+thing to look at: another sign,
+where all signs are welcome, that the life of
+birds is less strictly instinctive&mdash;less a matter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+of inherited habit, and more a matter of
+personal intelligence&mdash;than has commonly
+been assumed. In general, no doubt, like
+human beings, they do what their fathers
+did, what they themselves have done heretofore.
+So much is to be expected, since
+their faculties and desires remain the same,
+and they have the same world to live in;
+but when exceptional circumstances arise,
+their conduct becomes exceptional. In other
+words, they do as a few of the quicker-witted
+among men do&mdash;suit their conduct
+to altered conditions. A month ago I should
+have said, after years of acquaintance, that
+no birds could be more strictly arboreal than
+golden-crowned kinglets. But recently, I
+happened upon a little group of them that
+for a week or more fed persistently on the
+ground in a certain piece of wood. Then
+and there, for some reason, food was plentiful
+on the snow and among the dead leaves;
+and the kinglets had no scruples about following
+where duty called them.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time a friend of mine, a
+young farmer, was at his winter's work in
+the woods; and being alone, and a lover of
+birds, he had taken a fancy to experiment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+with a few chickadees, to see how tame a
+little encouragement would make them. A
+flock of five came about him day after day,
+at luncheon-time, and by dint of sitting
+motionless he soon had two of them on terms
+of something like intimacy; so that they
+would alight on his hand and help themselves
+to a feast. He was not long in discovering,
+and reporting to me, that they carried
+much of the food to the trees round about,
+and packed it into crannies of the bark.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure of that?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," he answered; "I saw them do
+it, and then I went to the trees and found
+the crumbs."</p>
+
+<p>Did any one ever suspect the chickadee of
+such providence? If so, I never heard of it;
+and it is more likely, I think, that the birds
+had never before done anything of the sort;
+but now, finding suddenly a supply far in
+excess of the demand (one day they ate and
+carried away half a doughnut), they had
+sense enough to improve the opportunity.
+What they had done, or had not done, in
+times past, was nothing to the point, since
+they were creatures not of memory alone,
+but of intelligence and a measure of reason.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Beside the unmistakable migrants,&mdash;white-throats,
+white-crowns, and black-polls,&mdash;there
+were numbers of more southern
+birds in the national cemetery. Among
+them I noticed a yellow-billed cuckoo, crow
+blackbirds, orchard orioles, summer tanagers,
+catbirds, a thrasher, a bluebird, wood pewees,
+chippers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, yellow warblers,
+wood thrushes, and chats. All these
+looked sufficiently at home except the chats;
+and it helps to mark the exceeding abundance
+of these last in the Chattanooga region
+that they should show themselves without
+reserve in a spot so frequented and so wanting
+in close cover. One of the orioles sang
+in the manner of a fox sparrow, while one
+that sang daily under my window, on Cameron
+Hill, never once suggested that bird,
+but often the purple finch. The two facts
+offer a good idea of this fine songster's quality
+and versatility. The organ tones of the
+yellow-throated vireo and the minor whistle
+of the wood pewee were sweetly in harmony
+with the spirit of the place, a spirit hard
+fully and exactly to express, a mingling of
+regret and exultation. What mattered it
+that all these men had perished, as it seemed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+before their time?&mdash;that so many of them
+were lying in nameless graves? We shall
+all die; few of us so worthily; and when
+we are gone, of what use will be a name
+upon a stone, a name which, after a few
+years at the most, no passer-by will be concerned
+to read? Happy is he who dies to
+some purpose. It would have been good, I
+thought, to see over the cemetery gate the
+brave old Latin sentence, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dulce et decorum
+est pro patria mori</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The human visitors, of whom one day
+there might have been a hundred, were
+largely people of color. All were quiet
+and orderly, in couples and family groups.
+Most of them, I remarked, went to look at
+the only striking monument in the grounds,
+a locomotive and tender (the "General")
+on a pedestal of marble&mdash;"Ohio's Tribute
+to the Andrews Raiders, 1862." On
+three faces of the pedestal are lists of the
+"exchanged," the "executed," and the
+"escaped."</p>
+
+<p>One thing, one only, grated upon my feelings.
+In a corner of the inclosure is the
+Superintendent's house, with a stable and
+out-buildings; and at the gate the visitor is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+suddenly struck in the face with this notice
+in flaring capitals: <span class="smcap">Keep Out! This
+Means You!</span> That is brutality beyond excuse.
+But perhaps it answers its purpose.
+For my own part, I got out of the neighborhood
+as quickly as possible. I liked better
+the society of the graves; at such a price a
+dead soldier was better than a live superintendent;
+and to take the unpleasant taste
+out of my mouth I stopped to read again a
+stanza on one of the metal tablets set at intervals
+along the driveway:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"On Fame's eternal camping ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Their silent tents are spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Glory guards, with solemn round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The bivouac of the dead."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Far be the day when these Southern fields
+of Northern graves shall fall into forgetfulness
+and neglect.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="AN_AFTERNOON_BY_THE_RIVER" id="AN_AFTERNOON_BY_THE_RIVER">AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER.</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>To an idler desirous of seeing wild life on
+easy terms Chattanooga offers this advantage,
+that electric cars take him quickly out
+of the city in different directions, and drop
+him in the woods. In this way, on an afternoon
+too sultry for extended travel on foot,
+I visited a wooded hillside on the further
+bank of the Tennessee, a few miles above
+the town.</p>
+
+<p>The car was still turning street corner
+after street corner, making its zigzag course
+toward the bridge, when I noticed a rustic
+old gentleman at my side looking intently
+at the floor. Apparently he suspected something
+amiss. He was unused to the ways
+of electricity, I thought,&mdash;a verdancy by no
+means inexcusable. But as he leaned farther
+forward, and looked and listened with
+more and more absorption, the matter&mdash;not
+his ignorance, but his simple-hearted betrayal
+of it&mdash;began to seem amusing. For myself,
+to be sure, I knew nothing about electricity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+but I had wit enough to sit still and let the
+car run; a degree of sophistication which
+passes pretty well as a substitute for wisdom
+in a world where men are distinguished from
+children not so much by more knowledge as
+by less curiosity. In the present instance,
+however, as the event proved, the dunce's
+cap belonged on the other head. My countryman's
+stare was less verdant than his
+next neighbor's smile; for in a few minutes
+the conductor was taking up a trap door at
+our feet, to get at the works, some part of
+which had fallen out of gear, though they
+were still running. Twice the car was
+stopped for a better examination into the difficulty,
+and at last a new wedge, or something
+else, was inserted, and we proceeded
+on our way, while the motorman who had
+done the job busied himself with removing
+from his coat, as best he could, the oil with
+which it had become besmeared in the course
+of the operation. It was rather hard, he
+thought, to have to spoil his clothes in repair-shop
+work of that kind, especially as he
+was paid nothing for it, and had to find
+himself. As for my rustic-looking seatmate,
+he was an old hand at the business, it appeared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+and his practiced ear had detected a
+jar in the machinery.</p>
+
+<p>We left the car in company, he and I,
+at the end of the route, and pretty soon it
+transpired that he was an old Union soldier,
+of Massachusetts parentage, but born in Canada
+and a member of a Michigan regiment.
+Just how these autobiographical details came
+to be mentioned I fail now to remember,
+but in that country, where so much history
+had been made, it was hard to keep the past
+out of one's conversation. He had been in
+Sheridan's force when it stormed Missionary
+Ridge. As they went up the heights, he
+said, they were between two fires; as much
+in danger from Federal bullets as from Confederate;
+"but Sheridan kept right on."
+An old woman who lived on the Ridge told
+him that she asked General Bragg if the
+Yankees would take the hill. "Take the
+hill!" said Bragg; "they could as well fly."
+Just then she saw the blue-coats coming,
+and pointed them out to the General. He
+looked at them, put spurs to his horse,
+"and," added the woman, "I ain't seen him
+since." All of which, for aught I know,
+may be true.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The talkative veteran was now on his way
+to find an old friend of his who lived somewhere
+around here, he didn't know just
+where; and as my course lay in the same
+general direction we went across lots and up
+the hill together, he rehearsing the past,
+and I gladly putting myself to school. In
+my time history was studied from text-books;
+but the lecture system is better. By and
+by we approached a solitary cabin, on the
+dilapidated piazza of which sat the very
+man for whom my companion was looking.
+"Very sick to-day," he said, in response
+to a greeting. His appearance harmonized
+with his words,&mdash;and with the piazza; and
+his manners were pitched on the same key;
+so that it was in a downright surly tone that
+he pointed out a gate through which I could
+make an exit toward the woods on the other
+side of the house. I had asked the way,
+and was glad to take it. Not that I was
+greatly offended. A sick man on one of his
+bad days has some excuse for a little impatience;
+a far better excuse than I should
+have for alluding to the matter at this late
+date, if I did not improve the occasion to
+add that this was the only bit of anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+like incivility that I have ever received at
+the South, where I have certainly not been
+slow to ask questions of all sorts of people.</p>
+
+<p>A little jaunt along a foot-path brought
+me unexpectedly to a second cabin, uninhabited.
+It was built of boards, not logs,
+with the usual outside chimney at one end,
+a broad veranda, a door, and no window; a
+house to fill a social economist with admiration
+at the low terms to which civilized life
+can be reduced. Thoreau himself was outdone,
+though the veranda, it must be confessed,
+seemed a dispensable bit of fashionable
+conformity, with forest trees on all
+sides crowding the roof. Half the floor had
+fallen away; yet the house could not have
+been long unoccupied, for at one end the
+wall was hung with newspapers, among
+which was a Boston "weekly" less than two
+years old. From it looked the portrait of a
+New England college president, and at the
+head of the page stood a list of "eminent
+contributors." I ran the names over, but
+somehow, in these wild and natural surroundings,
+they did not seem so very impressive.
+I think it has been said before, perhaps
+by Thoreau, that most of what we call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+literature wears an artificial and unimportant
+look when taken out-of-doors.</p>
+
+<p>Near this cabin I struck a road ("a
+sort of road," according to my notebook)
+through the woods, following which I
+shortly came to a grave-yard, or rather to a
+bunch of graves, for there was no inclosure,
+nor even a clearing. One grave&mdash;or it
+may have been a tiny family lot&mdash;was surrounded
+by a curb of stone. The others,
+with a single exception, were marked only
+by low mounds of gravel. The one exception
+was a grave with a head-board,&mdash;the
+grave of "Little Theodosia," a year and
+some months old. "Theodosia!"&mdash;even
+into a windowless cabin a baby brings romance.
+Under the name and the two dates
+was this legend: "She is happy." Of ten
+inscriptions on marble monuments nine will
+be found less simply appropriate.</p>
+
+<p>By a circuitous course the wood road
+brought me to a larger cabin, in a larger
+clearing. Here a pleasant-spoken, neighborly
+woman, with a child in her arms,
+called off her dog, and pointed out a path
+beyond a pair of bars. That path, she
+said, would carry me to the river,&mdash;to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+water's edge. And so it did, down a pleasant
+wooded hillside, which an unwonted
+profusion of bushes and ferns made exceptionally
+attractive. At the end of the path
+a lordly elm and a lordlier buttonwood, both
+of them loaded with lusty vines (besides
+clusters of mistletoe, I believe), gave me
+shelter from the sun while I sat and gazed
+at the strong eager current of the Tennessee
+hurrying onward without a ripple. As my
+foot touched the beach a duck&mdash;I could
+not tell of what kind&mdash;sprang out of the
+water and went dashing off. She had
+learned her lesson. In the duck's primer
+one of the first questions is: "What is a
+man?" and the answer follows: "Man is
+a gun-bearing animal." In the treetops a
+golden warbler and a redstart were singing.
+Then I heard a puffing of steam, and by and
+by a tug came round a turn, pushing laboriously
+up stream a loaded barge. It was the
+Ocoee of Chattanooga, and the two or three
+mariners on board seemed to find the sight
+of a stranger in that unlooked-for place a
+welcome break in the monotony of their inland
+voyage.</p>
+
+<p>On the bushy, ferny slope, as I returned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+two Kentucky warblers were singing in opposite
+directions. So I called them, at all
+events. But they were too far away to be
+gone after, as my mood then was, and soon
+I began to wonder whether I might not be
+mistaken. Possibly they were Carolina
+wrens, whose <em>cherry</em> is not altogether unlike
+the Kentucky's <em>klurwee</em>. The question
+will perhaps seem unreasonable to readers
+long familiar with the two birds; but let
+them put themselves in a stranger's place,
+remembering that this was only his third
+or fourth hearing of the Kentucky's music.
+As the doubt grew on me (and nothing
+grows faster than doubt) I sat down and
+listened. Yes, they were Kentuckies; but
+anon the uncertainty came back, and I kept
+my seat. Then a sound of humming-bird
+wings interrupted my cogitations, and in
+another moment the bird was before me,
+sipping at a scarlet catchfly,&mdash;battlefield
+pink. I caught the flash of his throat. It
+was as red as the flower&mdash;beyond which
+there is nothing to be said. Then he vanished
+(rather than went away), as humming-birds
+do; but in ten minutes he was there
+again. I was glad to see him. Birds of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+kind were rare about Chattanooga, though
+afterwards, in the forests of Walden's Ridge,
+they became as common as I ever saw them
+anywhere. The two invisible Kentuckies
+wore out my patience, but as I came to the
+bars another sang near me. Him, by good
+luck, I saw in the act, and for the time, at
+least, my doubts were quieted.</p>
+
+<p>In the woods and thickets, as I sauntered
+along, I heard blue golden-winged warblers,
+two more Kentuckies, a blue-gray gnatcatcher,
+a Bachman's finch, a wood pewee, a
+quail, and the inevitable chats, indigo-birds,
+prairie warblers, and white-eyed vireos.
+Then, as I drew near the car track, I descended
+again to the river-bank and walked
+in the shade of lofty buttonwoods, willows,
+and white maples, with mistletoe perched in
+the upper branches, and poison ivy climbing
+far up the trunks; the whole standing in
+great contrast to the comparatively stunted
+growth, mainly oak,&mdash;and largely black
+jack,&mdash;on the dry soil of the hillside.
+Across the river were broad, level fields,
+brown with cultivation, in which men were
+at work, and from the same direction came
+loud rasping cries of batrachians of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+kind. For aught that my ear could detect,
+they might be common toads uttering their
+mysterious, discordant midsummer screams
+in full chorus. Here were more indigo-birds,
+with red-eyes, white-eyes, lisping black-poll
+warblers, redstarts, a yellow-billed cuckoo
+(furtive as ever, like a bird with an evil
+conscience), catbirds, a thrasher, a veery in
+song (a luxury in these parts), orchard orioles,
+goldfinches, and chippers. A bluebird
+was gathering straws, and a carrion crow,
+one of two seen in Tennessee, was soaring
+high over the river.</p>
+
+<p>The "pavilion," at the terminus of the
+car route, was deserted, and I sat on the
+piazza enjoying the really beautiful prospect&mdash;the
+river, the woods, and the cultivated
+fields. The land hereabout was all in the
+market. In truth, the selling of building
+lots seemed to be one of the principal industries
+of Chattanooga; and I was not
+surprised to find the good-humored young
+fellow behind the counter&mdash;with its usual
+appetizing display of cigars, drinks, and
+confectionery&mdash;full of the glories and imminent
+possibilities of this particular "suburb."
+He believed in the river. Folks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+would come this way, where it was high and
+cool. (On that particular afternoon, to be
+sure, it was neither very high nor very
+cool, but of course the weather isn't always
+good anywhere.) "Lookout Mountain ain't
+what it used to be," he said, in a burst of
+confidence. "It's done seen its best days.
+Yes, sir, it's done seen its best days." It
+was not for a stranger, with no investment
+in view, to take sides in such competitions
+and rivalries. I believed in the river and
+the mountain both, and hoped that both
+would survive their present exploitation.
+I liked his talk better when it turned upon
+himself. Nothing is more exhilarating than
+an honest bit of personal brag. He was
+never sick, he told me. He knew nothing
+of aches or pains. He could do anything
+without getting tired. Save for his slavery
+to the counter, he seemed almost as well off
+as the birds.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="A_MORNING_IN_THE_NORTH_WOODS" id="A_MORNING_IN_THE_NORTH_WOODS">A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS.</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>The electric car left me near the Tennessee,&mdash;at
+"Riverview,"&mdash;and thence I
+walked into the woods, meaning to make
+a circuit among the hills, and at my convenience
+board an inward-bound car somewhere
+between that point and the city. The
+weather was of the kind that birds love:
+warm and still, after heavy showers, with
+the sun now and then breaking through the
+clouds. The country was a suburb in its
+first estate: that is to say, a land company
+had laid out miles of streets, but as yet there
+were no houses, and the woods remained unharmed.
+That was a very comfortable stage
+of the business to a man on my errand.
+The roads gave the visitor convenience of
+access,&mdash;a ready means of moving about
+with his eyes in the air,&mdash;and at the same
+time, by making the place more open, they
+made it more birdy; for birds, even the
+greater part of wood birds, like the borders
+of a forest better than its darker recesses.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One thing I soon perceived: the rain had
+left the roads in a condition of unspeakable
+adhesiveness. The red clay balled up
+my heels as if it had been moist snow, till
+I pitched forward as I walked. I fancied
+that I understood pretty well the sensations
+of a young lady in high-heeled shoes. One
+moment, too, my feet were weighted with
+lead; then the mass fell off in a sudden big
+lump, and my next few steps were on air.
+A graceful, steady, self-possessed gait was
+out of the question. As for abstaining
+from all appearance of evil&mdash;well, as
+another and more comfortable Scripture
+says, "There is a time for everything."
+However, I was not disposed to complain.
+We read much about the tribulations of
+Northern soldiers on the march in Virginia,&mdash;of
+entire armies mud-bound and helpless.
+Henceforth I shall have some better idea of
+what such statements mean. In that part
+of the world, I am assured, rubber overshoes
+have to be tied on the feet with strings.
+Mother Earth does not believe in such
+effeminacies, and takes it upon herself to
+pull them off.</p>
+
+<p>The seventeen-year locusts made the air<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+ring. Heard at the right distance, the
+sound has a curious resemblance, noticed
+again and again, to the far-away, barely
+audible buzz of an electric car. For a week
+the air of the valley woods had been full of
+it. I wondered over it for a day or two,
+with no suspicion of its origin. Then, as I
+waited for a car at the base of Missionary
+Ridge, a colored man who stood beside me
+on the platform gave me, without meaning
+it, a lesson in natural history.</p>
+
+<p>"The locuses are goin' it, this mornin',
+ain't they?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"The locuses?" I answered, in a tone of
+inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Don't you hear 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>He meant my mysterious universal hum,
+it appeared. But even then I did not know
+that he spoke of the big, red-eyed cicada
+that I had picked off a fence a day or two
+before and looked at for a moment with
+ignorant curiosity. And even when, by
+dint of using my own eyes, I learned so
+much, I was still unaware that this cicada
+was the famous seventeen-year locust. Here
+in the north woods I more than once passed
+near a swarm of the insects. At short range<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+the noise loses its musical character; so that
+it would be easy to hear it without divining
+any connection between it and the grand
+pervasive hum of the universal chorus.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first birds at which I stopped
+to look was a Kentucky warbler, walking
+about the ground and pausing now and then
+to sing; one of six or seven seen and heard
+during the forenoon. Few birds are more
+freely and easily observed. I mean in open
+woodlands with clear margins, such as I was
+now exploring. In a mountain forest, where
+they haunt brookside jungles of laurel and
+rhododendron, the story is different, as a
+matter of course. How it happens that the
+same bird is equally at home in surroundings
+so dissimilar is a question I make no attempt
+to answer.</p>
+
+<p>All the hill woods, mostly oak, were dry
+and stony; but after a while I came unexpectedly
+to a valley, a place of another sort;
+not moist, to be sure, but looking as if it
+had been moist at some time or other; and
+with pleasant grassy openings and another
+set of trees&mdash;red maples, persimmons, and
+sweet-gums. Here was a fine bunch of
+birds, including many migrants, and I went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+softly hither and thither, scanning the
+branches of one tree after another, as a note
+or the stirring of a leaf attracted me, ready
+every minute for the sight of something
+new and wonderful. I found nothing,&mdash;nothing
+new and wonderful, I mean,&mdash;but I
+had all the exhilaration of the chase. In the
+company, nearly all of them in song, were
+wood thrushes, a silent palm warbler (red-poll),
+a magnolia warbler, three Canadian
+flycatchers, many black-polls, one or two
+redstarts, a chestnut-sided warbler, a black-and-white
+creeper, a field sparrow, a yellow-throated
+vireo, a wood pewee, an Acadian
+flycatcher, and two or more yellow-billed
+cuckoos. The red-poll was of a very pale
+complexion (but I assert nothing as to its
+exact identity, specific or sub-specific), and
+seemed to me unreasonably late. It was
+the 11th of May, and birds of its kind had
+been passing through Massachusetts by the
+middle of April. Chestnut-sides were scarce
+enough to be interesting, and it was good
+to hear this lover of berry fields and the
+gray birch singing from a sweet-gum.</p>
+
+<p>When at last I turned away from the
+grassy glade,&mdash;where cattle were pasturing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+as I now remember,&mdash;and went back among
+the dry hills (through the powdery soil of
+which the almost daily showers seemed to
+run as through a sieve), I presently caught
+sight of a scarlet tanager,&mdash;a beauty, and,
+except on the mountains, a rarity. Then I
+stopped&mdash;on a street corner!&mdash;to admire
+the singing of a Bachman's finch, wishing
+also to compare his plumage with that of a
+bird seen and greatly enjoyed a few days
+before at Chickamauga. To judge from
+my limited observation, this is one of the
+sparrows&mdash;the song sparrow being another&mdash;which
+exhibit a strange diversity of individual
+coloration; as if the fashion were
+not yet fully set, or perhaps were being
+outgrown. The bird here in the north
+woods, so far as color and markings went,
+might well enough have been of a different
+species from that of the Chickamauga singer,
+yet there was no reason to suspect the presence
+of more than one variety of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">PeucÊa</i>, so
+far as I knew, and the music of the two
+birds was precisely the same. A wonderfully
+sweet and various tune it is; with
+sometimes a highly ventriloquial effect, as if
+the different measures or phrases came from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+different points. It opens like the song
+heard in the Florida flat-woods, but is even
+more varied, both in voice and in musical
+form. So it seemed to me, I mean to say;
+but hearing the two a year apart, I cannot
+speak without reserve. It is pleasanter&mdash;as
+well as safer&mdash;to praise both singers than
+to exalt one to the pulling down of the other.
+In appearance, Bachman's finch is one of
+the dullest, dingiest, least prepossessing
+members of its great family; but its voice
+and musical genius make it a treasure,
+especially in this comparatively sparrowless
+country of eastern Tennessee.</p>
+
+<p>I have remarked that I found this bird
+upon a street corner. Unhappily my notes
+do not enable me to be more specific. It
+may have been at the corner of Court and
+Tremont Streets, or, possibly, at the junction
+of Tremont and Dartmouth Streets. All
+these names appear in my memoranda.
+Boston people should have had a hand in
+this business, I said to myself. It was on
+Federal Street (so much I put down) that
+I saw my only Tennessee rose-breasted grosbeak.
+He, or rather she, was the most
+interesting bird of the forenoon, and matched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+the one Baltimore oriole seen at Chickamauga.
+I heard the familiar <em>click</em>, as of
+rusty shears, and straightway took chase.
+For some minutes my search was in vain,
+and once I feared I had been fooled. A bird
+flew out of the right tree, as I thought, but
+showed yellow, and the next moment set up
+the <em>clippiticlip</em> call of the summer tanager.
+Could that bird have also a note like the
+rose-breast's? It was not impossible, of
+course, for one does not exhaust the vocabulary
+of a bird in a month's acquaintance; but
+I could not think it likely, thick as tanagers
+had been about me; and soon the <em>click</em> was
+repeated, and this time I put my eye on its
+author,&mdash;a feminine rose-breast. Perhaps it
+was nothing more than an accident that she
+was my only specimen; but so showy a bird,
+with so lovely a song and so distinctive a
+signal, could hardly have escaped notice had
+it been in any degree common.</p>
+
+<p>Wood thrushes sang on all sides. They
+had need to be abundant and free-hearted,
+since they stand in that region for the whole
+thrush family. Blue golden-winged warblers,
+too, were generously distributed, and,
+as happens to me now and then in Massachusetts,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+I found one with a song so absurdly
+peculiar that I spent some time in making
+sure of its author. It is to be hoped that
+this tendency to individual variation will
+persist and increase in the case of this species
+till something more melodious than its
+present sibilant monotony is evolved; till
+beauty and art are mated, as they ought to
+be. Who would not love to hear the music
+of all our birds a few millions of years
+hence? What a singer the hermit thrush
+will be, for example, when his tune is equal
+to his voice! Indigo-birds, white-eyed vireos
+and prairie warblers abounded. As for the
+chats, they saluted me on the right and on
+the left, till I said, "Chats, Chattanooga,"
+and felt almost as if Nature had perpetrated
+a huge fantastic pun on her own account.
+If I could have had the ear of the enterprising
+owners of this embryo suburb,&mdash;a syndicate,
+I dare say they call themselves,&mdash;I
+would have suggested to them to name it
+"Chat City."</p>
+
+<p>I wandered carelessly about, now following
+a bird over a rounded hill (one, I remember,
+was covered literally from end to end with
+the common brake,&mdash;<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pteris</i>,&mdash;which will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+give the reader an idea of its sterility), now
+keeping to the road. In such a soil flowers
+were naturally scarce; but I noticed houstonia,
+phlox, hieracium, senecio, pentstemon,
+and specularia. Like the brake, the names
+are suggestive of barrenness. The senecio
+(ragwort), a species with finely cut leaves
+(<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">S. millefolium</i>), was first seen on Missionary
+Ridge. There, as here, it had a strange,
+misplaced appearance in my eyes, looking
+much like our familiar <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">S. aureus</i>, but growing
+in dry woods!</p>
+
+<p>So the morning passed. The hours were
+far too brief, and I would have stretched
+them into the afternoon, but that my trunk
+was packed for Walden's Ridge. It was
+necessary to think of getting back to the
+city, and I took a quicker pace. Two more
+Kentucky warblers detained me for a moment;
+a quail sprang up from under my
+feet; and on the other side of the way an
+oven-bird sang&mdash;the only one found in the
+valley. Then I came to the car-track; but
+somehow things wore an unexpected look,
+and a preacher, very black, solemn, and
+shiny, gave me to understand, in answer to
+a question, that the city lay not where I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+thought, but in an opposite direction. Instead
+of making a circuit I had cut straight
+across the country (an unusual form of
+bewilderment), and had come to another
+railway. But no harm was done. In that
+corner of the world all roads lead to Chattanooga.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="A_WEEK_ON_WALDENS_RIDGE" id="A_WEEK_ON_WALDENS_RIDGE">A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE.</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<p>Throughout my stay in Chattanooga I
+looked often and with desire at a long, flat-topped,
+perpendicular-sided, densely wooded
+mountain, beyond the Tennessee River. Its
+name was Walden's Ridge, I was told; the
+top of it was eighty miles long and ten or
+twelve miles wide; if I wanted a bit of wild
+country, that was the place for me. Was it
+accessible? I asked. And was there any
+reasonable way of living there? Oh yes;
+carriages ran every afternoon from the city,
+and there were several small hotels on the
+mountain. So it happened that I went to
+Walden's Ridge for my last week in Tennessee,
+and have ever since thanked my
+stars&mdash;as New England Christians used to
+say, in my boyhood&mdash;for giving me the
+good wine at the end of the feast.</p>
+
+<p>The wine, it is true, was a little too freely
+watered. I went up the mountain in a rain,
+and came down again in a rain, and of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+seven intervening days five were showery.
+The showers, mostly with thunder and
+lightning, were of the sort that make an
+umbrella ridiculous, and my jaunts, as a
+rule, took me far from shelter. Yet I had
+little to complain of. Now and then I was
+put to my trumps, as it were; my walk was
+sometimes grievously abbreviated, and my
+pace uncomfortably hurried, but by one
+happy accident and another I always escaped
+a drenching. Worse than the water that
+fell&mdash;worse, and not to be escaped, even by
+accident&mdash;-was that which saturated the
+atmosphere, making every day a dog-day, and
+the week a seven-day sweat. And then, as
+if to even the account, on the last night of
+my stay I was kept awake for hours shivering
+with cold; and in the morning, after
+putting on all the clothing I could wear,
+and breakfasting in a snowstorm, I rode
+down the mountain in a state suggestive of
+approaching congelation. "My feet are
+frozen, I know they are," said the lady who
+sat beside me in the wagon; but she was
+mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>This sudden drop in the temperature
+seemed to be a trial even to the natives.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+As we drove into Chattanooga, it was impossible
+not to smile at the pinched and
+woebegone appearance of the colored people.
+What had they to do with weather that
+makes a man hurry? And the next morning,
+when an enterprising, bright-faced white
+boy ran up to me with a "'Times,' sir?
+Have a 'Times'?" I fear he quite misapprehended
+the more or less quizzical expression
+which I am sure came into my face. I
+was looking at his black woolen mittens, and
+thinking how well he was mothered. It was
+the 19th of May; for at least three weeks,
+to my own knowledge, the city had been
+sweltering under the hottest of midsummer
+heats,&mdash;94° in the shade, for example; and
+now, mittens and overcoats!</p>
+
+<p>I should be sorry to exaggerate, or leave
+a false impression. In this day of literary
+conscientiousness, when writers of fiction
+itself are truth-tellers first, and story-tellers
+afterwards,&mdash;if at all,&mdash;it behooves mere
+tourists and naturalists to speak as under
+oath. Be it confessed, then, that the foregoing
+paragraphs, though true in every
+word, are not to be taken too seriously. If
+the weather, "the dramatic element in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+scenery," happened not to suit the convenience
+of a naturally selfish man, now ten
+times more selfish than usual&mdash;as is the
+rule&mdash;because he was on his annual vacation,
+it does not follow that it was essentially
+bad. The rains were needed, the heat was
+to have been expected, and the cold, unseasonable
+and exceptional, was not peculiar
+to Tennessee. As for the snow, it was no
+more than I have seen before now, even in
+Massachusetts,&mdash;a week or two earlier in
+the month; and it lent such a glory to the
+higher Alleghanies, as we passed them on
+our way homeward, that I might cheerfully
+have lain shivering for <em>two</em> nights in that
+unplastered bedroom, with its window that
+no man could shut, rather than miss the
+spectacle. Eastern Tennessee, I have no
+doubt, is a most salubrious country; properly
+recommended by the medical fraternity
+as a refuge for consumptive patients. If to
+me its meteorological fluctuations seemed
+surprisingly wide and sudden, it was perhaps
+because I had been brought up in the
+equable climate of New England. It would
+be unfair to judge the world in general by
+that favored spot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The road up the mountain&mdash;the "new
+road," as it is called&mdash;is a notable piece of
+work, done, I was told, by the county chain-gangs.
+The pleasure of the ascent, which
+naturally would have been great, was badly
+diminished by the rain, which made it necessary
+to keep the sides of the wagon down;
+but I was fortunate in my driver. At first
+he seemed a stolid, uncommunicative body,
+and when we came to the river I made sure
+he could not read. As we drove upon the
+bridge, where straight before his eyes was a
+sign forbidding any one to drive or ride over
+the bridge at a pace faster than a walk, under
+a penalty of five dollars for each offense,
+he whipped up his horse and his mule (the
+mule the better horse of the two), and they
+struck into a trot. Halfway across we met
+another wagon, and its driver too had let
+his horses out. Illiteracy must be pretty
+common in these parts, I said to myself.
+But whatever my driver's educational deficiencies,
+it did not take long to discover that
+in his own line he was a master. He could
+hit the ear of his mule with the end of his
+whip with a precision that was almost startling.
+In fact, it <em>was</em> startling&mdash;to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+mule. For my own part, as often as he
+drew back his hand and let fly the lash, my
+eye was glued to the mule's right ear in
+spite of myself. Had my own ears been endowed
+with life and motion, instead of fastened
+to my head like blocks of wood, I think
+they too would have twitched. I wondered
+how long the man had practiced his art.
+He appeared to be not more than forty-five
+years old. Perhaps he came of a race of
+drivers, and so began life with some hereditary
+advantages. At all events, he was a
+specialist, with the specialist's motto, "This
+one thing I do."</p>
+
+<p>We were hardly off the bridge and in the
+country before I began plying him with
+questions about this and that, especially the
+wayside trees. He answered promptly and
+succinctly, and turned out to be a man who
+had kept his eyes open, and, better still,
+knew how to say, "No, suh," as well as,
+"Yes, suh." (There is no mark in the
+dictionaries to indicate the percussive brevity
+of the vowel sound in "suh" as he pronounced
+it.) The big tupelo he recognized
+as the "black-gum." "But isn't it ever
+called 'sour-gum'?" "No, suh." He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+knew but one kind of tupelo, as he knew
+but one kind of "ellum." There were many
+kinds of oaks, some of which he named as
+we passed them. This botanical catechism
+presently waked up the only other passenger
+in the wagon, a modest girl of ten or twelve
+years. She too, it appeared, had some acquaintance
+with trees. I had asked the
+driver if there were no long-leaved pines
+hereabout. "No, suh," he said. "But I
+think I saw some at Chickamauga the other
+day," I ventured. (It was the only place I
+did see them, as well as I remember.) "Yes,
+sir," put in the girl, "there are a good many
+there." "Good for you!" I was ready to
+say. It was a pretty rare schoolgirl who,
+after visiting a battlefield, could tell what
+kind of pines grow on it. Persimmons?
+Yes, indeed, the girl had eaten them.
+There was a tree by the fence. Had I never
+eaten them? She seemed to pity me when
+I said "No," but I fancied she would have
+preferred to see me begin with one a little
+short of ripe.</p>
+
+<p>As for the birds of Walden's Ridge, the
+driver said, there were partridges, pheasants,
+and turkeys. He had seen ravens, also,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+but only in winter, he thought, and never
+in flocks. His brother had once shot one.
+About smaller birds he could not profess
+to speak. By and by he stopped the carriage.
+"There's a bird now," he said,
+pointing with his whip. "What do you
+call that?" It was a summer tanager, I
+told him, or summer redbird. Did he know
+another redbird, with black wings and tail?
+Yes, he had seen it; that was the male, and
+this all-red one was the female. Oh no, I
+explained; the birds were of different species,
+and the females in both cases were yellow.
+He did not insist,&mdash;it was a case of a
+driver and his fare; but he had always
+been told so, he said, and I do not flatter
+myself that I convinced him to the contrary.
+It is hard to believe that one man can be so
+much wiser than everybody else. A Massachusetts
+farmer once asked me, I remember,
+if the night-hawk and the whippoorwill were
+male and female of the same bird. I answered,
+of course, that they were not, and
+gave, as I thought, abundant reason why
+such a thing could not be possible. But
+I spoke as a scribe. "Well," remarked
+the farmer, when I had finished my story,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+"some folks <em>say</em> they be, but I guess they
+<em>ain't</em>."</p>
+
+<p>With such converse, then, we beguiled
+the climb to the "Brow,"&mdash;the top of the
+cliffs which rim the summit of the mountain,
+and give it from below a fortified look,&mdash;and
+at last, after an hour's further drive
+through the dripping woods, came to the
+hotel at which I was to put up&mdash;or with
+which I was to put up&mdash;during my stay on
+the Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>I had hardly taken the road, the next
+morning, impatient to see what this little
+world on a mountain top was like, before I
+came to a lovely brook making its devious
+course among big boulders with much pleasant
+gurgling, in the shadow of mountain
+laurel and white azalea,&mdash;a place highly
+characteristic of Walden's Ridge, as I was
+afterwards to learn. Just now, naturally,
+there was no stopping so near home, though
+a Kentucky warbler, with his cool, liquid
+song, did his best to beguile me; and I kept
+on my way, past a few houses, a tiny box of
+a post-office, a rude church, and a few more
+houses, till just beyond the last one the road
+dropped into the forest again, as if for good.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+And there, all at once I seemed to be
+in New Hampshire. The land fell away
+sharply, and at one particular point, through
+a vista, the forest could be seen sloping down
+on either side to the gap, beyond which,
+miles away, loomed a hill, and then, far, far
+in the distance, high mountains dim with
+haze. It was like a note of sublimity in a
+poem that till now had been only beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>From the bottom of the valley came a
+sound of running water, and between me
+and the invisible stream a chorus of olive-backed
+thrushes were singing,&mdash;the same
+simple and hearty strains that, in June and
+July, echo all day long through the woods
+of the Crawford Notch. The birds were on
+their way from the far South, and were
+happy to find themselves in so homelike a
+place. Then, suddenly, amid the golden
+voices of the thrushes, I caught the wiry
+notes of a warbler. They came from the
+treetops in the valley, and&mdash;so I prided
+myself upon guessing&mdash;belonged to a cerulean
+warbler, a bird of which I had seen my
+first and only specimen a week before, on
+Lookout Mountain. Down the steep hillside
+I scrambled,&mdash;New Hampshire clean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+forgotten,&mdash;and was just bringing my glass
+into play when the fellow took wing, and
+began singing at the very point I had just
+left. I hastened back; he flew again, farther
+up the hill, and again I put myself out
+of breath with pursuing him. Again and
+again he sang, now in this tree, now in that,
+but there was no getting sight of him. The
+trees should have been shorter, or the bird
+larger. Straight upward I gazed, till the
+muscles of my neck cried for mercy. At
+last I saw him, flitting amid the dense foliage,
+but so far above me, and so exactly
+between me and the sun, that I might as
+well not have seen him at all.</p>
+
+<p>It was a foolish half-hour. The bird, as
+I afterwards discovered, was nothing but a
+blue yellow-back, with an original twist to
+his song. In Massachusetts, I should not
+have listened to it twice, but on new hunting-grounds
+a man is bound to look for new
+game; else what would be the use of traveling?
+It was a foolish half-hour, I say; but
+I wish some moralist would explain, in a
+manner not inconsistent with the dignity of
+human nature, how it happens that foolish
+half-hours are commonly so much more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+enjoyable at the time, and so much pleasanter
+in the retrospect, than many that are
+more reasonably employed.</p>
+
+<p>I swallowed my disappointment, and
+presently forgot it, for at the first turn in
+the road I found myself following the
+course of a brook or creek, between which
+and myself was a dense thicket of mountain
+laurel and rhododendron, with trees and
+other shrubs intermingled. The laurel was
+already in full bloom, while the rhododendrons
+held aloft clusters of gorgeous rose-purple
+buds, a few of which, the middle ones
+of the cluster, were just bursting into flower.
+Here was beauty of a new order,&mdash;such
+wealth and splendor of color in surroundings
+so romantic. And the place, besides, was
+alive with singing birds: hooded warblers,
+Kentucky warblers, a Canadian warbler, a
+black-throated blue, a black-throated green,
+a blue yellow-back, scarlet tanagers, wood
+pewees, wood thrushes, a field sparrow (on
+the hillside beyond) a cardinal, a chat, a
+bunch of white-throated sparrows, and who
+could tell what else? It was an exciting
+moment. Luckily, a man can look and
+listen both at once. Here was a fringe-tree,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+a noble specimen, hung with creamy-white
+plumes; here was a magnolia, with
+big leaves and big flowers; and here was
+a flowering dogwood, not to be put out of
+countenance in any company; but especially,
+here were the rhododendrons! And
+all the while, deep in the thickest of the
+bushes, some unknown bird was singing a
+strange, breathless jumble of a song, note
+tripping over note,&mdash;like an eager churchman
+with his responses, I kept saying to
+myself, with no thought of disrespect to
+either party. It cost me a long vigil and
+much patient coaxing to make the fellow
+out, and he proved to be merely a Wilson's
+blackcap, after all; but he was the only
+bird of his kind that I saw in Tennessee.</p>
+
+<p>On this first visit I did not get far beyond
+the creek, through the bed of which the
+road runs, with a single log for foot-passengers.
+I had spent at least an hour in going
+a hundred rods, and it was already drawing
+near dinner time. But I returned to the
+spot that very afternoon, and half a dozen
+times afterward. So poor a traveler am
+I, so ill fitted to explore a new country.
+Whenever nothing in particular offered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+itself, why, it was always pretty down at
+Falling Water Creek. There I saw the
+rhododendrons come into exuberant bloom,
+and there I oftenest see them in memory,
+though I found them elsewhere in greater
+abundance, and in a setting even more
+romantic.</p>
+
+<p>More romantic, perhaps, but hardly more
+beautiful. I remember, just beyond the
+creek, a bank where sweet bush (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Calycanthus</i>),
+wild ginger (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Asarum</i>), rhododendron,
+laurel, and plenty of trailing arbutus (the
+last now out of flower) were growing side
+by side,&mdash;a rare combination of beauty
+and fragrance. And within a few rods of
+the same spot I sat down more than once to
+take a long look at a cross-vine covering a
+dead hemlock. The branches of the tree,
+shortening regularly to the top, were draped
+heavily with gray lichens, while the vine,
+keeping mostly near the trunk and climbing
+clean to the tip,&mdash;fifty feet or more, as I
+thought,&mdash;was hung throughout with large,
+orange-red, gold-lined bells. Their numbers
+were past guessing. Here and there a
+spray of them swung lightly from the end of
+a branch, as if inviting the breeze to lend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+them motion and a voice. The sight was
+worth going miles to see, and yet I passed
+it three times before it caught my eye, so
+full were the woods of things to look at.
+After all, <em>is</em> it a poor traveler who turns
+again and again into the same path?
+Whether is better, to read two good books
+once, or one good book twice?</p>
+
+<p>A favorite shorter walk, at odd minutes,&mdash;before
+breakfast and between showers,&mdash;was
+through the woods for a quarter of a
+mile to a small clearing and a cabin. On a
+Sunday afternoon I ventured to pass the
+gate and make a call upon my neighbors.
+The doors of the house stood open, but a
+glance inside showed that there was no one
+there, and I walked round it, inspecting the
+garden,&mdash;corn, beans, and potatoes coming
+on,&mdash;till, just as I was ready to turn back
+into the woods, I descried a man and woman
+on the hillside not far away; the man leading
+a mule, and the woman picking strawberries.
+At sight of a stranger the woman
+fell behind, but the man kept on to the
+house, greeted me politely, and invited me
+to be seated under the hemlock, where two
+chairs were already placed. After tying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+the mule he took the other chair, and we fell
+into talk about the weather, the crops, and
+things in general. When the wife finally
+appeared, I rose, of course; but she went on
+in silence and entered the house, while the
+husband said, "Oh, keep your seat." We
+continued our conversation till the rain began
+to fall. Then we picked up our chairs
+and followed the woman inside. She sat in
+the middle of the room (young, pretty, newly
+married, and Sunday-dressed), but never
+once opened her lips. Her behavior was in
+strict accordance with local etiquette, I was
+afterward assured (as if <em>all</em> etiquette were
+not local); but though I admire feminine
+modesty as much as any man, I cannot say
+that I found this particular manifestation of
+it altogether to my liking. Silence is golden,
+no doubt, and gold is more precious than
+silver, but in cases of this figurative sort I
+profess myself a bimetallist. A <em>little</em> silver,
+I say; enough for small change, at any rate;
+and if we can have a pretty free coinage,
+why, so much the better, though as to that,
+it must be admitted, a good deal depends
+upon the "image and superscription." However,
+my hostess followed her lights, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+reserved her voice&mdash;soft and musical let us
+hope&mdash;for her husband's ear.</p>
+
+<p>They had not lived in the house very long,
+he told me, and he did not know how many
+years the land had been cleared. There
+was a fair amount of game in the woods,&mdash;turkeys,
+squirrels, pheasants, and so on,&mdash;and
+in winter the men did considerable
+hunting. Formerly there were a good many
+deer, but they had been pretty well killed
+off. Turkeys still held out. They were
+gobbling now. His father had been trying
+for two or three weeks, off and on, to shoot
+a certain old fellow who had several hens
+with him down in the valley. His father
+could call with his mouth better than with
+any "caller," but so far the bird had been
+too sharp for him. The son laughed good-naturedly
+when I confessed to an unsportsmanlike
+sympathy with the gobbler.</p>
+
+<p>The cabin, built of hewn logs, with clay
+in the chinks, was neatly furnished, with
+beds in two corners of the one room, a stone
+chimney, two doors directly opposite each
+other, and no window. The doors, it is
+understood, are always to be open, for ventilation
+and light. Such is the custom; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+custom is nowhere more powerful than in
+small rustic communities. If a native, led
+away by his wife, perhaps, puts a window
+into his new cabin, the neighbors say, "Oh,
+he is building a glass house, isn't he?"
+It must be an effeminate woman, they think,
+who cannot do her cooking and sewing by
+the light of the door. None the less, in a
+climate where snow is possible in the middle
+of May, such a Spartan arrangement must
+sometimes be found a bit uncomfortable by
+persons not to the manner born. A preacher
+confided to me that in his pastoral calls he
+had once or twice made bold to push to a
+door directly at his back, when the wind
+was cold; but the innovation was ill received,
+and the inmates of the house, doubtless
+without wishing to hurt their minister's feelings,&mdash;since
+he had meant no harm, to be
+sure, but was simply unused to the ways of
+the world,&mdash;speedily found some excuse for
+rectifying his mistake. Probably there is
+no corner of the world where the question
+of fresh air and draughts is not available
+for purposes of moral discipline.</p>
+
+<p>Beside the path to the cabin, on the 13th
+of May, was a gray-cheeked thrush, a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+gray specimen, sitting motionless in the best
+of lights. "Look at me," he seemed to say.
+"I am no olive-back. My cheeks are not
+sallow." On the same day, here and in
+another place, I saw white-throated sparrows.
+Their presence at this late hour was a great
+surprise, and suggested the possibility of
+their breeding somewhere in the Carolina
+mountains, though I am not aware that such
+an occurrence has ever been recorded. Another
+recollection of this path is of a snow-white
+milkweed (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Asclepias variegata</i>),&mdash;white
+with the merest touch of purple to set
+it off,&mdash;for the downright elegance of which
+I was not in the least prepared. The queen
+of all milkweeds, surely.</p>
+
+<p>After nightfall the air grew loud with the
+cries of batrachians and insects, an interesting
+and novel chorus. On my first evening
+at the hotel I was loitering up the road, with
+frequent auditory pauses, thinking how full
+the world is of unseen creatures which find
+their day only after the sun goes down, when
+in a woody spot I heard behind me a sound
+of footsteps. A woman was close at my
+heels, fetching a pail of water from the
+spring. I remarked upon the many voices.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+She answered pleasantly. It was the big
+frogs that I heard, she reckoned.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you have whippoorwills here?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty of 'em," she answered, "plenty
+of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear them right along the road?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; oh yes."</p>
+
+<p>We had gone hardly a rod further before
+we exclaimed in the same breath, "There is
+one now!"</p>
+
+<p>I inquired if there was another bird here,
+something like the whippoorwill, meaning
+the chuck-will's-widow. But she said no;
+she knew of but one.</p>
+
+<p>"How early does the whippoorwill get
+here?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty early," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"By the first of April, should you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I think about then. I know
+the timber is just beginning to put out when
+they begin to holler."</p>
+
+<p>This mannerly treatment of a stranger
+was more Christian-like than the stately
+silence of my lady of the cabin, it seemed to
+me. I liked it better, at all events. I had
+learned nothing, perhaps; but unless a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+is far gone in philosophy he need not feel
+bound to increase in wisdom every time a
+neighbor speaks to him; and anyhow, that
+expression about the "putting out of the
+timber" had given me pleasure. Hearing
+it thus was better than finding it upon a
+page of Stevenson, or some other author
+whose business in life is the picking of right
+words. Let us have some silver, I repeat.
+I am ready to believe, what I have somewhere
+read, that men will have to give
+account not only for every idle word, but
+for every idle silence.</p>
+
+<p>The summit of the Ridge, as soon as one
+leaves its precipitous rocky edge,&mdash;the
+Brow, so called,&mdash;is simply an indefinite
+expanse of gently rolling country, thin-soiled,
+but well watered, and covered with fine open
+woods, rambling through which the visitor
+finds little to remind him of his elevation
+above the world. I heard a resident speak
+of going to the "top of the mountain," however,
+and on inquiry learned that a certain
+rocky eminence, two miles, more or less,
+from Fairmount (the little "settlement"
+where I was staying), went by that name,
+and was supposed to be the highest point of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+the Ridge. My informant kindly made me a
+rough map of the way thither, and one morning
+I set out in that direction. It would be
+shameful to live for a week on the "summit"
+of a mountain, and not once go to the "top."</p>
+
+<p>The glory of Walden's Ridge, as compared
+with Lookout Mountain,&mdash;so the
+dwellers there say,&mdash;is its streams and
+springs; and my morning path soon brought
+me to the usual rocky brook bordered with
+mountain laurel, holly, and hemlock. To
+my New England eyes it was an odd circumstance,
+the hemlocks growing always along
+the creeks in the valley bottoms. Beyond
+this point I passed an abandoned cabin,&mdash;no
+other house in sight,&mdash;and by and by
+a second one, near which, in the garden
+(better worth preserving than the house, it
+appeared), a woman and two children were
+at work. Yes, the woman said, I was on the
+right path. I had only to keep a straight
+course, and I should bring up at the "top
+of the mountain." A little farther, and my
+spirits rose at the sight of a circular, sedgy,
+woodland pond, such a place as I had not
+seen in all this Chattanooga country. It
+ought to yield something new for my local<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+ornithological list, which up to this time included
+ninety species, and not one of them
+a water-bird. I did my best, beating round
+the edge and "squeaking," but startled nothing
+rarer than a hooded warbler and a
+cardinal grosbeak.</p>
+
+<p>Next I traversed a long stretch of unbroken
+oak woods, with single tall pines interspersed;
+and then all at once the path
+turned to the right, and ran obliquely downhill
+to a clearing in which stood a house,&mdash;not
+a cabin,&mdash;with a garden, orchard trees,
+and beehives. This should be the German
+shoemaker's, I thought, looking at my map.
+If so, I was pretty near the top, though
+otherwise there was no sign of it; and if I
+had made any considerable ascent, it had
+been as children increase in stature,&mdash;and
+as the good increase in goodness,&mdash;unconsciously.
+A woman of some years was in
+the garden, and at my approach came up
+to the fence,&mdash;a round-faced, motherly
+body. Yes, the top of the mountain was
+just beyond. I could not miss it.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not live here?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>No, I explained; I was a stranger on the
+Ridge,&mdash;a stranger from Boston.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"From Washington?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, from Boston."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! from Boston!&mdash;Massachusetts!&mdash;Oh-h-h!"</p>
+
+<p>She would go part way with me, she said,
+lest I should miss the path. Perhaps she
+wished to show some special hospitality to
+a man from Massachusetts; or possibly she
+thought I must be more in danger of getting
+bewildered, being so far from home. But
+I could not think of troubling her. Was
+there a spring near by, where I could drink?</p>
+
+<p>"I have water in the house," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't there a creek down in the valley
+ahead?"</p>
+
+<p>Oh yes, there was a creek; but had I anything
+to drink out of? I thanked her. Yes,
+I had a cup. "My husband will be at home
+by the time you come back," she said, as I
+started on, and I promised to call.</p>
+
+<p>The scene at the brook, halfway between
+the German's house and the top, would of
+itself have paid me for my morning's jaunt.
+I stood on a boulder in mid-current, in the
+shadow of overhanging trees, and drank it
+in. Such rhododendrons and laurel, now in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+the perfection of their beauty! One rhododendron
+bush was at least ten feet high,
+and loaded with blooms. Another lifted its
+crown of a dozen rose-purple clusters amid
+the dark foliage of a hemlock. A magnolia-tree
+stood near; but though it was much
+taller than the laurel or the rhododendron,
+and had much larger flowers, it made little
+show beside them. Birds were singing on
+all hands, and numbers of gay-colored butterflies
+flitted about, sipping here and there
+at a blossom. I remember especially a fine
+tiger swallow-tail; the only one I saw in
+Tennessee, I believe. I remember, too, how
+well the rhododendron became him. Here,
+as in many other places, the laurel was
+nearly white; a happy circumstance, as it
+and the rhododendron went the more harmoniously
+together. Even in this high
+company, some tufts of cinnamon fern were
+not to be overlooked; the fertile cinnamon-brown
+fronds were now at their loveliest,
+and showed as bravely here, I thought, as in
+the barest of Massachusetts swamp-lands.</p>
+
+<p>A few rods more, up a moderate slope,
+and I was at the top of the mountain,&mdash;a
+wall of out-cropping rocks, falling off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+abruptly on the further side, and looking
+almost like an artificial rampart. Beyond
+me, to my surprise, I heard the hum of
+cicadas,&mdash;seventeen-year locusts,&mdash;a sound
+of which the lower country had for some
+time been full, but of which, till this moment,
+I had heard nothing on the Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>As for the prospect, it was far reaching,
+but only in one direction, and through openings
+among the trees. Directly before me,
+some hundreds of feet below, was a piece of
+road, with a single cabin and a barn; and
+much farther away were other cabins, each
+with its private clearing. Elsewhere the
+foreground was an unbroken forest. For
+some time I could not distinguish the Ridge
+itself from the outlying world. Mountains
+and hills crowded the hazy horizon, range
+beyond range. Moving along the rocks, I
+found a vista through which Chattanooga
+and Lookout Mountain were visible. Another
+change, and a stretch of the Tennessee
+River came into sight, and, beyond it, Missionary
+Ridge with its settlements and its
+two observatories. Evidently I was considerably
+above the level of the Brow; but
+whether this was really the top of the mountain&mdash;reached,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+in some mysterious way,
+without going uphill&mdash;was more than I
+could say.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nor did it matter. I was glad to be
+there. It was a pleasant place and a pleasant
+hour, with an oak root for a seat, and
+never an insect to trouble me. That, by the
+way, was true of all those Tennessee forests,&mdash;when
+I was there, I mean; from what I
+heard, the ticks and jiggers must be bad
+enough later in the season. As men do at
+such times,&mdash;for human nature is of noble
+origin, and feels no surprise at being well
+treated,&mdash;I took my immunity as a matter
+of course, and only realized how I had been
+favored when I got back to Massachusetts,
+where, on my first visit to the woods, I was
+fairly driven out by swarms of mosquitoes.</p>
+
+<p>The shoemaker was at home when I
+reached his house on my return, and at the
+urgent invitation of himself and his wife I
+joined them on the piazza for a bit of neighborly
+chat. I found him a smallish man,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>not German in appearance, but looking, I
+thought, like Thoreau, only grown a little
+older. He had been on Walden's Ridge for
+fifteen years. Before that he was in South
+Carolina, but the yellow fever came along
+and made him feel like getting out. Yes,
+this was a healthy country. He had nothing
+to complain of; he was sixty-two years old
+and his doctors' bills had never amounted to
+"five dollar."</p>
+
+<p>"Do <em>you</em> like living here?" I asked his
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she answered promptly; "I never
+did. But then," she added, "we can't help
+it. If you own something, you know, you
+have to stay."</p>
+
+<p>The author of Walden would have appreciated
+that remark. There was no shoemaking
+to be done here, the man said, his
+nearest neighbor being half a mile distant
+through the woods; and there was no clover,
+so that his bees did not do very well; and
+the frost had just killed all his peach-trees;
+but when I asked if he never felt homesick
+for Germany, the answer came like a pistol
+shot,&mdash;"No."</p>
+
+<p>I inquired about a cave, of which I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+heard reports. Yes, it was a good cave,
+they said; I could easily find it. But their
+directions conveyed no very clear idea to
+my mind, and by and by the woman began
+talking to her husband in German. "She
+is telling him he ought to go with me
+and show me the way," I said to myself;
+and the next moment she came back to
+English. "He will go with you," she said.
+I demurred, but he protested that he could
+do it as well as not. "Take up a stick;
+you might see a snake," his wife called after
+him, as we left the house. He smiled, but
+did not follow her advice, though I fancied
+he would have done so had she gone along
+with us. A half-mile or so through the
+pathless woods brought us to the cave,
+which might hold a hundred persons, I
+thought. The dribbling "creek" fell over
+it in front. Then the man took me to my
+path, pointed my way homeward, and, with
+a handshake (the silver lining of which was
+not refused, though I had been troubled
+with a scruple), bade me good-by. First,
+however, he told me that if I found any one
+in Boston who wanted to buy a place on
+Walden's Ridge, he would sell a part of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+or the whole of it. I remember him most
+kindly, and would gladly do him a service.
+If any reader, having a landed investment
+in view, should desire my intervention in
+the premises, I am freely at his command;
+only let him bear in mind the terms of the
+deed: "If you own something, you know,
+you have to stay."</p>
+
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<p>Fairmount, as has already been said, is
+but a clearing in the forest. Instead of a
+solitary cabin, as elsewhere, there are perhaps
+a dozen or two of cabins and houses
+scattered along the road, which emerges
+from the woods at one end of the settlement,
+and, after a mile or so in the sun, drops
+into them again at the other end. The
+glory of the place, and the reason of its
+being, as I suppose, is a chalybeate spring
+in a woody hollow before the post-office.
+There may be a shop of some kind, also,
+but memory retains no such impression.
+One building, rather larger than most of
+its neighbors, and apparently unoccupied, I
+looked at more than once with a measure
+of that curiosity which is everywhere the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+stranger's privilege. It sat squarely on the
+road, and boasted a sort of portico or piazza,&mdash;it
+puzzled me what to call it,&mdash;but there
+was no vestige of a chimney. One day a
+ragged, bright-faced boy met me at the right
+moment, and I asked, "Did some one use
+to live in that house?" "That?" said he,
+in a tone I shall never forget. "That's a
+barn. That over there is the dwelling."
+My ignorance was fittingly rebuked, and I
+had no spirit to inquire about the piazza.
+Probably it was nothing but a lean-to.
+Even in my humiliation, however, it pleased
+me to hear what I should have called that
+good literary word "dwelling" on such lips.
+A Yankee boy might have said "dwelling-house,"
+but no Yankee of any age, or none
+that I have ever known, would have said
+"dwelling," though he might have read the
+word in books a thousand times. I thought
+of a spruce colored waiter in Florida, who,
+when I asked him at breakfast how the day
+was likely to turn out, answered promptly,
+"I think it will be inclement." It may
+reasonably be counted among the minor
+advantages of travel that it enriches one's
+every-day vocabulary.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another Fairmount building (an unmistakable
+house, this time) is memorable to
+me because on the doorstep, day after day,
+an old gentleman and a younger antagonist&mdash;they
+might have been grandfather and
+grandson&mdash;were playing checkers. "I
+hope you are beating the young fellow," I
+could not help saying once to the old gentleman.
+He smiled dubiously, and made
+some halting reply suggestive of resignation
+rather than triumph; and it came to me
+with a kind of pang, as I passed on, that if
+growing old is a bad business, as most of us
+think, it is perhaps an unfavorable symptom
+when a man finds himself, not out of
+politeness, but as a simple matter of course,
+taking sides with the aged.</p>
+
+<p>Fairmounters, living in the woods, have
+no outlook upon the world. If they wish to
+see off, they must go to the Brow, which, by
+a stroller's guess, may be two miles distant.
+My first visit to it was the pleasanter&mdash;the
+more vacational, so to speak&mdash;for being an
+accident. I sauntered aimlessly down the
+road, past the scattered houses and orchards
+(the raising of early apples seemed to be
+a leading industry on the Ridge, though a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+Chattanooga gentleman had assured me that
+the principal crops were blackberries and
+rabbits), and almost before I knew it, was
+in the same delightful woods that had welcomed
+me wherever I had gone. And in
+the same woods the same birds were singing.
+My notes make particular record of hooded
+and Kentucky warblers, these being two of
+my newer acquaintances, as well as two of
+the commoner Ridge songsters; but I halted
+for some time, and with even a livelier interest,
+to listen to an old friend (no acquaintance,
+if you please),&mdash;a black-throated
+green warbler. It was one of the queerest
+of songs: a bar of five or six notes, uniform
+in pitch, and then at once, in perfect form
+and voice,&mdash;the voice being a main part of
+the music in the case of this warbler,&mdash;the
+familiar <em>trees</em>, <em>trees</em>, <em>murmuring trees</em>.
+Where could the fellow have picked up such
+a ditty? No doubt there was some story
+connected with it. Nothing is born of itself.
+A dozen years ago, in the Green Mountains,&mdash;at
+Bread-Loaf Inn,&mdash;I heard from the
+forest by the roadside a song utterly strange,
+and hastened in search of its author. After
+much furtive approach and diligent scanning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+of the foliage, I had the bird under my
+opera-glass,&mdash;a black-throated blue warbler!
+With my eye still upon him, he sang
+again and again, and the song bore no faintest
+resemblance to the <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, <em>kree</em>, which
+all New England bird-lovers know as the
+work of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica cÊrulescens</i>. In what
+private school he had been educated I have
+no idea; but I believe that every such
+extreme eccentricity goes back to something
+out of the common in the bird's early
+training.</p>
+
+<p>I felt in no haste. Life is easy in the
+Tennessee mountains. A pile of lumber,
+newly unloaded near the road,&mdash;in the
+woods, of course,&mdash;offered a timely seat,
+and I took it. Some Chattanooga gentleman
+was planning a summer cottage for
+himself, I gathered. May he enjoy it for
+twenty years as much as I did for twenty
+minutes. Not far beyond, near a fork in the
+road, a man of twenty-five or thirty, a youth
+of sixteen or seventeen, and a small boy were
+playing marbles in a cabin yard. I interrupted
+the sport long enough to inquire
+which road I had better take. I was going
+nowhere in particular, I explained, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+wanted simply a pleasant stroll. "Then I
+would go to the Brow, if I were you," said
+the man. "Keep a straight road. It isn't
+far." I thanked him, and with a cheery
+"Come on!" to his playmates he ran back,
+literally, to the ring. Yes, life is easy in
+the Tennessee mountains. It is not to be
+assumed, nevertheless, that the man was a
+do-nothing: probably he had struck work
+for a few minutes only; but, like a sensible
+player, he was enjoying the game while it
+lasted. Perhaps it is a certain inborn Puritanical
+industriousness, against which I have
+never found the courage effectually to rebel,
+that makes me look back upon this dooryard
+comedy as one of the brightest incidents
+of my Tennessee vacation. Fancy a
+Massachusetts farmer playing marbles at
+nine o'clock in the forenoon!</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, it must be owned, a rebuke
+of idleness would have fallen with a
+poor grace from my Massachusetts lips. If
+the player of marbles had followed his questioner
+round the first turn, he would have
+seen him standing motionless beside a swamp,
+holding his head on one side as if listening,&mdash;though
+there was nothing to be heard,&mdash;or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+evoking ridiculous squeaking noises by
+sucking idiotically the back of his hand.
+Well, I was trying to find another bird, just
+as he was trying to knock another marble
+out of the ring.</p>
+
+<p>The spot invited such researches,&mdash;a
+bushy swamp, quite unlike the dry woods
+and rocky woodland brooks which I had
+found everywhere else. I had seen my
+first cerulean warbler on Lookout Mountain,
+my first Cape May warbler on Cameron
+Hill, my first Kentucky warbler on Missionary
+Ridge, and my first blue-winged yellow
+warbler at the Chickamauga battlefield. If
+Walden was to treat me equally well, as in
+all fairness it ought, now was the time.
+Looking, listening, and squeaking were alike
+unrewarded, however, till I approached the
+same spot on my return. Then some bird
+sang a new song. I hoped it was a prothonotary
+warbler, a bird I had never seen, and
+about whose notes I knew nothing. More
+likely it was a Louisiana water-thrush, a
+bird I had seen, but had never heard sing.
+Whichever it was, alas, it speedily fell silent,
+and no beating of the bush proved of the
+least avail.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile I had been to the Brow, where
+I had sat for an hour or more on the edge
+of the mountain, gazing down upon the
+world. The sky was clouded, but here and
+there were fugitive patches of sunshine, now
+on Missionary Ridge, now on the river, now
+glorifying the smoke of the city. Southward,
+just across the valley and over Chattanooga,
+was Lookout Mountain; eastward stretched
+Missionary Ridge, with many higher hills
+behind it; and more to the north, and far
+in the distance, loomed the Great Smoky
+Mountains, in all respects true to their
+name. The valley at my feet was beautiful
+beyond words: green forests interspersed
+with green clearings, lonely cabins, and bare
+fields of red earth. At the north, Walden's
+Ridge made a turn eastward, narrowing
+the valley, but without ending it. Chimney
+swifts were cackling merrily, and the air was
+full of the hum of seventeen-year locusts,&mdash;miles
+and miles of continuous sound. From
+somewhere far below rose the tinkle of cow-bells.
+Even on that cloudy and smoky day
+it was a glorious landscape; but it pleased
+me afterward to remember that the eye returned
+of itself again and again to a stretch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+of freshly green meadow along a slender
+watercourse,&mdash;a valley within the valley.
+Of all the fair picture, that was the most
+like home.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile there was no forgetting that
+undiscovered stranger in the swamp. Whoever
+he was, he must be made to show
+himself; and the next day, when the usual
+noonday deluge was past, I looked at the
+clouds, and said: "We shall have another,
+but in the interval I can probably reach the
+Brow. There I will take shelter on the
+piazza of an unoccupied cottage, and, when
+the rain is over, go back to the swamp, see
+my bird, and thence return home." So it
+turned out&mdash;in part. The clouds hurried
+me, but I reached the Brow just in season,
+climbed the cottage fence, the gate being
+padlocked, and, thoroughly heated as I was,
+paced briskly to and fro on the piazza in
+a chilling breeze for an hour or more, the
+flood all the while threatening to fall, and
+the thunder shaking the house. There was
+plenty to look at, for the cottage faced the
+Great Smokies, and though we were under
+the blackest of clouds, the landscape below
+was largely in the sun. The noise of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+locusts was incessant. Nothing but the peals
+of thunder kept it out of my ears.</p>
+
+<p>So far, then, my plans had prospered;
+but to find the mysterious bird,&mdash;that was
+not so easy. The swamp was silent, and I
+was at once so cold and so hot, and so badly
+under the weather already, that I dared not
+linger.</p>
+
+<p>In the woods, nevertheless, I stopped long
+enough to enjoy the music of a master
+cardinal,&mdash;a bewitching song, and, as I
+thought, original: <em>birdy</em>, <em>birdy</em>, repeated
+about ten times in the sweetest of whistles,
+and then a sudden descent in the pitch, and
+the same syllables over again. At that
+instant, a Carolina wren, as if stirred to
+rivalry, sprang into a bush and began
+whistling <em>cherry</em>, <em>cherry</em>, <em>cherry</em> at his
+loudest and prettiest. It was a royal duet.
+The cardinal was in magnificent plumage,
+and a scarlet tanager near by was equally
+handsome. If the tanager could whistle
+like the cardinal, our New England woods
+would have a bird to brag of.</p>
+
+<p>Not far beyond these wayside musicians I
+came upon a boy sitting beside a wood-pile,
+with his saw lying on the ground. "It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+easier to sit down than to saw wood,
+isn't it?" said I. Possibly he was unused
+to such aphoristic modes of speech. He
+took time to consider. Then he smiled, and
+said, "Yes, sir." The answer was all-sufficient.
+We spoke from experience, both of
+us; and between men who <em>know</em>, whatever
+the matter in hand, disagreement is
+impossible and amplification needless.</p>
+
+<p>Three days later&mdash;my last day on the
+Ridge&mdash;I had better luck at the swamp.
+The stranger was singing on the nearer
+edge as I approached, and I had simply to
+draw near and look at him,&mdash;a Louisiana
+water-thrush. He sang, and I listened;
+and farther along, at the little bridge where
+I had first heard the song, another like him
+was in tune. The strain, as warbler songs
+go ("water-thrushes" being not thrushes,
+but warblers), is rather striking,&mdash;clear,
+pretty loud, of about ten notes, the first pair
+of which are longest and best. I speak of
+what I heard, and give, of course, my own
+impression. Audubon pronounces the notes
+"as powerful and mellow, and at times as
+varied," as those of the nightingale, and
+Wilson waxes almost equally enthusiastic in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+his praise of the "exquisitely sweet and
+expressive voice." Here, as in Florida, I
+was interested to perceive how instantly the
+bird's appearance and carriage distinguished
+it from its Northern relative, although the
+descriptions of the two species, as given in
+books, sound confusingly alike. It is matter
+for thankfulness, perhaps, that language
+is not yet so all-expressive as to render
+individual eyesight superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>I kept on to the Brow, and some time
+afterward was at Mabbitt's Spring, quenching
+my thirst with a draught of liquid iron
+rust, when a third songster of the same kind
+struck up his tune. The spring, spurting
+out of the rock in a slender jet, is beside the
+same stream&mdash;Little Falling Water&mdash;that
+makes through the swamp; and along its
+banks, it appeared, the water-thrushes were
+at home. I was glad to have heard the
+famous singer, but my satisfaction was not
+without alloy. Walden, after all, had failed
+to show me a new bird, though it had given
+me a new song.</p>
+
+<p>The most fatiguing, and perhaps the most
+interesting of my days on the Ridge was
+the one day in which I did not travel on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+foot. Passing through the village, on my
+return from one of my earlier visits to
+Falling Water, I stopped a nice-looking
+man (if he will pardon the expression,
+copied from my notes), driving a horse with
+a pair of clothes-line reins. He had an air
+of being at home, and naturally I took him
+for a native. Would he tell me something
+about the country, especially about the
+roads, so that I might improve my scanty
+time to the best advantage? Very gladly,
+he answered. He had walked and driven
+over the mountain a good deal, surveying,
+and if I would call at his house, a short distance
+down the road,&mdash;the house with the
+big barn,&mdash;he would make me a rough map,
+such as would answer my purpose. At the
+same time he mentioned two or three shorter
+excursions which I ought not to miss; and
+when I had thanked him for his kindness,
+he gathered up the reins and drove on.
+Intending no disrespect to the inhabitants of
+the Ridge, I may perhaps be allowed to say
+that I was considerably impressed by a certain
+unexpected propriety, and even elegance,
+of diction, on the part of my new
+acquaintance. I remember in particular his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+description of a pleasant cold spring as
+being situated not far from the "confluence"
+of two streams. <i>Con-fluens</i>, I
+thought, flowing together. Having always
+something else to do, I omitted to call at
+his house, and one day, when we met again
+in the road, I apologized for my neglect,
+and asked another favor. He was familiar
+with the country, and kept a horse. Could
+he not spare a day to take me about? If
+he thought this proposal a bit presumptuous,
+courtesy restrained him from letting the fact
+be seen, and, after a few minutes of deliberation,&mdash;his
+hands being pretty full just
+then, he explained,&mdash;he promised to call
+for me two mornings later, at seven o'clock.
+We would take a luncheon along, and make
+a day of it.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared at the gate in due season,
+and in a few minutes we were driving over
+a road new to me, but through the same
+spacious oak woods to which I had grown
+accustomed. We went first to Burnt Cabin
+Spring, one of the famous chalybeate springs
+of the mountain,&mdash;a place formerly frequented
+by picnic parties, but now, to all appearance,
+fallen into neglect. We stretched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+our legs, drank of the water, admired the
+flowers and ferns, talking all the while (it
+was here that my companion told a story of
+a young theologian from Grant University,
+who, in a solemn discourse, spoke repeatedly
+of Jacob as having "euchred his brother
+out of his birthright"), and then, while a
+"pheasant" drummed near by, took our
+places again in the buggy.</p>
+
+<p>Another stage, still through the oak
+woods, and we were at Signal Point, famous&mdash;in
+local tradition, at least&mdash;as the station
+from which General Sherman signaled encouragement
+to the Union army beleaguered
+in Chattanooga, in danger of starvation or
+surrender. I had looked at the bold, jutting
+crags from Lookout Mountain and elsewhere,
+and rejoiced at last to stand upon them.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been delightful to spend
+a long day there, lying upon the cliffs and
+enjoying the prospect, which, without being
+so far-reaching as from Point Lookout, or
+even from the eastern brim of Walden, is
+yet extensive and surpassingly beautiful.
+The visitor is squarely above the river,
+which here, in the straitened valley between
+the Ridge and Raccoon Mountain, grows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+narrower and narrower till it rushes through
+the "Suck." Even at that elevation we
+could hear the roar of the rapids. A short
+distance above the Suck, and almost at
+our feet, lay Williams Island. A farmer's
+Eden it looked, with its broad, newly
+planted fields, and its house surrounded by
+out-buildings and orchard-trees. The view
+included Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge,
+and much else; but its special charm was
+its foreground, the part peculiar to itself,&mdash;the
+valley, the river, and Raccoon Mountain.
+Along the river-banks were small clearings,
+each with its one cabin, and generally a
+figure or two ploughing or planting. A
+man in a strangely long boat&mdash;a dugout,
+probably&mdash;was making his difficult way
+upstream with a paddle. The Tennessee,
+in the neighborhood of Chattanooga, at all
+events, is too swift for pleasure-boating.
+Seen from above, as I commonly saw it, it
+looked tranquil enough; but when I came
+down to its edge, now and then, the speed
+and energetic sweep of the smooth current
+laid fast hold upon me. From the mountains
+to the sea is a long, long journey, and no
+wonder the river felt in haste.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had gone to Signal Point not as an
+ornithologist, but as a patriot and a lover
+of beauty; but, being there, I added one to
+my list of Tennessee birds,&mdash;a red-tailed
+hawk, one of the very few hawks seen in all
+my trip. Sailing below us, it displayed its
+rusty, diagnostic tail, and put its identity at
+once beyond question.</p>
+
+<p>Our next start&mdash;far too speedy, for the
+day was short&mdash;was for Williams Point;
+but on our way thither we descended into
+the valley of Shoal Creek, down which, with
+the creek to keep it company, runs the old
+mountain road, now disused and practically
+impassable. Here we hitched the horse,
+and strolled downwards for perhaps half a
+mile. I was never in a lovelier spot. The
+mountain brook, laughing over the stones,
+is overhung with laurel and rhododendron,
+which in turn are overhung by precipitous
+rocks broken into all wild and romantic
+shapes, with here and there a cavern&mdash;"rock-house"&mdash;to
+shelter a score of travelers.
+The place was rich in ferns and other
+plants, which, unhappily, I had no time to
+examine, and all the particulars of which
+have faded out of my memory. We walked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+far enough to look over the edge of the
+mountain, and up to the Signal Point cliffs.
+If I could have stayed there two or three
+hours, it would have been a memorable
+season. As it was, the stroll was enlivened
+by one little adventure, at which I have
+laughed too many times ever to forget it.</p>
+
+<p>I had been growing rapturous over the
+beauty of things, when my companion said,
+"There are some people whom it is no
+pleasure to take into places like this. They
+can't keep their eyes off the ground, they
+are so bitten with the fear of snakes." He
+was a few paces ahead of me, as he spoke,
+and the sentence was barely finished before
+he shouted, "Look at that huge snake!"
+and sprang forward to snatch up a stone.
+"Get a stick!" he cried. "Get a stick!"
+From his manner I took it for granted that
+the creature was a rattlesnake, and a glance
+at it, lying motionless among the stones
+beside the road, did not undeceive me. I
+turned hurriedly, looking for a stick, but
+somehow could not find one, and in a moment
+more was recalled by shouts of "Come
+and help me! It will get away from us!"
+It was a question of life and death, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+thought, and I ran forward and began
+throwing stones. "Look out! Look out!
+You'll bury it!" cried my companion; but
+just then one of my shots struck the snake
+squarely in the head. "That's a good
+one!" exclaimed the other man, and, picking
+up a dead stick, he thrust it under the
+disabled creature and tossed it into the road.
+Then he bent over it, and, with a stone,
+pounded its head to a jelly. Such a fury as
+possessed him! He might have been bruising
+the head of Satan himself, as no doubt
+he was&mdash;in his mind; for my surveyor was
+also a preacher, as had already transpired.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a venomous snake, is it?" I
+ventured to ask, when the work was done.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think not," and he pried open its
+jaws to look for its fangs.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't generally kill innocent snakes,"
+I ventured again, a little inopportunely, it
+must be confessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <em>I</em> do," said the preacher. "The
+very sight of a snake stirs my hatred to its
+depths."</p>
+
+<p>After that it was natural to inquire
+whether he often saw rattlesnakes hereabouts.
+(The driver who brought me up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+the mountain had said that they were not
+common, but that I "wanted to look out
+sharp for them in the woods.") My companion
+had never seen one, he answered, but
+his wife had once killed one in their dooryard.
+Then, by way of cooling off, after
+the fervor of the conflict, he told me about
+a gentleman and his little boy, who, having
+come to spend a vacation on the Ridge,
+started out in the morning for a stroll.
+They were quickly back again, and the boy,
+quite out of breath, came running into the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. M.," he cried, "we saw a rattlesnake,
+and papa fired off his pistol!"</p>
+
+<p>"A rattlesnake! Where is it? What
+did it look like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we didn't see it, but we heard it."</p>
+
+<p>"What was the noise like?" asked Mr.
+M., and he took a pencil from his pocket
+and began tapping on a log.</p>
+
+<p>"That's it!" said the boy, "that's it!"</p>
+
+<p>They had heard a woodpecker drilling for
+grubs,&mdash;or drumming for love,&mdash;whereupon
+the man had fired his pistol, and for
+them there was no more walking in the
+woods.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After our ramble along Shoal Creek we
+rested at the ford, near a brilliant show of
+laurel and rhododendron, and ate our luncheon
+to the music of the stream. I finished
+first, as my evil habit is, and was crossing
+the brook on natural stepping-stones when
+a bird&mdash;a warbler of some unknown kind&mdash;saluted
+me from the thicket. Making
+my companion a signal not to disturb us by
+driving into the stream, I gave myself up
+to discovering the singer; edging this way
+and that, while the fellow moved about also,
+always unseen, and sang again and again,
+now a louder song, now, with charming effect,
+a quieter and briefer one, till I was almost as
+badly beside myself as the preacher had been
+half an hour before. But my warfare was
+less successful than his, for, with all my
+pains, I saw not so much as a feather.
+There is nothing prettier than a jungle of
+laurel and rhododendron in full bloom, but
+there are many easier places in which to
+make out a bird.</p>
+
+<p>Williams Point, which we reached on foot,
+after driving as near it as the roughness of
+the unfrequented road would comfortably
+allow, is not in itself equal to Signal Point,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+but affords substantially the same magnificent
+prospect. Near it, in the woods, stood
+a newly built cabin, looking badly out of
+place with its glaring unweathered boards;
+and beside the cabin stood a man and
+woman in a condition of extreme disgust.
+The man had come up the mountain to work
+in some coal-mine, if I understood him correctly;
+but the tools were not ready, there
+was no water, his household goods were
+stranded down in the valley somewhere (the
+hens were starving to death, the woman
+added), and, all in all, the pair were in a
+sorry plight.</p>
+
+<p>Here, as at Signal Point, I made an addition
+to my local ornithology, and this time
+too the bird was a hawk. We were standing
+on the edge of the cliff, when a sparrow
+hawk, after alighting near us, took wing and
+hung for some time suspended over the
+abyss, beating against the breeze, and so
+holding itself steady,&mdash;a graceful piece of
+work, the better appreciated for being seen
+from above. Here, also, for the first time
+in my life, I was addressed as a "you-un."
+"Where be you-uns from?" asked the
+woman at the cabin, after the ordinary greetings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+had been exchanged. I believe, in my
+innocence, I had always looked upon that
+word as an invention of story-writers.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere in this neighborhood we
+traversed a pine wood, in which my first
+Walden pine warbler was trilling. Then,
+for some miles, we drove along the Brow,
+with the glory of the world&mdash;valley, river,
+and mountain&mdash;outspread before us, and
+the Great Smokies looming in the background,
+barely visible through the haze.
+For seven miles, I was told, one could drive
+along that mountain rim. Surely the city
+of Chattanooga is happy in its suburbs.
+Here were many cottages, the greater number
+as yet unopened; and not far beyond
+the one under the piazza of which I had
+weathered the thunderstorm of the day before,
+the road entered the forest again.
+Then, as the way grew more and more difficult,
+we left the horse behind us, and by
+and by came to a foot-path. This brought us
+at last to Falling Water Fall, where Little
+Falling Water&mdash;after threading the swamp
+and passing Mabbitt's Spring, as before
+described&mdash;tumbles over a precipice which
+my companion, with his surveyor's eye, estimated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+to be one hundred and fifty feet in
+height. The slender stream, broken into
+jewels as it falls, strikes the bottom at some
+distance from the foot of the cliffs, which
+here form the arc of a circle, and are not
+perpendicular, but deeply hollowed. After
+enjoying the prospect from this point,&mdash;holding
+to a tree and leaning over the edge
+of the rocks,&mdash;we retraced our steps till we
+came to a steep, zigzag path, which took us
+to the foot of the precipice. Here, as well
+as above, were laurel and rhododendron in
+profusion. One big rhododendron-tree grew
+on the face of the cliff, thirty feet over our
+heads, leaning outward, and bearing at least
+fifty clusters of gorgeous rose-purple flowers;
+and a smaller one, in a similar position,
+was equally full. The hanging gardens of
+Babylon may have been more wonderful,
+but I was well content.</p>
+
+<p>From the point where we stood the ledge
+makes eastward for a long distance, almost
+at right angles, and the cliffs for a mile&mdash;or,
+more likely, for two or three miles&mdash;were
+straight before us, broken everywhere
+into angles, light gray and reddish-brown
+intermixed, with the late afternoon sun shining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+full upon them, and the green forest
+fringing them above and sweeping away
+from them below.</p>
+
+<p>It was a breathless clamber up the rocks
+again, tired and poorly off as I was, but I
+reached the top with one hand full of rhododendrons
+(it seemed a shame to pick them,
+and a shame to leave them), and in half an
+hour we were driving homeward, our day's
+work done; while my seatmate, who, besides
+being preacher, lawyer, surveyor, and farmer,
+was also a mystic and a saint,&mdash;though he
+would have refused the word,&mdash;fell into a
+strain of reminiscence, appropriate to the
+hour, about the inner life of the soul, its
+hopes, its struggles, and its joys. I listened
+in reverent silence. The passion for perfection
+is not yet so common as to have
+become commonplace, and one need not be
+certain of a theory in order to admire a
+practice. He had already told me who his
+father was, and I had ceased to wonder at
+his using now and then a choice phrase.</p>
+
+<p>My friend (he will allow me that word, I
+am sure) had given me a day of days, and
+with it a new idea of this mountain world;
+where the visitor finds hills and valleys,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+creeks and waterfalls, the most beautiful of
+forests, with clearings, isolated cabins, straggling
+settlements, orchards, and gardens,
+and where he forgets again and again that
+he is on a mountain at all. Even now I had
+seen but a corner of it, as I have seen but a
+corner of the larger world on which, for
+these few years back, I have had what I call
+my existence. And even of what I saw,
+much has gone undescribed: stately tulip-trees
+deep in the forest, with humming-birds
+darting from flower to flower among them;
+the flame-colored azalea; the ground flowers
+of the woods, including some tiny yellow
+lady's-slippers, too dainty for the foot of
+Cinderella herself; the road to Sawyer's
+Springs; and numbers of birds, whose names,
+even, I have omitted. It was a wonderful
+world; but if the hobbyist may take the pen
+for a single sentence, it may stand confessed
+that the greatest wonder of all was this,&mdash;that
+in all those miles of oak forest I found
+not one blue jay.</p>
+
+<p>Another surprising circumstance, which I
+do not remember to have noticed, however,
+till my attention was somewhat rudely called
+to it, was the absence of colored people.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+With the exception of three servants at the
+hotel, I saw none but whites. Walden's
+Ridge, although stanchly Union in war-time,
+and largely Republican now, as I was told,
+is a white man's country. I had gone to
+bed one night, and was fast asleep, when I
+was wakened suddenly by the noise of some
+one hurrying up the stairs and shouting,
+"Where's the gun? Where's the gun?
+Shorty's been shot!" "Shorty" was the
+colored waiter, and the speaker was a general
+factotum, an English boy. The colored
+people&mdash;Shorty, his wife, and the cook&mdash;had
+been out on the edge of the woods behind
+the house, when three men had fired
+at them, or pretended to do so. It was explained
+the next morning that this was only
+an attempt (on the part of some irresponsible
+young men, as the older residents said) to
+"run the niggers off the mountain,"&mdash;after
+what I understood to be a somewhat regular
+custom. "Niggers" did not belong there;
+their place was down below. If a Chattanooga
+cottager brought up a colored servant,
+he was "respectfully requested" to send
+him back, and save the natives the trouble
+of attending to the matter. In short, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+Ridgites appeared to look upon "niggers"
+as Northern laborers look upon non-union
+men&mdash;"scabs."</p>
+
+<p>The hotel-keeper, an Englishman, with an
+Englishman's notions about personal rights,
+was naturally indignant. He would hire his
+own servants, or he would shut the house.
+In any event, the presence of "Whitecaps,"
+real or imaginary, must affect his summer
+patronage. I fully expected to see the colored
+trio pack up and go back to Chattanooga,
+without waiting for further hints;
+but they showed no disposition to do anything
+of the sort, and, I must add, rose in
+my estimation accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Of the feeling of the community I had a
+slight but ludicrous intimation a day or two
+after the shooting. I passed a boy whom I
+had noticed in the road, some days before,
+playing with a pig, lifting him by the hind
+legs and pitching him over forwards. "He
+can turn a somerset good," he had said to me,
+as I passed. Now, for the sake of being
+neighborly, I asked, "How's the pig to-day?"
+He smiled, and made some reply,
+as if he appreciated the pleasantry; but a
+more serious-looking playmate took up his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+parable, and said, "The pig'll be all right,
+if the folks up at the hotel don't shoot him."
+His tone and look were intended to be
+deeply significant. "Oh, I know you," they
+implied: "you are up at the hotel, where
+they threaten to shoot white folks."</p>
+
+<p>For my last afternoon&mdash;wars and rumors
+of wars long since forgotten&mdash;I went to the
+place that had pleased me first, the valley
+of Falling Water Creek. The cross-vine on
+the dead hemlock had by this time dropped
+the greater part of its bells, but even yet
+many were hanging from the uppermost
+branches. The rhododendron was still at
+the height of its splendor. All the gardens
+were nothing to it, I said to myself. Crossing
+the creek on the log, and the branch on
+stepping-stones, I went to quench my thirst
+at the Marshall Spring, which once had a
+cabin beside it, and frequent visitors, but
+now was clogged with fallen leaves and
+seemingly abandoned. It was perhaps more
+beautiful so. Directly behind it rose a steep
+bank, and in front stood an oak and a
+maple, the latter leaning toward it and forming
+a pointed arch,&mdash;a worthy entrance.
+Mossy stones walled it in, and ferns grew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+luxuriantly about it. Just over them, an
+azalea still held two fresh pink flowers, the
+last till another May. In such a spot it
+would have been easy to grow sentimental;
+but there came a rumbling of thunder, the
+sky darkened, and, with a final hasty look
+about me, I picked up my umbrella and
+started homeward.</p>
+
+<p>My last walk had ended like many others
+in that showery, fragmentary week. But
+what is bad weather when the time is past?
+All those black clouds have left no shadow
+on Walden's Ridge, and the best of all my
+strolls beside Falling Water, a stroll not yet
+finished,</p>
+
+<p class="center">"The calm sense of seen beauty without sight,"</p>
+
+<p>suffers no harm. As Thoreau says, "It is
+after we get home that we really go over the
+mountain."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="SOME_TENNESSEE_BIRD_NOTES" id="SOME_TENNESSEE_BIRD_NOTES">SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES.</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>Whoever loves the music of English
+sparrows should live in Chattanooga; there
+is no place on the planet, it is to be hoped,
+where they are more numerous and pervasive.
+Mocking-birds are scarce. To the
+best of my recollection, I saw none in the
+city itself, and less than half a dozen in the
+surrounding country. A young gentleman
+whom I questioned upon the subject told me
+that they used to be common, and attributed
+their present increasing rarity to the persecution
+of boys, who find a profit in selling
+the young into captivity. Their place, in
+the city especially, is taken by catbirds;
+interesting, imitative, and in their own
+measure tuneful, but poor substitutes for
+mocking-birds. In fact, that is a rÃŽle which
+it is impossible to think of any bird as really
+filling. The brown thrush, it is true, sings
+quite in the mocking-bird's manner, and, to
+my ear, almost or quite as well; but he
+possesses no gift as a mimic, and furthermore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+without being exactly a bird of the
+forest or the wilderness, is instinctively and
+irreclaimably a recluse. It would be hard,
+even among human beings, to find a nature
+less touched with urbanity. In the mocking-bird
+the elements are more happily
+mingled. Not gregarious, intolerant of
+rivalry, and, as far as creatures of his own
+kind are concerned, a stickler for elbow-room,&mdash;sharing
+with his brown relative in
+that respect,&mdash;he is at the same time a
+born citizen and neighbor; as fond of gardens
+and dooryard trees as the thrasher is
+of scrublands and barberry bushes. "Man
+delights me," he might say, "and woman
+also." He likes to be listened to, it is
+pretty certain; and possibly he is dimly
+aware of the artistic value of appreciation,
+without which no artist ever did his best.
+Add to this endearing social quality the
+splendor and freedom of the mocker's vocal
+performances, multifarious, sensational, incomparable,
+by turns entrancing and amusing,
+and it is easy to understand how he has
+come to hold a place by himself in Southern
+sentiment and literature. A city without
+mocking-birds is only half Southern, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+black faces be never so thick upon the sidewalks
+and mules never so common in the
+streets. If the boys have driven the great
+mimic away from Chattanooga, it is time
+the fathers took the boys in hand. Civic
+pride alone ought to bring this about, to
+say nothing of the possible effect upon real
+estate values of the abundant and familiar
+presence of this world-renowned, town-loving,
+town-charming songster.</p>
+
+<p>From my window, on the side of Cameron
+Hill, I heard daily the singing of an orchard
+oriole&mdash;another fine and neighborly bird&mdash;and
+a golden warbler, with sometimes the
+<em>fidgety</em>, <em>fidgety</em> of a Maryland yellow-throat.
+What could <em>he</em> be fussing about in so
+unlikely a quarter? An adjoining yard
+presented the unnatural spectacle&mdash;unnatural,
+but, I am sorry to say, not unprecedented&mdash;of
+a bird-house occupied in partnership
+by purple martins and English
+sparrows. They had finished their quarrels,
+if they had ever had any,&mdash;which can
+hardly be open to doubt, both native and
+foreigner being constitutionally belligerent,&mdash;and
+frequently sat side by side upon the
+ridge-pole, like the best of friends. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+oftener I saw them there, the more indignant
+I became at the martins' un-American
+behavior. Such a disgraceful surrender of
+the Monroe Doctrine was too much even for
+a man of peace. I have never called myself
+a Jingo, but for once it would have done me
+good to see the lion's tail twisted.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of a few pairs of
+rough-wings on Missionary Ridge, the martins
+seemed to be the only swallows in the
+country at that time of the year; and
+though <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Progne subis</i>, in spite of an occasional
+excess of good nature, is a most noble
+bird, it was impossible not to feel that by
+itself it constituted but a meagre representation
+of an entire family. Swallows are
+none too numerous in Massachusetts, in
+these days, and are pretty certainly growing
+fewer and fewer, what with the prevalence
+of the box-monopolizing European sparrow,
+and the passing of the big, old-fashioned,
+widely ventilated barn; for there is
+no member of the family, not even the sand
+martin, whose distribution does not depend
+in great degree upon human agency. Even
+yet, however, if a Massachusetts man will
+make a circuit of a few miles, he will usually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+meet with tree swallows, barn swallows, cliff
+swallows, sand martins, and purple martins.
+In other words, he need not go far to find
+all the species of eastern North America,
+with the single exception of the least attractive
+of the six; that is to say, the rough-wing.
+As compared with the people of
+eastern Tennessee, then, we are still pretty
+well favored. It is worth while to travel
+now and then, if only to find ourselves better
+off at home.</p>
+
+<p>It might be easy to suggest plausible
+reasons for the general absence of swallows
+from a country like that about Chattanooga;
+but the extraordinary scarcity of hawks,
+while many persons&mdash;not ornithologists&mdash;would
+account it less of a calamity, is more
+of a puzzle. From Walden's Ridge I saw
+a single sparrow hawk and a single red-tail;
+in addition to which I remember three birds
+whose identity I could not determine. Five
+hawks in the course of three weeks spent
+entirely out of doors, in the neighborhood of
+mountains covered with old forest! Taken
+by itself, this unexpected showing might
+have been ascribed to some queer combination
+of accidents, or to a failure of observation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+In fact, I was inclined so to explain
+it till I noticed that Mr. Brewster had
+chronicled a similar state of things in what
+is substantially the same piece of country.
+Writing of western North Carolina, he
+says:<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
+"The general scarcity&mdash;one may
+almost say absence&mdash;of hawks in this region
+during the breeding season is simply
+unaccountable. Small birds and mammals,
+lizards, snakes, and other animals upon
+which the various species subsist are everywhere
+numerous, the country is wild and
+heavily forested, and, in short, all the necessary
+conditions of environment seem to be
+fulfilled." Certainly, so far as my ingenuity
+goes, the mystery is "unaccountable;" but
+of course, like every other mystery, it would
+open quickly enough if we could find the
+key.</p>
+
+<p>Turkey vultures were moderately numerous,&mdash;much
+less abundant than in
+Florida,&mdash;and twice I saw a single black
+vulture, recognizable, almost as far as it
+could be seen (but I do not mean at a first
+glance, nor without due precaution against
+foreshortened effects), by its docked tail.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+Both are invaluable in their place,&mdash;useful,
+graceful, admirable, and disgusting. The
+vultures, the martins, and the swifts were
+the only common aerial birds. The swifts,
+happily, were everywhere,&mdash;jovial souls in
+a sooty dress,&mdash;and had already begun
+nest-building. I saw them continually pulling
+up against the twigs of a partially dead
+tree near my window. In them nature has
+developed the bird idea to its extreme,&mdash;a
+pair of wings, with just body enough for
+ballast; like a racing-yacht, built for nothing
+but to carry sail and avoid resistance.
+Their flight is a good visual music, as
+Emerson might have said; but I love also
+their quick, eager notes, like the sounds of
+children at play. And while it has nothing
+to do with Tennessee, I am prompted to
+mention here a bird of this species that I
+once saw in northern New Hampshire on
+the 1st of October,&mdash;an extraordinarily
+late date, if my experience counts for anything.
+With a friend I had made an ascent
+of Mount Lafayette (one of the days of a
+man's life), and as we came near the Profile
+House, on our return to the valley, there
+passed overhead a single chimney swift.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+What he could be doing there at that season
+was more than either of us could divine. It
+was impossible to feel any great concern
+about him, however. The afternoon was
+nearly done, but at the rate he was traveling
+it seemed as if he might be in Mexico before
+sunrise. And easily enough he may have
+been, if Mr. GÀtke is right in his contention
+that birds of very moderate powers of wing
+are capable of flying all night at the rate of
+four miles a minute!</p>
+
+<p>The comparative scarcity of crows about
+Chattanooga, and the amazing dearth of
+jays in the oak forest of Walden's Ridge,
+have been touched upon elsewhere. As for
+the jays, their absence must have been more
+apparent than real, I am bound to believe.
+It was their silent time, probably. Still
+another thing that I found surprising was
+the small number of woodpeckers. For the
+first four days I saw not a single representative
+of the family. It would be next
+to impossible to be so much out of doors in
+Massachusetts at any season of the year
+with a like result. During my three weeks
+in Tennessee I saw eight flickers, seven
+hairy woodpeckers, two red-heads, and two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+or three red-cockaded woodpeckers, besides
+which I heard one downy and one "logcock."
+The last-named bird, which is big
+enough for even the careless to notice,
+seemed to be well known to the inhabitants
+of Walden's Ridge, where I heard it. By
+what they told me, it should be fairly common,
+but I saw nothing of its "peck-holes."
+The first of my two red-headed woodpeckers
+was near the base of Missionary Ridge,
+wasting his time in exploring pole after pole
+along the railway. Did he mistake them
+for so many dead trees still standing on
+their own roots? Dry and seemingly undecayed,
+they appeared to me to offer small
+encouragement to a grub-seeker; but probably
+the fellow knew his own business best.
+On questions of economic entomology, I
+fear I should prove but a lame adviser for
+the most benighted woodpecker that ever
+drummed. And yet, being a man, I could
+not help feeling that this particular red-head
+was behaving uncommonly like a fool.
+Was there ever a man who did not take it
+as a matter of course that he should be wiser
+than the "lower animals"?</p>
+
+<p>Humming-birds cut but a small figure in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+my daily notes till I went to Walden's
+Ridge. There, in the forest, they were
+noticeably abundant,&mdash;for humming-birds,
+that is to say. It seemed to be the time of
+pairing with them; more than once the two
+sexes were seen together,&mdash;an unusual
+occurrence, unless my observation has been
+unfortunate, after the nest is built, or even
+while it is building. One female piqued my
+curiosity by returning again and again to
+the bole of an oak, hovering before it as
+before a flower, and more than once clinging
+to its rough upright surface. At first I
+took it for granted that she was picking
+off bits of lichen with which to embellish
+the outer wall of her nest; but after each
+browsing she alighted here or there on a
+leafless twig. If she had been gathering
+nest material, she would have flown away
+with it, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>At another time, in a tangle of shrubbery,
+I witnessed a most lively encounter between
+two humming-birds; a case of fighting or
+love-making,&mdash;two things confusingly alike
+to an outsider,&mdash;in the midst of which one
+of the contestants suddenly displayed so
+dazzling a gorget that for an instant I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+mistook it for a scarlet flower. I did not
+"wipe my eye," not being a poet, nor even
+a "rash gazer," but I admired anew the
+wonderful flashing jewel, now coal-black,
+now flaming red, with which, perhaps, the
+male ruby-throat blinds his long-suffering
+mate to all his shameful treatment of her
+in her season of watchfulness and motherly
+anxiety. Does she never remind him, I
+wonder, that there are some things whose
+price is far above rubies? I had never
+seen the humming-bird so much a forest-dweller
+as here, and gladly confessed that
+I had never seen him when he looked so
+romantically at home and in place. The
+tulip-trees, in particular, might have been
+made on purpose for him.</p>
+
+<p>As the Chattanooga neighborhood was
+poorly supplied with hawks, woodpeckers,
+and swallows, so was it likewise with sparrows,
+though in a less marked degree. The
+common species&mdash;the only resident species
+that I met with, but my explorations were
+nothing like complete&mdash;were chippers, field
+sparrows, and Bachman sparrows; the first
+interesting for their familiarity, the other
+two for their musical gifts. In a comparison<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+between eastern Tennessee&mdash;as I saw
+it&mdash;and eastern Massachusetts, the Bachman
+sparrow must be set against the song
+sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and the swamp
+sparrow. It is a brilliant and charming
+songster, one of the very finest; but it
+would be too costly a bargain to buy its
+presence with loss of the song sparrow's
+abounding versatility and high spirits, and
+the vesper sparrow's unfailing sweetness,
+serenity, and charm.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the sparrows, commonly so
+called. If we come to the family as a whole,
+the goodly family of sparrows and finches,
+we miss in Tennessee the rose-breasted grosbeak
+and the purple finch, two of our best
+esteemed Massachusetts birds, both for
+music and for beauty; to offset which we
+have the cardinal grosbeak, whose whistle is
+exquisite, but who can hardly be ranked as
+a singer above either the rose-breast or the
+linnet, to say nothing of the two combined.</p>
+
+<p>At the season of my visit,&mdash;in the latter
+half of the vernal migration,&mdash;the preponderance
+of woodland birds, especially of the
+birds known as wood warblers, was very
+striking. Of ninety-three species observed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+twenty-eight belonged to the warbler family.
+In this list it was curious to remark the
+absence of the Nashville and the Tennessee.
+The circumstance is significant of the comparative
+worthlessness&mdash;except from a historical
+point of view&mdash;of locality names as
+they are applied to American birds in general.
+Here were Maryland yellow-throats,
+Cape May warblers, Canada warblers, Kentucky
+warblers, prairie warblers, palm warblers,
+Acadian flycatchers, but not the two
+birds (the only two, as well as I remember)
+that bear Tennessee names.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The
+absence of the Nashville was a matter of
+wonderment to me. Dr. Rives, I have since
+noticed, records it as only a rare migrant
+in Virginia. Yet by some route it reaches
+eastern New England in decidedly handsome
+numbers. Its congener, the blue golden-wing,
+surprised me in an opposite direction,&mdash;by
+its commonness, both in the lower
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+country near the river and on Walden's
+Ridge. This, too, is a rare bird in Virginia;
+so much so that Dr. Rives has never met
+with it there. In certain places about Chattanooga
+it was as common as it is locally in
+the towns about Boston, where, to satisfy a
+skeptical friend, I once counted eleven males
+in song in the course of a morning's walk.
+That the Chattanooga birds were on their
+breeding grounds I had at the time no question,
+although I happened upon no proof of
+the fact.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way, from the manner in
+which the oven-birds were scattered over
+Walden's Ridge in the middle of May, I
+assumed, rather hastily, that they were at
+home for the summer. Months afterward,
+however, happening to notice their southern
+breeding limits as given by the best of
+authorities,&mdash;"breeding from ... Virginia
+northward,"&mdash;I saw that I might easily
+have been in error. I wrote, therefore, to
+a Chattanooga gentleman, who pays attention
+to birds while disclaiming acquaintance
+with ornithology, and he replied that if the
+oven-bird summered in that country he did
+not know it. The case seemed to be going<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+against me, but I bethought myself of Mr.
+Brewster's "Ornithological Reconnaissance
+in Western North Carolina," and there I
+read,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>
+"The open oak woodlands, so prevalent
+in this region, are in every way adapted
+to the requirements of the oven-bird, and
+throughout them it is one of the commonest
+and most characteristic summer birds."
+"Open oak woodlands" is exactly descriptive
+of the Walden's Ridge forest; and eastern
+Tennessee and western North Carolina
+being practically one, I resume my assured
+belief (personal and of no authority) that
+the birds I saw and heard were, as I first
+thought, natives of the mountain. Birds
+which are at home have, as a rule, an air
+of being at home; a certain manner hard
+to define, but felt, nevertheless, as a pretty
+strong kind of evidence&mdash;not proof&mdash;by a
+practiced observer.</p>
+
+<p>Several of the more northern species of
+the warbler family manifested an almost exclusive
+preference for patches of evergreens.
+I have elsewhere detailed my experience in
+a grove of stunted pines on Lookout Mountain.
+A similar growth is found on Cameron
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+Hill,&mdash;in the city of Chattanooga,&mdash;one
+side of which is occupied by dwellings,
+while the other drops to the river so precipitously
+as to be almost inaccessible, and is
+even yet, I was told, an abode of foxes. On
+the day after my arrival I strolled to the
+top of the hill toward evening, and in the
+pines found a few black-polls and yellow-rumps.
+I was in a listless mood, having
+already taken a fair day's exercise under an
+intolerable sun, but I waked up with a start
+when my glass fell on a bird which at a
+second glance showed the red cheeks of a
+Cape May warbler. For a moment I was
+almost in poor Susan's case,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I looked, and my heart was in heaven."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then, all too soon, as happened to poor
+Susan also, the vision faded. But I had
+seen it. Yes, here it was in Tennessee, the
+rarity for which, spring after spring, I had
+been so many years on the watch. I had
+come South to find it, after all,&mdash;a bird
+that breeds from the northern border of New
+England to Hudson's Bay!</p>
+
+<p>It is of the nature of such excitements
+that, at the time, the subject of them has no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+thought of analyzing or justifying his emotions.
+He is better employed. Afterward,
+in some vacant mood, with no longer anything
+actively to enjoy, he may play with
+the past, and from an evil habit, or flattering
+himself with a show of intellectuality,
+may turn his former delight into a study;
+tickling his present conceit of himself by
+smiling at the man he used to be. How
+very wise he has grown, to be sure! All
+such refinements, nevertheless, if he did but
+know it, are only a poorer kind of child's
+play; less spontaneous, infinitely less satisfying,
+and equally irrational. Ecstasy is
+not to be assayed by any test that the reason
+is competent to apply; nor does it need
+either defense or apology. It is its own
+end, and so, like beauty, its own excuse for
+being. That is one of the crowning felicities
+of this present order of things,&mdash;the
+world, as we call it. What dog would hunt
+if there were no excitement in overhauling
+the game? And how would elderly people
+live through long evenings if there were no
+exhilaration in the odd trick?</p>
+
+<p>"What good does it do?" a prudent
+friend and adviser used to say to me, smiling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+at the fervor of my first ornithological enthusiasm.
+He thought he was asking me
+a poser; but I answered gayly, "It makes
+me happy;" and taking things as they run,
+happiness is a pretty substantial "good."
+So was it now with the sight of this long-desired
+warbler. It taught me nothing; it
+put nothing into my pocket; but it made
+me happy,&mdash;happy enough to sing and
+shout, though I am ashamed to say I did
+neither. And even a sober son of the Puritans
+may be glad to find himself, in some
+unexpected hour, almost as ineffably delighted
+as he used to be with a new plaything
+in the time when he had not yet tasted of
+the tree of knowledge, and knew not that
+the relish for playthings could ever be outgrown.
+I cannot affirm that I went quite
+as wild over my first Cape May warbler as
+I did over my first sled (how well the rapture
+of that frosty midwinter morning is remembered,&mdash;a
+hard crust on the snow, and the
+sun not yet risen!), but I came as near to
+that state of heavenly felicity&mdash;to reënter
+which we must become as little children&mdash;as
+a person of my years is ever likely to do,
+perhaps.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is one precious advantage of natural
+history studies that they afford endless opportunities
+for a man to enjoy himself in
+this sweetly childish spirit, while at the same
+time his occupation is dignified by a certain
+scientific atmosphere and relationship. He
+is a collector of insects, let us say. Whether
+he goes to the Adirondacks for the summer,
+or to Florida for the winter, he is surrounded
+with nets and cyanide bottles. He travels
+with them as another travels with packs of
+cards. Every day's catch is part of the
+game; and once in a while, as happened to
+me on Cameron Hill, he gets a "great hand,"
+and in imagination, at least, sweeps the
+board. Commonplace people smile at him,
+no doubt; but that is only amusing, and
+he smiles in turn. He can tell many good
+stories under that head. He delights to be
+called a "crank." It is all because of people's
+ignorance. They have no idea that he
+is Mr. So-and-So, the entomologist; that he
+is in correspondence with learned men the
+country over; that he once discovered a new
+cockroach, and has had a grasshopper named
+after him; that he has written a book, or is
+going to write one. Happy man! a contributor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+to the world's knowledge, but a pleasure-seeker;
+a little of a savant, and very much
+of a child; a favorite of Heaven, whose work
+is play. No wonder it is commonly said
+that natural historians are a cheerful set.</p>
+
+<p>For the supplying of rarities and surprises
+there are no birds like the warblers. Their
+pursuit is the very spice of American ornithology.
+The multitude of species (Mr.
+Chapman's "Handbook of the Birds of Eastern
+North America" enumerates forty-five
+species and sub-species) is of itself an incalculable
+blessing in this respect. No single
+observer is likely ever to come to the end of
+them. They do not warble, it must be owned,
+and few of them have much distinction as
+singers, the best that I know being the
+black-throated green and the Kentucky; but
+they are elegant and varied in their plumage,
+with no lack of bright tints, while their
+extreme activity and their largely arboreal
+habits render their specific determination and
+their individual study a work most agreeably
+difficult and tantalizing. The ornithologist
+who has seen all the warblers of his own
+territory, say of New England, and knows
+them all by their notes, and has found all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+their nests,&mdash;well, he is himself a pretty
+rare specimen.</p>
+
+<p>As for my experience with the family in
+Tennessee, I was glad, of course, to scrape
+acquaintance&mdash;or to renew it, as the case
+might be&mdash;with the more southern species,
+the Kentucky, the hooded, the cerulean, the
+blue-wing, and the yellow-throat: that was
+partly why I was here; but perhaps I enjoyed
+quite as keenly the sight of our own
+New England birds moving homeward; tarrying
+here and there for a day, but not to
+be tempted by all the allurements of this
+fine country; still pushing on, northward,
+and still northward, as if for them there
+were no place in the world but the woods
+where they were born. Of the southern
+species just named, the Kentucky was the
+most abundant, with the hooded not far behind.
+The prairie warbler seemed about as
+common here as in its favored Massachusetts
+haunts; but unless my ear was at fault
+its song went somewhat less trippingly: it
+sounded labored,&mdash;too much like the scarlet
+tanager's in the way of effort and jerkiness.
+Unlike the golden warbler, the prairie was
+found not only in the lower country, but&mdash;in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+less numbers&mdash;on Walden's Ridge. The
+two warblers that I listed every day, no
+matter where I went, were the chat and the
+black-and-white creeper.</p>
+
+<p>When all is said, the Kentucky, with its
+beauty and its song, is the star of the family,
+as far as eastern Tennessee is concerned. I
+can hear it now, while Falling Water goes
+babbling past in the shade of laurel and
+rhododendron. As for the chat, it was omnipresent:
+in the valley, along the river, on
+Missionary Ridge, on Lookout Mountain,
+on Walden's Ridge, in the national cemetery,
+at Chickamauga,&mdash;everywhere, in short,
+except within the city itself. In this regard
+it exceeded the white-eyed vireo, and even
+the indigo-bird, I think. Black-polls were
+seen daily up to May 13, after which they
+were missing altogether. The last Cape
+May and the last yellow-rump were noted on
+the 8th, the last redstart and the last palm
+warbler on the 11th, the last chestnut-side,
+magnolia, and Canadian warbler on the 12th.
+On the 12th, also, I saw my only Wilson's
+blackcap. In my last outing, on the 18th,
+on Walden's Ridge, I came upon two Blackburnians
+in widely separate places. At the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+time, I assumed them to be migrants, in spite
+of the date. One of them was near the
+hotel, on ground over which I had passed
+almost daily. Why they should be so behindhand
+was more than I could tell; but
+only the day before I had seen a thrush
+which was either a gray-cheek or an olive-back,
+and of course a bird of passage. "The
+flight of warblers did not pass entirely until
+May 19," says Mr. Jeffries, writing of what
+he saw in western North
+Carolina.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>The length of time occupied by some
+species in accomplishing their semi-annual
+migration is well known to be very considerable,
+and is best observed&mdash;in spring, at
+least&mdash;at some southern point. It is admirably
+illustrated in Mr. Chapman's "List of
+Birds seen at Gainesville,
+Florida."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Tree
+swallows, he tells us, were abundant up to
+May 6, a date at which Massachusetts tree
+swallows have been at home for nearly or
+quite a month. Song sparrows were noted
+March 31, two or three weeks after the
+grand irruption of song sparrows into
+Massachusetts usually occurs. Bobolinks,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+which reach Massachusetts by the 10th of
+May, or earlier, were still very abundant&mdash;both
+sexes&mdash;May 25! Such dates are not
+what we should have expected, I suppose,
+especially in the case of a bird like the
+bobolink, which has no very high northern
+range; but they seem not to be exceptional,
+and are surprising only because we have not
+yet mastered the general subject. Nothing
+exists by itself, and therefore nothing can
+be understood by itself. One thing the
+most ignorant of us may see,&mdash;that the
+long period covered by the migratory journeys
+is a matter for ornithological thankfulness.
+In Massachusetts, for example, spring
+migrants begin to appear in late February
+or early March, and some of the most interesting
+members of the procession&mdash;notably
+the mourning warbler and the yellow-bellied
+flycatcher&mdash;are to be looked for after the
+first of June. The autumnal movement is
+equally protracted; so that for at least half
+the year&mdash;leaving winter with its arctic
+possibilities out of consideration&mdash;we may
+be on the lookout for strangers.</p>
+
+<p>One of the dearest pleasures of a southern
+trip in winter or early spring is the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+thing at which I have just now hinted, the
+sight of one's home birds in strange surroundings.
+You leave New England in
+early February, for instance, and in two or
+three days are loitering in the sunny pine-lands
+about St. Augustine, with the trees
+full of robins, bluebirds, and pine warblers,
+and the savanna patches full of meadow
+larks. Myrtle warblers are everywhere.
+Ph&oelig;bes salute you as you walk the city
+streets, and flocks of chippers and vesper
+sparrows enliven the fields along the country
+roads. In a piece of hammock just outside
+the town you find yourself all at once surrounded
+by a winter colony of summer birds.
+Here are solitary vireos, Maryland yellow-throats,
+black-and-white creepers, prairie
+warblers, red-poll warblers, hermit thrushes,
+red-eyed chewinks, thrashers, catbirds, cedar-birds,
+and many more. White-eyed vireos
+are practicing in the smilax thickets,&mdash;though
+they have small need of practice,&mdash;and
+white-bellied swallows go flashing and
+twittering overhead. The world is good,
+you say, and life is a festival.</p>
+
+<p>My vacation in Tennessee afforded less of
+contrast and surprise, for a twofold reason:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+it was near the end of April, instead of early
+in February, so that migrants had been arriving
+in Massachusetts for six or seven weeks
+before my departure; and Tennessee has nothing
+of the foreign, half-tropical look which
+Florida presents to Yankee eyes; but even
+so, it was no small pleasure to step suddenly
+into a world full of summer music.
+Such multitudes of birds as were singing
+on Missionary Ridge on that first bright
+forenoon! The number of species was not
+great, when it came to counting them,&mdash;morning
+and afternoon together yielded but
+forty-two; but the whole country seemed
+alive with wings. And of the forty-two
+species, thirty-two were such as summer in
+Massachusetts or pass through it to their
+homes beyond. Here were already (April
+27) the olive-backed thrush, and northern
+warblers like the black-poll, the bay-breast,
+and the Cape May, none of which would be
+due in Massachusetts for at least a fortnight.
+Here, too, were yellow-rumps and white-throated
+sparrows, though the advance
+guard of both species had reached New England
+before I left home. The white-throats
+lingered on Walden's Ridge on the 13th of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+May, a fact which surprised me more at the
+time than it does in the review.</p>
+
+<p>One bird was seen on this first day, and
+not afterward. I had been into the woods
+north of the city, and was returning, when
+from the bridge over the Tennessee I caught
+sight of a small flock of black birds, which
+at first, even with the aid of my glass, I
+could not make out, the bridge being so
+high above the river and its banks. While
+I was watching them, however, they began
+to sing. They were bobolinks. Probably
+the species is not common in eastern Tennessee,
+as the name is wanting in Dr. Fox's
+"List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee,
+during April, 1884, and March and
+April, 1885."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have ventured upon some slight ornithological
+comparison between southeastern
+Tennessee and eastern Massachusetts, and,
+writing as a patriot (or a partisan), have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+seen to it that the scale inclined northward.
+To this end I have made as much as possible
+of the absence of robins, song sparrows, and
+vesper sparrows, and of the comparative
+dearth of swallows; but of course the loyal
+Tennessean is in no want of a ready answer.
+Robins, song sparrows, vesper sparrows, and
+swallows are <em>not</em> absent, except as breeding
+birds. He has them all in their
+season,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>
+and probably hears them sing. On the
+whole, then, he may fairly retort, he has
+considerably the advantage of us Yankees:
+he sees our birds on their passage, and
+drinks his fill of their music before we have
+caught the first spring notes; while we, on
+the other hand, see nothing of his distinctively
+southern birds unless we come South
+for the purpose. Well, they are worth the
+journey. Bachman's finch alone&mdash;yes, the
+one dingy, shabbily clad little genius by
+the Chickamauga well&mdash;might almost have
+repaid me for my thousand miles on the rail.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It was a strange mingling of sensations
+that possessed me in Chattanooga. The
+city itself was like other cities of its age
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+and size, with some appearance of a community
+that had been in haste to grow,&mdash;a
+trifle impatient, shall we say (impatience
+being one of the virtues of youth), to pull
+down its barns and build greater; just now
+a little checked in its ambition, as things
+looked; yet still enterprising, still fairly
+well satisfied with itself, with no lack of
+energy and bustle. As it happened, there
+was a stir in local politics at the time of my
+visit (possibly there always is), and at the
+street corners all patriotic citizens were exhorted
+to do their duty. "Vote for Tom
+&mdash;&mdash; for sheriff," said one placard. "Vote
+for Bob &mdash;&mdash;," said another, in capitals
+equally importunate. In Tennessee, as
+everywhere else, the politician knows his
+trade. Familiarity, readiness with the hand,
+freedom with one's own name (Tom, not
+Thomas, if you please), and a happy knack
+at remembering the names of other people,&mdash;these
+are some of the preëlection tests of
+statesmanship.</p>
+
+<p>All in all, then, between politics and
+business, the city was "very much alive," as
+the saying goes; but somehow it was not so
+often the people about me that occupied my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+thoughts as those who had been here thirty
+years before. Precious is the power of a
+first impression. Because I was newly in
+the country I was constantly under the feeling
+of its past. Hither and thither I went
+in the region round about, listening at every
+turn, spying into every bush at the stirring
+of a leaf or the chirp of a bird; yet I had
+always with me the men of '63, and felt
+always that I was on holy ground.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="A_LIST_OF_BIRDS" id="A_LIST_OF_BIRDS">A LIST OF BIRDS</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Found in the Neighborhood of Chattanooga
+from April 27 to May 18, 1894.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">1. Green Heron. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ardea virescens.</i>&mdash;A single individual
+seen from a car window. No other water birds were
+observed except three or four ducks and a single wader,
+all upon the wing and unidentified.</p>
+
+<p>2. Bob White. Quail. Partridge. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Colinus virginianus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>3. Ruffed Grouse. "Pheasant." <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Bonasa umbettus.</i>&mdash;Heard
+drumming on Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>4. Carolina Dove. Mourning Dove. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Zenaidura macroura.</i>&mdash;A
+small number seen.</p>
+
+<p>5. Turkey Vulture. Turkey Buzzard. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cathartes aura.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>6. Black Vulture. Carrion Crow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Catharista atrata.</i>&mdash;Two
+birds seen.</p>
+
+<p>7. Red-tailed Hawk. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Buteo borealis.</i>&mdash;One bird seen
+from Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>8. Sparrow Hawk. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Falco sparverius.</i>&mdash;One bird, on
+Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>9. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Coccyzus americanus.</i>&mdash;Common.
+First noticed April 29.</p>
+
+<p>10. Black-billed Cuckoo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Coccyzus erythrophthalmus.</i>&mdash;Seen
+twice on Lookout Mountain, May 7 and 8, and
+once on Walden's Ridge, May 12.</p>
+
+<p>11. Belted Kingfisher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ceryle alcyon.</i>&mdash;A single bird
+heard on Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>12. Hairy Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates villosus.</i>&mdash;My notes
+record seven birds. No attempt was made to determine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+their specific or sub-specific identity, but they are presumed
+to have been <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">D. villosus</i>, not <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">D. villosus audubonii</i>.</p>
+
+<p>13. Downy Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates pubescens.</i>&mdash;A
+single bird was heard (not seen) on Walden's Ridge,&mdash;a
+noticeable reversal of the usual relative commonness of
+this species and the preceding.</p>
+
+<p>14. Red-cockaded Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dryobates borealis.</i>&mdash;Found
+only at Chickamauga, on Snodgrass Hill, in long-leaved
+pines&mdash;two or three birds.</p>
+
+<p>15. Pileated Woodpecker. "Logcock." <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ceophl&oelig;us
+pileatus.</i>&mdash;Said to be common on Walden's Ridge, where
+I heard its flicker-like shout.</p>
+
+<p>16. Red-headed Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Melanerpes erythrocephalus.</i>&mdash;One
+seen near Missionary Ridge and one at Chickamauga.
+The scarcity of this bird, and the absence of
+the red-bellied and the yellow-bellied, were among the
+surprises of my visit.</p>
+
+<p>17. Flicker. Golden-winged Woodpecker. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Colaptes
+auratus.</i>&mdash;Not common. Three birds were seen at Chickamauga,
+and it was occasional on Walden's Ridge, where
+I listed it five days of the seven.</p>
+
+<p>18. Whippoorwill. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Antrostomus vociferus.</i>&mdash;Undoubtedly
+common. I heard it only on Walden's Ridge,
+the only place where I went into the woods after dark.</p>
+
+<p>19. Nighthawk. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Chordeiles virginianus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>20. Chimney Swift. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ChÊtura pelagica.</i>&mdash;Abundant.</p>
+
+<p>21. Ruby-throated Humming-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Trochilus colubris.</i>&mdash;Common
+in the forests of Walden's Ridge. Seen but
+twice elsewhere. First seen April 28.</p>
+
+<p>22. Kingbird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Tyrannus tyrannus.</i>&mdash;Seen but three
+times&mdash;nine specimens in all. First seen April 29.</p>
+
+<p>23. Crested Flycatcher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Myiarchus crinitus.</i>&mdash;Noticed
+daily, with two exceptions.</p>
+
+<p>24. Ph&oelig;be. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sayornis ph&oelig;be.</i>&mdash;Common on Lookout
+Mountain and Walden's Ridge. Not seen elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>25. Wood Pewee. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Contopus virens.</i>&mdash;Very common.
+Much the most numerous member of the family. Present
+in good force April 27, and gathering nest materials
+April 29.</p>
+
+<p>26. Acadian Flycatcher. Green-crested Flycatcher.
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Empidonax virescens.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>27. Blue Jay. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cyanocitta cristata.</i>&mdash;Scarce (for the
+blue jay), and not seen on Walden's Ridge!</p>
+
+<p>28. Crow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Corvus americanus.</i>&mdash;Apparently much less
+common than in Eastern Massachusetts.</p>
+
+<p>29. Bobolink. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dolichonyx oryzivorus.</i>&mdash;A small flock
+seen, and heard singing, April 27.</p>
+
+<p>30. Orchard Oriole. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Icterus spurius.</i>&mdash;Common, but
+not found on Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>31. Baltimore Oriole. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Icterus galbula.</i>&mdash;A single bird,
+at Chickamauga, May 3.</p>
+
+<p>32. Crow Blackbird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Quiscalus quiscula?</i>&mdash;Seen on
+sundry occasions in the valley country, but specific distinction
+not made out. Both forms&mdash;<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Q. quiscula</i> and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Q.
+quiscula Êneus</i>&mdash;are found in Tennessee. See Dr. Fox's
+List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee. "The
+Auk," vol. iii. p. 315. My own list of the IcteridÊ is
+remarkable for its omissions, especially of the cowbird,
+the red-winged blackbird (which, however, I am pretty
+certain that I saw on the wing) and the meadow lark.</p>
+
+<p>33. House Sparrow. English Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Passer domesticus.</i>&mdash;Distressingly
+superabundant in the city and its
+suburbs.</p>
+
+<p>34. Goldfinch. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Spinus tristis.</i>&mdash;Abundant. Still in
+flocks.</p>
+
+<p>35. White-crowned Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Zonotrichia leucophrys.</i>&mdash;Seen
+but once (May 1), two birds, in the national cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>36. White-throated Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Zonotrichia albicollis.</i>&mdash;Common.
+Still present on Walden's Ridge (in two
+places) May 13. Sang very little.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>37. Chipping Sparrow. Doorstep Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Spizella
+socialis.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>38. Field Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Spizella pusilla.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>39. Bachman's Sparrow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">PeucÊa Êstivalis bachmanii.</i>&mdash;Common.
+One of the best of singers.</p>
+
+<p>40. Chewink. Towhee. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pipilo erythrophthalmus.</i>&mdash;Rather
+common. Much less numerous than I should
+have expected from the nature of the country.</p>
+
+<p>41. Cardinal Grosbeak. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cardinalis cardinalis.</i>&mdash;Seen
+daily, but seemingly not very numerous.</p>
+
+<p>42. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Habia ludoviciana.</i>&mdash;A
+single female, May 11.</p>
+
+<p>43. Indigo-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Passerina cyanea.</i>&mdash;Very abundant.
+For the first time I saw this tropical-looking beauty in
+flocks.</p>
+
+<p>44. Scarlet Tanager. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Piranga erythromelas.</i>&mdash;Common
+on the mountains, but seemingly rare in the valley.</p>
+
+<p>45. Summer Tanager. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Piranga rubra.</i>&mdash;Common
+throughout.</p>
+
+<p>46. Purple Martin. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Progne subis.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>47. Rough-winged Swallow. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Stelgidopteryx serripennis.</i>&mdash;A
+few birds seen.</p>
+
+<p>48. Red-eyed Vireo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vireo olivaceus.</i>&mdash;Common.
+One of the species listed every day.</p>
+
+<p>49. Yellow-throated Vireo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vireo flavifrons.</i>&mdash;Common.
+Seen or heard every day except April 27.</p>
+
+<p>50. White-eyed Vireo. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vireo noveboracensis.</i>&mdash;Abundant.
+Heard every day.</p>
+
+<p>51. Black-and-white Creeper. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mniotilta varia.</i>&mdash;Very
+common.</p>
+
+<p>52. Blue-winged Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Helminthophila pinus.</i>&mdash;One
+bird seen at Chickamauga, and a pair on Missionary
+Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>53. Golden-winged Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Helminthophila chrysoptera.</i>&mdash;Common,
+especially in the broken woods north of
+the city.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>54. Panda Warbler. Blue Yellow-backed Warbler.
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Compsothlypis americana.</i>&mdash;Only on Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>55. Cape May Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica tigrina.</i>&mdash;One bird
+seen on Cameron Hill, and a small company on Lookout
+Mountain&mdash;April 27, and May 7 and 8.</p>
+
+<p>56. Yellow Warbler. Golden Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica
+Êstiva.</i>&mdash;Common, but not observed on Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>57. Black-throated Blue Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica cÊrulescens.</i>&mdash;Common,
+April 27 to May 14.</p>
+
+<p>58. Myrtle Warbler. Yellow-rumped Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica
+coronata.</i>&mdash;Noted April 27 and 28, and May 7
+and 8.</p>
+
+<p>59. Magnolia Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica maculosa.</i>&mdash;Not
+uncommon, May 1 to 12.</p>
+
+<p>60. Cerulean Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica c&oelig;rulea.</i>&mdash;One bird,
+a male in song, on Lookout Mountain.</p>
+
+<p>61. Chestnut-sided Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica pensylvanica.</i>&mdash;Listed
+on six dates&mdash;April 27 to May 12.</p>
+
+<p>62. Bay-breasted Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica castanea.</i>&mdash;Seven
+or eight individuals&mdash;April 27 to May 10.</p>
+
+<p>63. Black-poll Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica striata.</i>&mdash;Common
+to May 13.</p>
+
+<p>64. Blackburnian Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica blackburniÊ.</i>&mdash;Seven
+birds&mdash;May 1 to 18.</p>
+
+<p>65. Yellow-throated Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica dominica.</i>
+(<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Albilora?</i>)&mdash;Found only at Chickamauga (Snodgrass
+Hill), where it seemed to be common.</p>
+
+<p>66. Black-throated green Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica virens.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>67. Pine Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica vigorsii.</i>&mdash;Not numerous,
+but found in appropriate places.</p>
+
+<p>68. Palm Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica palmarum.</i>&mdash;The specific&mdash;or sub-specific&mdash;identity
+of this bird was not certainly
+determined, but I judged the specimens&mdash;seen
+on four dates, April 29 to May 11&mdash;to be as above given,
+rather than <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">D. palmarum hypochrysea</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>69. Prairie Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dendroica discolor.</i>&mdash;Very common.</p>
+
+<p>70. Oven-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Seiurus aurocapillus.</i>&mdash;Common on
+Lookout Mountain and Walden's Ridge. Seen but once
+in the lower country.</p>
+
+<p>71. Louisiana Water-thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Seiurus motacilla.</i>&mdash;A
+few birds seen on Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>72. Kentucky Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Geothlypis formosa.</i>&mdash;Very
+common, and in places very unlike.</p>
+
+<p>73. Maryland Yellow-throat. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Geothlypis trichas.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>74. Yellow-breasted Chat. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Icteria virens.</i>&mdash;Very common.</p>
+
+<p>75. Hooded Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sylvania mitrata.</i>&mdash;Common,
+especially along the woodland streams on Walden's Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>76. Wilson's Blackcap. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sylvania pusilla.</i>&mdash;A single
+bird on Walden's Ridge, May 12, in free song.</p>
+
+<p>77. Canadian Warbler. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sylvania canadensis.</i>&mdash;Seen
+on three dates&mdash;May 6, 11, and 12.</p>
+
+<p>78. Redstart. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Setophaga ruticilla.</i>&mdash;Common. Not
+seen after May 14.</p>
+
+<p>79. Mocking-bird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mimus polyglottos.</i>&mdash;Rare. Not
+found on the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>80. Catbird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Galeoscoptes carolinensis.</i>&mdash;Very common,
+both in the city and in the country round about.</p>
+
+<p>81. Brown Thrasher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Harporhynchus rufus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>82. Carolina Wren. Mocking Wren. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Thryothorus ludovicianus.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>83. Bewick's Wren. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Thryothorus bewickii.</i>&mdash;Not common.
+Seen only on Missionary Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>84. White-breasted Nuthatch. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sitta carolinensis.</i>&mdash;Common
+at Chickamauga and on Walden's Ridge. A
+single bird noticed on Lookout Mountain.</p>
+
+<p>85. Tufted Titmouse. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Parus bicolor.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>86. Carolina Chickadee. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Parus carolinensis.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>87. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Polioptila cÊrulea.</i>&mdash;Common.</p>
+
+<p>88. Wood Thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus mustelinus.</i>&mdash;Very common.
+A bird with its beak full of nest materials was
+seen April 29, at the base of Missionary Ridge.</p>
+
+<p>89. Wilson's Thrush. Veery. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus fuscescens.</i>&mdash;Rare.</p>
+
+<p>90. Gray-cheeked Thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus aliciÊ</i>, or <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">T. aliciÊ
+bicknelli</i>.&mdash;Two birds, May 2 and 13.</p>
+
+<p>91. Swainson's Thrush. Olive-backed Thrush. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Turdus
+ustulatus swainsonii.</i>&mdash;In good numbers and free
+song. Seen on four dates, the latest being May 12.</p>
+
+<p>92. Robin. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Merula migratoria.</i>&mdash;Five birds in the
+national cemetery, April 29.</p>
+
+<p>93. Bluebird. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sialia sialis.</i>&mdash;Common. Young birds
+out of the nest, April 28.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX">INDEX.</a></h2>
+
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Arbutus, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+<li>Azalea:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>flame-colored, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li>
+  <li>pink, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li>
+  <li>white, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Baptisia, blue, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+<li>Blackbird:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>crow, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li>
+  <li>red-winged, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Bluebird, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+<li>Bobolink, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+<li>Buzzard, turkey, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Catbird, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+<li>Catchfly, scarlet, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+<li>Cedar-bird, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+<li>Chat, yellow-breasted, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+<li>Chewink, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+<li>Chickadee, blackcap, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li>
+<li>Chickadee, Carolina, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li>
+<li>Cowslip, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+<li>Cranesbill, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+<li>Creeper, black-and-white, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+<li>Cross-vine, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+<li>Crow, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li>
+<li>Cuckoo:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>black-billed, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+  <li>yellow-billed, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Dogwood, flowering, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
+<li>Dove, mourning, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Fern:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>cinnamon, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li>
+  <li>maiden-hair, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Finch:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>Bachman's, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>
+  <li>purple, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Flicker, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li>
+<li>Flycatcher:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>Acadian, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+  <li>crested, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+  <li>yellow-bellied, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Fringe-tree, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Ginger, wild, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+<li>Gnatcatcher, blue-gray, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>
+<li>Goldfinch, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li>
+<li>Gromwell, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li>
+<li>Grosbeak:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>cardinal, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li>
+  <li>rose-breasted, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Grouse, ruffed (pheasant), <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Hawk:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>red-tailed, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>
+  <li>sparrow, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Hieracium, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+<li>Houstonia, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+<li>Humming-bird, ruby-throated, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Indigo-bird, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Jay, blue, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Kingbird, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+<li>Kinglet, golden-crowned, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Lady's-slipper, yellow, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li>
+<li>Lizard, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+<li>Locust, seventeen-year, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Magnolia, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li>
+<li>Martin, purple, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+<li>Maryland yellow-throat, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+<li>Milkweed, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+<li>Mistletoe, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>
+<li>Mocking-bird, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li>
+<li>Mountain Laurel, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Nuthatch, white-breasted (Carolina), <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Oriole:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>Baltimore, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
+  <li>orchard, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Oven-bird, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+<li>Oxalis:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>violet, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+  <li>yellow, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Pentstemon, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+<li>Pewee, wood, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>
+<li>Phlox, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+<li>Ph&oelig;be, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+<li>Pink, Indian, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Quail, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Ragwort (Senecio), <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+<li>Raven, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li>
+<li>Redstart, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+<li>Rhododendron, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+<li>Robin, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>
+<li>Rue anemone, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Saxifrage, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+<li>Sparrow:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>Bachman's (see <span class="smcap">Finch</span>).</li>
+  <li>chipping, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  <li>field, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li>
+  <li>house (English) <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+  <li>song, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>
+  <li>vesper, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>
+  <li>white-crowned, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li>
+  <li>white-throated, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Specularia, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+<li>Spring beauty, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+<li>Stonecrop, white, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+<li>Swallow:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>rough-winged, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>
+  <li>tree (white-bellied), <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Sweet bush, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+<li>Swift, chimney, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Tanager:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>scarlet, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li>
+  <li>summer, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Thrasher (brown thrush), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+<li>Thrush:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>gray-cheeked, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li>
+  <li>hermit, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  <li>Louisiana water, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li>
+  <li>olive-backed (Swainson's), <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+  <li>Wilson's (veery), <a href="#Page_13">13</a>,  <a href="#Page_14">14</a>,  <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></li>
+  <li>wood, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Titmouse, tufted, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
+<li>Tulip-tree, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li>
+<li>Tupelo, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+<li>Turkey, wild, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Viburnum, maple-leaved, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+<li>Violet, bird-foot, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+<li>Vireo:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>red-eyed, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
+  <li>solitary, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  <li>white-eyed, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  <li>yellow-throated, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Vulture:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>black (carrion crow), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li>
+  <li>turkey, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="IX">
+<li>Warbler:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>bay-breasted, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+  <li>Blackburnian, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+  <li>black-poll, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+  <li>black-throated blue, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li>
+  <li>black-throated green, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>
+  <li>blue-winged, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li>
+  <li>blue yellow-backed, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>
+  <li>Canadian, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+  <li>Cape May, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+  <li>cerulean, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>
+  <li>chestnut-sided, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+  <li>Connecticut, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+  <li>golden-winged, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li>
+  <li>hooded, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li>
+  <li>Kentucky, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+  <li>magnolia, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+  <li>mourning, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li>
+  <li>myrtle (yellow-rumped), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+  <li>Nashville, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li>
+  <li>palm (red-poll), <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  <li>pine, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  <li>prairie, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+  <li>Tennessee, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li>
+  <li>Wilson's blackcap, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li>
+  <li>yellow (golden), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>,</li>
+  <li>yellow-throated, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Water-thrush, Louisiana, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li>
+<li>Whippoorwill, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li>
+<li>Wintergreen, striped, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+<li>Woodpecker:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>downy, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+  <li>golden-winged, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li>
+  <li>hairy, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li>
+  <li>pileated, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+  <li>red-cockaded, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+  <li>red-headed, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+<li>Wren:&mdash;
+  <ul class="IX">
+  <li>Bewick's, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+  <li>Carolina (mocking), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li>
+  </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
+If I could have my way, he should be known as the
+doorstep sparrow. The name would fit him to a nicety.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
+It was <em>not</em> the top of the mountain; so I am now informed,
+on the best of authority. I followed the map,
+but misunderstood the man who drew it. It was a map
+of some other route, and I did not see the top of the
+mountain, after all.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>
+<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. iii. p. 103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>
+Both these warblers&mdash;the Nashville and the Tennessee&mdash;were
+named by Wilson from the places where the
+original specimens were shot. Concerning the Tennessee
+warbler he sets down the opinion that "it is most probably
+a native of a more southerly climate." It would be
+a pity for men to cease guessing, though the shrewdest
+are certain to be sometimes wrong.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>
+<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. iii. p. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>
+<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. vi. p. 120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>
+<i>Ibid.</i>, vol. v. p. 267.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a>
+<cite>The Auk</cite>, vol. iii. p. 315. Of sixty-two species seen
+by me during the last four days of April, eleven are not
+given by Dr. Fox, namely, Wilson's thrush, black-poll
+warbler, bay-breasted warbler, Cape May warbler, black-throated
+blue warbler, palm warbler, chestnut-sided warbler,
+blue golden-winged warbler, bobolink, Acadian flycatcher,
+yellow-billed cuckoo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a>
+See Dr. Fox's list.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45708 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/45708/45708-h/images/cover-page.jpg b/45708-h/images/cover-page.jpg
index df28438..df28438 100644
--- a/45708/45708-h/images/cover-page.jpg
+++ b/45708-h/images/cover-page.jpg
diff --git a/45708/45708-h/images/i003.jpg b/45708-h/images/i003.jpg
index a960299..a960299 100644
--- a/45708/45708-h/images/i003.jpg
+++ b/45708-h/images/i003.jpg
diff --git a/45708/45708-8.txt b/45708/45708-8.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 27056ac..0000000
--- a/45708/45708-8.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4884 +0,0 @@
-Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

-

-

-Title: Spring notes from Tennessee

-

-Author: Bradford Torrey

-

-Release Date: May 21, 2014 [EBook #45708]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by JoAnn Greenwood, and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-        Books by Mr. Torrey.

-

-    BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.

-    A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.

-    THE FOOT-PATH WAY. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25.

-    A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK. 16mo, $1.25.

-    SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE. 16mo, $1.25.

-

-        HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

-         BOSTON AND NEW YORK.

-

-

-

-

-        SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE

-

-                     BY

-

-               BRADFORD TORREY

-

-

-    We travelled in the print of olden wars;

-        Yet all the land was green.

-

-                           ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

-

-               [Illustration]

-

-            BOSTON AND NEW YORK

-       HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

-       The Riverside Press, Cambridge

-                    1896

-

-

-

-

-              Copyright, 1896,

-             BY BRADFORD TORREY.

-

-            _All rights reserved._

-

-

-_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._

-

- Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

-

-

-

-

-CONTENTS.

-

-

-                                               PAGE

-

-    AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE                  1

-

-    LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN                             28

-

-    CHICKAMAUGA                                  57

-

-    ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL CEMETERY       89

-

-    AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER                   102

-

-    A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS                113

-

-    A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE                    124

-

-    SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES                   183

-

-    A LIST OF BIRDS                             213

-

-    INDEX                                       221

-

-

-

-

-SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.

-

-

-

-

-AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE.

-

-

-I reached Chattanooga on the evening of April 26th, in the midst of

-a rattling thunder-shower,--which, to look back upon it, seems to

-have been prophetic,--and the next morning, after an early breakfast,

-took an electric car for Missionary Ridge. Among my fellow-passengers

-were four Louisiana veterans fresh from their annual reunion at

-Birmingham, where, doubtless, their hearts had been kindled by much

-fervent oratory, as well as by much private talk of those bygone days

-when they did everything but die for the cause they loved. As the

-car mounted the Ridge, one of them called his companions' attention

-to a place down the valley where "the Rebels and the Yankees" (his

-own words) used to meet to play cards. "A regular gambling-hole,"

-he called it. Their boys brought back lots of coffee. In another

-direction was a spot where the Rebels once "had a regular picnic,"

-killing some extraordinary number of Yankees in some incredibly

-brief time. I interrupted the conversation, and at the same time

-made myself known as a stranger and a Northerner, by inquiring after

-the whereabouts of Orchard Knob, General Grant's headquarters; and

-the same man, who seemed to be the spokesman of the party, after

-pointing out the place, a savin-sprinkled knoll between us and the

-city, kindly invited me to go with him and his comrades up to the

-tower,--on the site of General Bragg's headquarters,--where he would

-show me the whole battlefield and tell me about the fight.

-

-We left the car together for that purpose, and walked up the slope to

-the foot of the observatory,--an open structure of iron, erected by

-the national government; but just then my ear caught somewhere beyond

-us the song of a Bachman's finch,--a song I had heard a year before

-in the pine woods of Florida, and, in my ignorance, was unprepared

-for here. I must see the bird and make sure of its identity. It led

-me a little chase, and when I had seen it I must look also at a

-summer tanager, a chat, and so on, one thing leading to another; and

-by the time I returned to the observatory the veterans had come down

-and were under some apple-trees, from one of which the spokesman was

-cutting a big walking-stick. He had stood under those trees--which

-were now in bloom--thirty years before, he said, with General Bragg

-himself.

-

-I was sorry to have missed his story of the battle, and ashamed to

-have seemed ungrateful and rude, but I forget what apology I offered.

-At this distance it is hard to see how I could have got out of the

-affair with much dignity. I might have heard all about the battle

-from a man who was there, and instead I went off to listen to a

-sparrow singing in a bush. I thought, to be sure, that the men would

-be longer upon the observatory, and that I should still be in season.

-Probably that was my excuse, if I made one; and in all likelihood

-the veteran was too completely taken up with his own concerns to

-think twice about the vagaries of a stray Yankee, who seemed to be

-an odd stick, to say nothing worse of him. Well, the loss, such

-as it was, was mine, not his; and I have lost too much time in the

-way of business to fret over a little lost (or saved) in the way of

-pleasure. As for any apparent lack of patriotic feeling, I suppose

-that the noblest patriot in the world, if he chanced to be also an

-ornithologist, would notice a bird even amid the smoke of battle; and

-why should not I do as much on a field from which the battle smoke

-had vanished thirty years before?

-

-So I reason now; at the time I had no leisure for such sophistries.

-Every moment brought some fresh distraction. The long hill--woodland,

-brambly pasture, and shrubby dooryard--was a nest of singing birds;

-and when at last I climbed the tower, I came down again almost as

-suddenly as my Louisiana friends had done. The landscape,--the city

-and its suburbs, the river, the mountains,--all this would be here

-to-morrow; just now there were other things to look at. Here in the

-grass, almost under my nose, were a pair of Bewick wrens, hopping

-and walking by turns, as song sparrows may sometimes be found doing;

-conscious through and through of my presence, yet affecting to

-ignore it; carrying themselves with an indescribable and pretty

-demureness, as if a nest were something never dreamed of by birds

-of their kind; the female, nevertheless, having at that moment her

-beak bristling with straws, while the male, a proud young husband,

-hovered officiously about her with a continual sweetly possessive

-manner and an occasional burst of song. Till yesterday Bewick's wren

-had been nothing but a name to me. Then, somewhere after crossing the

-state line, the train stopped at a station, and suddenly through the

-open window came a song. "That's a Bewick wren," I said to myself,

-as I stepped across the aisle to look out; and there he stood, on

-the fence beside the track, his long tail striking the eye on the

-instant. He sang again, and once again, before the train started.

-Tennessee was beginning well with a visiting bird-gazer.

-

-There must be some wrennish quality about the Bewick's song, it would

-seem: else how did I recognize it so promptly? And yet, so far as I

-am able to give an account of my own impressions, it had in my ears

-no resemblance to any wren song I had ever heard. I think it never

-suggested to me any music except the song sparrow's. The truth is, I

-suppose, that we _feel_ resemblances and relationships of which the

-mind takes no cognizance.

-

-I wandered at a venture down the further slope, turning this way and

-that as a song invited me. Here were Southerners and Northerners

-fraternally commingled: summer tanagers, Carolina wrens, blue-gray

-gnatcatchers, cardinal grosbeaks, chats, Bachman finches, field

-sparrows, chippers, white-throated sparrows, chewinks, indigo

-buntings, black-poll warblers, myrtle-birds, prairie warblers, a

-Maryland yellow-throat, a bay-breasted warbler, a black-and-white

-creeper, a redstart, brown thrushes, catbirds, a single mocking-bird,

-wood thrushes, red-eyed vireos, white-eyed vireos, wood pewees, a

-quail, and, in the air, purple martins and turkey buzzards. On the

-Ridge, as well as near the foot on our way up, a mocking-bird and a

-wood thrush sang within hearing of each other. Comparison as between

-birds so dissimilar is useless and out of place; but how shall a man

-avoid it? The mocking-bird is a great vocalist,--yes, and a great

-singer; but to my Northern ears the wood thrush carried the day with

-his _voice_.

-

-Having climbed the Ridge again,--though climbing might be thought

-rather too laborious a word for so gradual a slope,--and started

-down on the side toward the city, I came to a patch of blackberry

-vines, in the midst of which sat a thrasher on her nest, all a

-mother's anxiety in her staring yellow eyes. Close by her stood

-an olive-backed thrush. There, too, was my first hooded warbler,

-a female. She escaped me the next instant, though I made an eager

-chase, not knowing yet how common birds of her sort were to prove in

-that Chattanooga country.

-

-In my delight at finding Missionary Ridge so happy a hunting-ground

-for an opera-glass naturalist, I went thither again the very

-next morning. This time some Virginia veterans were in the car

-(they all wore badges), and when we had left it, and were about

-separating,--after a bit of talk about the battle, of course,--one

-of them, with almost painful scrupulosity, insisted upon assuring me

-that if the thing were all to be done over again, he should do just

-as before. One of his comrades, seeing me a Northerner, interrupted

-him more than once in a vain attempt to smooth matters over. They had

-buried the hatchet, he said; let bygones be bygones. But the first

-man was not to be cajoled with a phrase. He spoke without passion,

-with no raising of the voice, quite simply and amicably: he too

-accepted the result; the thing never _would_ be done over again; only

-let his position be understood,--he had nothing to take back. It was

-impossible not to respect such conscientiousness. For my own part, at

-any rate, I felt no prompting to argue against it, being sufficiently

-"opinionated" to appreciate a difficulty which some obstinate people

-experience in altering their convictions as circumstances change,

-or accepting the failure of a cause as proof of its injustice. If

-a man is not _too_ obstinate, to be sure, time and the course of

-events may bring him new light; but that is another matter. Once,

-when the men were talking among themselves, I overheard one say, as

-he pointed down the hill, "The Rebels were there, and the Union men

-yonder." That careless recurrence of the word "Rebel" came to me as a

-surprise.

-

-The principal excitement of the morning was a glimpse of a Kentucky

-warbler, a bird most peculiarly desired. I had finished my jaunt,

-and was standing beside the bramble patch not far from the railway,

-where I had seen the hooded warbler the day before, when the splendid

-creature flashed into sight, saw me, uttered a volley of quick, clear

-notes, and vanished up the hillside. I ran after him, but might as

-well have remained where I was. "He _is_ a beauty!" I find written

-in my notebook. And so he is, clothed in lustrous olive and the

-most gorgeous of yellows with trimmings of black, all in the best

-of taste, with nothing patchy, nothing fantastic or even fanciful.

-I was again impressed with the abundance of chats, indigo-birds,

-and white-eyed vireos. Bachman sparrows were numerous, also, in

-appropriate localities,--dry and bushy,--and I noted a bluebird, a

-yellow-throated vireo, and, shouting from a dead treetop, a great

-crested flycatcher.

-

-My most vivid recollection of this second visit, however, is of the

-power of the sun, an old enemy of mine, by whom, in my ignorance

-of spring weather in Tennessee, I allowed myself to be taken at a

-cruel noonday disadvantage. Even now, in the deep frigidity of a

-Massachusetts winter, I cannot think of Missionary Ridge without

-seeing again those long stretches of burning sunshine, wherein the

-least spot of shade was like a palm in the desert. In every such

-shelter I used to stand awhile, bareheaded; then, marking the next

-similar haven, so many rods ahead, I would hoist my umbrella and

-push forward, cringing at every step as if I were crossing a field

-under fire. Possibly I exaggerate, but, if I do, it is very little;

-and though it be an abuse of an exquisite poem, I say over to myself

-again and again a couplet of Miss Guiney's:--

-

-    "Weather on a sunny ridge,

-    Showery weather, far from here."

-

-In truth, early as the season was, the excessive heat, combined with

-a trying dog-day humidity, sadly circumscribed all my Tennessee

-rambles. As for my umbrella, my obligations to it were such that

-nothing but a dread of plagiarism has restrained me from entitling

-this sketch "An Umbrella on Missionary Ridge." Nature never intended

-me for a tropical explorer. Often I did nothing more than seek a

-shady retreat and stay there, letting the birds come to me, if they

-would.

-

-Improved after this indolent fashion, one of the hottest of my

-forenoons became also one of the most enjoyable. I left the car

-midway up the Ridge,--at the angle of the Y,--and, passing my

-thrasher's blackberry tangle and descending a wooded slope, found

-myself unexpectedly in a pleasant place, half wood, half grassy

-field, through which ran a tiny streamlet, the first one I had seen

-in this dry and thirsty land. Near the streamlet, on the edge of the

-wood, quite by itself, stood a cabin of most forlorn appearance, with

-a garden patch under the window,--if there _was_ a window, as to

-which I do not remember, and the chances seem against it,--the whole

-closely and meanly surrounded by a fence. In the door stood an aged

-white woman, looking every whit as old and forlorn as the cabin, with

-a tall mastiff on one side of her and a black cat on the other.

-

-"Your dog and cat are good friends," I remarked, feeling it polite to

-speak even to a stranger in so lonesome a spot.

-

-"Yes," she answered gruffly, "they're good friends, only once in a

-while he wants to kill her."

-

-She said nothing more, and her manner did not encourage further

-attempts at neighborly intercourse; but as I passed the cabin now and

-then during the forenoon, the birds leading me about, I heard her

-muttering often and at considerable length to her hens and ducks.

-Evidently she enjoyed conversation as well as most people, only

-she liked to pick her own company. She was "Aunt Tilly," I learned

-afterwards, and had lived there by herself for many years; one of the

-characters of the city, a fortune-teller, whose professional services

-were in frequent request.

-

-In this favored nook, especially along the watercourse, were many

-birds, some of them at home for the summer, but the greater part,

-no doubt, lying over for a day or two on their long northward

-journey. Not one of them but was interesting to me here in a new

-country, however familiar it might have become in New England. Here

-were at least eleven kinds of warblers: black-polls of both sexes,

-black-throated blues, chestnut-sides, myrtle-birds, golden warblers,

-black-and-white creepers, redstarts (have we anything handsomer?),

-Maryland yellow-throats, blue golden-wings, chats, and Kentuckies.

-Here were blue-gray gnatcatchers, bluebirds, wood thrushes, veeries,

-an olive-backed thrush, catbirds, thrashers, Carolina wrens, tufted

-titmice, a Carolina chickadee, summer tanagers uncounted, orchard

-orioles, field sparrows, chippers, a Bachman sparrow (unseen), a

-cardinal, a chewink, flocks of indigo-birds and goldfinches, red-eyed

-vireos, white-eyed vireos, a yellow-throated vireo, kingbirds, and a

-crested flycatcher.

-

-In an oak at the corner of Aunt Tilly's cabin a pair of gnatcatchers

-had built a nest; an exquisite piece of work, large and curiously

-cylindrical,--not tapering at the base,--set off with a profusion of

-gray lichens, and saddled upon one limb directly under another, as

-if for shelter. If the gnatcatcher is not a great singer (his voice

-is slender, like himself), he is near the head of his profession as

-an architect and a builder. Twice, in the most senseless manner, one

-of the birds--the female, I had no doubt, in spite of the adjective

-just applied to her conduct--stood beside the nest and scolded at

-me; then, having freed her mind and attracted my attention, she got

-inside and began pecking here and there at the rim, apparently giving

-it the final touches. The tufted tits whistled unseen with all their

-characteristic monotony. The veeries and the olive-back kept silence,

-but the wood thrushes, as was their daily habit, made the woods ring.

-One of them was building a nest.

-

-Most admired of all were the Kentucky warblers, of which there were

-at least five. It was my first real sight of them, and, fortunately,

-they were not in the least bashful. They spent the time mostly on

-the ground, in open, grassy places, especially about the roots of

-trees and thorn-bushes,--the latter now snowy with bloom,--once in a

-while hopping a few inches up the bole, as if to pick off insects.

-In movement and attitude they made me think often of the Connecticut

-warbler, although when startled they took a higher perch. Once I

-saw one of them under a pretty tuft of the showy blue baptisia (_B.

-australis_),--a new bird in the shadow of a new flower! Who says that

-life is an old story? From the general manner of the birds,--more

-easily felt than defined,--as well as from their presence in a group

-and their silence, I inferred, rightly or wrongly, that they had

-but recently arrived. For aught I yet knew, they might be nothing

-but wayfarers,--a happy uncertainty which made them only the more

-interesting. Of their beauty I have already spoken. It would be

-impossible to speak of it too highly.

-

-As I took the car at noon, I caught sight of a wonderfully bright

-blood-red flower on the bank above the track, and, as I was the only

-passenger, the conductor kindly waited for me to run up and pluck it.

-It turned out to be a catchfly, and, like the Kentucky warbler, it

-became common a little later. "Indian pink," one of my Walden's Ridge

-friends said it was called; a pretty name, but to me "battlefield

-pink" or "carnage pink" would have seemed more appropriate.

-

-I had found an aviary, I thought, this open grove of Aunt Tilly's,

-with its treasure of a brook, and at the earliest opportunity I went

-that way again. Indeed, I went more than once. But the birds were no

-longer there. What I had seen was mainly a flock of "transients,"

-a migratory "wave." On the farther side of the Ridge, however, I

-by and by discovered a spot more permanently attractive,--a little

-valley in the hillside. Here was a spring, and from it, nearly dry

-as it was, there still oozed a slender rill, which trickled halfway

-down the slope before losing itself in the sand, and here and there

-dribbled into a basin commodious enough for a small bird's bath.

-Several times I idled away an hour or two in this retreat, under the

-shadow of red maples, sweet-gums, sycamores, and tupelos, making an

-occasional sortie into the sun as an adventurous mood came over me or

-a distant bird-call proved an irresistible attraction.

-

-They were pleasant hours, but I recall them with a sense of waste and

-discomfort. In familiar surroundings, such waitings upon Nature's

-mood are profitable, wholesome for body and soul; but in vacation

-time, and away from home, with new paths beckoning a man this way and

-that, and a new bird, for aught he can tell, singing beyond the next

-hill,--at such a time, I think, sitting still becomes a burden, and

-the cheerful practice of "a wise passiveness" a virtue beyond the

-comfortable reach of ordinary flesh and blood. Along the upper edge

-of the glen a road ran downward into the valley east of the Ridge,

-and now and then a carriage or a horseman passed. It would have been

-good to follow them. All that valley country, as I surveyed it from

-the railway and the tower, had an air of invitingness: beautiful

-woods, with footpaths and unfrequented roads. In them I must have

-found birds, flowers, and many a delightful nook. If the Fates could

-have sent me one cool day!

-

-Yet for all my complaining, I have lived few more enjoyable Sunday

-forenoons than one that I passed most inactively in this same

-hillside hollow. As I descended the bank to the spring, two or three

-goldfinches were singing (goldfinch voices go uncommonly well in

-chorus, and the birds seem to know it); a female tanager sat before

-me calling _clippity_, _clippity_; a field sparrow, a mocking wren,

-and a catbird sang in as many different directions; and a pair of

-thrashers--whose nest could not be far away--flitted nervously about,

-uttering characteristic moaning whistles. If they felt half as badly

-as their behavior indicated, their case was tragical indeed; but at

-the moment, instead of pitying them, I fell to wondering just when it

-is that the thrasher _smacks_ (all friends of his are familiar with

-his resounding imitation of a kiss), and when it is that he whistles.

-I have never made out, although I believe I know pretty well the

-states of mind thus expressed. The thrasher is to a peculiar degree

-a bird of passion; ecstatic in song, furious in anger, irresistibly

-pitiful in lamentation. How any man can rob a thrasher's nest with

-that heartbroken whistle in his ears is more than I can imagine.

-

-Indigo-birds are here, of course. Their number is one of the marvels

-of this country,--though indeed the country seems made for them, as

-it is also for chats and white-eyed vireos. A bit farther down the

-valley, as I come to the maples and tupelos, with their grateful

-density of shade, a wood pewee sings, and then a wood thrush. At the

-same moment, an Acadian flycatcher, who is always here (his nest

-is building overhead, as, after a while, I discover), salutes me

-with a quick, spiteful note. "No trespassing," he says. Landowners

-are pretty much alike. I pass on, but not far, and beside a little

-thicket I take up my stand, and wait. It is pleasant here, and

-patience will be rewarded. Yes, there is a magnolia warbler, my

-second Tennessee specimen; a great beauty, but without that final

-perfection of good taste (simplicity) which distinguishes the

-Kentucky. I see him, and he is gone, and I am not to be drawn into

-a chase. Now I have a glimpse of a thrush; an olive-back, from what

-I can see, but I cannot be sure. Still I keep my place. A blue-gray

-gnatcatcher is drawling somewhere in the leafy treetops. Thence, too,

-a cuckoo fires off a lively fusillade of _kuks_,--a yellow-bill,

-by that token. Next a black-poll warbler shows himself, still far

-from home, though he has already traveled a long way northward;

-and then, in one of the basins of the stream (if we may call it a

-stream, in which there is no semblance of a current), a chat comes

-to wash himself. Now I see the thrush again; or rather, I hear him

-whistle, and by moving a step or two I get him with my eye. He _is_

-an olive-back, as his whistle of itself would prove; and presently

-he begins to sing, to my intense delight. Soon two others are in

-voice with him. Am I on Missionary Ridge or in the Crawford Notch?

-I stand motionless, and listen and listen, but my enjoyment is

-interrupted by a new pleasure. A warbler, evidently a female, from

-a certain quietness and plainness, and, as I take it, a blue-winged

-yellow, though I have never seen a female of that species (and only

-once a male--three days ago at Chickamauga), comes to the edge of

-the pool, and in another minute her mate is beside her. Him there is

-no mistaking. They fly away in a bit of lovers' quarrel, a favorite

-pastime with mated birds. And look! there is a scarlet tanager; the

-same gorgeous fellow, I suppose, that was here two days ago, and the

-only one I have seen in this lower country. What a beauty he is! One

-of the finest; handsomer, so I think, than the handsomest of his

-all-red cousins. Now he calls _chip-cherr_, and now he breaks into

-song. There he falls behind; his cousin's voice is less hoarse, and

-his style less labored and jerky.

-

-Now straight before me, up a woody aisle, an olive-backed thrush

-stands in full view and a perfect light, facing me and singing,

-a lovely chorister. Looking at him, I catch a flutter of yellow

-and black among the leaves by the streamlet; a Kentucky warbler, I

-suspect, but I dare not go forward to see, for now the thrushes are

-in chorus again. By and by he comes up from his bath, and falls to

-dressing his feathers: not a Kentucky, after all, but a Canadian

-flycatcher, my first one here. He, too, is an exquisite, with fine

-colors finely laid on, and a most becoming jet necklace. While I am

-admiring him, a blue yellow-back begins to practice his scales--still

-a little blurred, and needing practice, a critic might say--somewhere

-at my right among the hillside oaks; another exquisite, a beauty

-among beauties. I see him, though he is out of sight. And what seems

-odd, at this very moment his rival as a singer of the scale, the

-prairie warbler, breaks out on the other side of me. Like the chat

-and the indigo-bird, he is abundantly at home hereabout.

-

-All this woodland music is set off by spaces of silence, sweeter

-almost than the music itself. Here is peace unbroken; here is a

-delicious coolness, while the sun blazes upon the dusty road above

-me. How amiable a power is contrast--on its softer side! I think of

-the eager, bloody, sweaty, raging men, who once stormed up these

-slopes, killing and being killed. The birds know nothing of all

-that. It might have been thousands of years ago. The very trees have

-forgotten it. Two or three cows come feeding down the glade, with

-the lazy tinkle of a bell. And now my new friend, the blue-winged

-yellow warbler, sings across the path (across the aisle, I was going

-to say), but only two or three times, and with only two insignificant

-lisping syllables. The chary soul! He sings to the eye, I suppose. I

-go over to look at him, and my sudden movement startles the thrushes,

-who, finding themselves again in the singers' gallery, cannot

-refrain from another chorus. At the same moment the Canadian warbler

-comes into sight again, this time in a tupelo. The blue-wings are

-found without difficulty; they have a call like the black-and-white

-creeper's. A single rough-winged swallow skims above the treetops. I

-have seen him here before, and one or two others like him.

-

-As I return to the bed of the valley, a female cardinal grosbeak

-flutters suspiciously about a thicket of tall blackberry vines. Her

-nest should be there, I think, but a hasty look reveals nothing.

-Again I come upon the Canadian warbler. If there is only one

-here, he is often in my way. I sit down upon the leaning, almost

-horizontal, bole of a large tupelo,--a new tree to me, but common

-in this country. The thick dark-colored bark is broken deeply into

-innumerable geometrical figures, giving the tree a noticeable,

-venerable appearance, as wrinkles lend distinction and character to

-an old man's face. Another species, which, as far as I can tell,

-should be our familiar tupelo of Massachusetts, is equally common,--a

-smaller tree, with larger leaves. The moisture here, slight as it

-now is, gives the place a vegetation of its own and a peculiar

-density of leafage. From one of the smaller tupelos (I repeat that

-word as often as I can, for the music of it) cross-vine streamers

-are swinging, full of red-and-yellow bells. Scattered thinly over

-the ground are yellow starflowers, the common houstonia, a pink

-phlox, and some unknown dark yellow blossom a little like the fall

-dandelion,--Cynthia, I guess.

-

-My thoughts are recalled by a strong, sharp _chip_ in a voice I do

-not recognize,--a Kentucky warbler's, as presently turns out. He

-walks about the ground amid the short, thin grass, seemingly in the

-most placid of moods; but at every few steps, for some inscrutable

-reason, he comes out with that quick, peremptory call. And all the

-while I keep saying to myself, "What a beauty!" But my forenoon is

-past. I rise to go, and at the motion he takes flight. Near the

-spring the goldfinches are still in full chorus, and just beyond them

-in the path is a mourning dove.

-

-That was a good season: hymns without words, "a sermon not made

-with hands," and the world shut out. Three days afterward, fast

-as my vacation was running away, I went to the same place again.

-The olive-backed thrushes were still singing, to my surprise, and

-the Kentucky warblers were still feeding in the grass. The scarlet

-tanager sang (it is curious how much oftener I mention him than the

-comparatively unfamiliar, but here extremely common summer tanager),

-the cuckoo called, the Acadian flycatcher was building her nest,--on

-a horizontal limb of a maple,--and a goldfinch warbled as if he

-could never cease. A veery sang, also (I heard but one other in

-Tennessee), with a chestnut-sided warbler, two redstarts (one of them

-in the modest garb of his mother), a Carolina chickadee, a mocking

-wren, a pine warbler, a prairie warbler, and a catbird. In time,

-probably, all the birds for a mile around might have been heard or

-seen beside that scanty rill.

-

-To-day, however, my mood was less Sundayish than before, and in spite

-of the heat I ventured across an open pasture,--where a Bachman's

-finch was singing an ingenious set of variations, and a rabbit

-stamped with a sudden loudness that made me jump,--and then through

-a piece of wood, till I came to another hollow like the one I had

-left, but without water, and therefore less thickly shaded. Here was

-the inevitable thicket of brambles (since I speak so much of chats

-and indigo-birds, the presence of a sufficiency of blackberry bushes

-may be taken for granted), and I waited to see what it would bring

-forth. A field sparrow sang from the hillside,--a sweet and modest

-tune that went straight to the heart, and had nothing to fear from

-a comparison with Bachman's finch or any other. What a contrast in

-this respect between him and his gentle-seeming but belligerent

-and tuneless cousin whom we call "chippy."[1] Here, likewise, were

-a pair of complaining Carolina wrens and an Acadian flycatcher. A

-thrush excited my curiosity, having the look of a gray-cheek, but

-showing a buff eye-ring; and while I was coaxing him to whistle,

-and so declare himself,--often a ready means of identification,

-and preferable on all accounts to shooting the bird,--there came a

-furious outburst from the depths of the brier patch, with a grand

-flurry of wings: a large bird and two smaller ones engaged in sudden

-battle, as well as I could make out. At the close of the _mêlée_,

-which ended as abruptly as it had begun, the thicket showed two

-wrens, a white-throated sparrow, and a female cardinal. The cardinal

-flew away; the affair was no business of hers, apparently; but in a

-minute she was back again, scolding. Then, while my back was turned,

-everything became quiet; and on my stepping up to reconnoitre, there

-she sat in her nest with four eggs under her. At that moment a chat's

-loud voice was heard, and, turning quickly, I caught the fellow in

-the midst of a brilliant display of his clownish tricks, ridiculous,

-indescribable. At a little distance, it is hard to believe that it

-can be a bird, that dancing, shapeless thing, balancing itself in the

-air with dangling legs and prancing, swaying motions. Well, that is

-the chat's way. What more need be said? Every creature must express

-himself, and birds no less than other poets are entitled to an

-occasional "fine frenzy."

-

-My little excursion had brought me nothing new, and, like all my

-similar ventures on Missionary Ridge, it ended in defeat. The sun was

-too much for me; to use a word suggested by the place, it carried too

-many guns. I took a long and comfortable siesta under a magnificent

-chestnut oak. Then it was near noon, and, with my umbrella spread, I

-mounted the hill to the railway, and waited for a car.

-

-FOOTNOTE:

-

-[1] If I could have my way, he should be known as the doorstep

-sparrow. The name would fit him to a nicety.

-

-

-

-

-LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

-

-

-Lookout Mountain was at first a disappointment. I went home

-discouraged. The place was spoiled, I thought. About the fine inn

-were cheap cottages,--as if one had come to a second-class summer

-resort; while the lower slopes of the mountain, directly under

-Lookout Point on the side toward the city, were given up to a squalid

-negro settlement, and, of all things, a patent-medicine factory,--a

-shameful desecration, it seemed to me. I was half ready to say I

-would go there no more. The prospect was beautiful,--so much there

-was no denying; but the air was thick with smoke, and, what counted

-for ten times more, the eye itself was overclouded. A few northern

-warblers were chirping in the evergreens along the edge of the

-summit, between the inn and the Point,--black-polls and bay-breasts,

-with black-throated greens and Carolina wrens; and near them I saw

-with pleasure my first Tennessee phoebes. In the street car, on the

-way back to Chattanooga, I had for my fellow-passengers a group of

-Confederate veterans from different parts of the South, one of whom,

-a man with an empty sleeve, was showing his comrades an interesting

-war-time relic,--a bit of stone bearing his own initials. He had cut

-them in the rock while on duty at the Point thirty years before, I

-heard him say, and now, remembering the spot, and finding them still

-there, he had chipped them off to carry home. These are all the

-memories I retain of my first visit to a famous and romantic place

-that I had long desired to see.

-

-My second visit was little more remunerative, and came to an untimely

-and inglorious conclusion. Not far from the inn I noticed what seemed

-to be the beginning of an old mountain road. It would bring me to St.

-Elmo, a passing cottager told me; and I somehow had it fast in my

-mind that St. Elmo was a particularly wild and attractive woodland

-retreat somewhere in the valley,--a place where a pleasure-seeking

-naturalist would find himself happy for at least an hour or two, if

-the mountain side should insufficiently detain him. The road itself

-looked uncommonly inviting, rough and deserted, with wild crags

-above and old forest below; and without a second thought I took it,

-idling downward as slowly as possible, minding the birds and plants,

-or sitting for a while, as one shady stone after another offered

-coolness and a seat, to enjoy the silence and the prospect. Be as

-lazy as I could, however, the road soon gave signs of coming to an

-end; for Lookout Mountain, although it covers much territory and

-presents a mountainous front, is of a very modest elevation. And at

-the end of the way there was no sylvan retreat, but a village; yes,

-the same dusty little suburb that I had passed, and looked away from,

-on my way up. _That_ was St. Elmo!--and, with my luncheon still in

-my pocket, I boarded the first car for the city. One consolation

-remained: I had lived a pleasant hour, and the mountain road had

-made three additions to my local ornithology,--a magnolia warbler, a

-Blackburnian warbler, and a hairy woodpecker.

-

-There was nothing for it but to laugh at myself, and try again; but

-it was almost a week before I found the opportunity. Then (May

-7) I made a day of it on the mountain, mostly in the woods along

-the western bluffs. An oven-bird's song drew me in that direction,

-to begin with; and just as the singer had shown himself, and been

-rewarded with an entry as "No. 79" in my Tennessee catalogue, a

-cuckoo, farther away, broke into a shuffling introductory measure

-that marked him at once as a black-bill. Till now I had seen

-yellow-bills only, and though the voice was perhaps a sufficient

-identification, a double certainty would be better, especially in the

-retrospect. Luckily it was a short chase, and there sat the bird, his

-snowy throat swelling as he cooed, while his red eye-ring and his

-abbreviated tail-spots gave him a clear title to count as "No. 80."

-

-As I approached the precipitous western edge of the mountain, I

-heard, just below, the sharp, wiry voice of a Blackburnian warbler;

-a most splendid specimen, for in a moment more his orange-red

-throat shone like fire among the leaves. From farther down rose

-the hoarse notes of a black-throated blue warbler and two or three

-black-throated greens.

-

-Here were comfortable, well-shaded boulders and delightful

-prospects,--a place to stay in; but behind me stood a grove of small

-pine-trees, out of which came now and then a warbler's _chip_;

-and in May, with everything on the move, and anything possible,

-invitations of that kind are not to be refused. Warbler species

-are many, and there is always another to hope for. I turned to the

-pines, therefore, as a matter of course, and was soon deeply engaged

-with a charming bevy of northward-bound passengers,--myrtle-birds,

-palm warblers, black-throated blues (of both sexes), a female Cape

-May warbler (the first of her sex that I had seen) magnolias,

-bay-breasts, and many black-polls. It makes a short story in the

-telling; but it was long in the doing, and yielded more excitement

-than I dare try to describe. To and fro I went among the low trees

-(their lowness a most fortunate circumstance), slowly and with all

-quietness, putting my glass upon one bird after another as something

-stirred among the needles, and hoping every moment for some glorious

-surprise. In particular, I hoped for a cerulean warbler; but this was

-not the cerulean's day, and, if I had but known it, these were not

-the cerulean's trees. None but enthusiasts in the same line will be

-able to appreciate the delight of such innocent "collecting,"--birds

-in the memory instead of specimens in a bag. Even on one's home beat

-it quickens the blood; how much more, then, in a new field, where a

-man is almost a stranger to himself, and rarities and novelties seem

-but the order of the day. Again and again, morning and afternoon, I

-traversed the little wood, leaving it between whiles for a rest under

-the big oaks on the edge of the cliffs, whence, through green vistas,

-I gazed upon the farms of Lookout Valley and the mountains beyond. A

-scarlet tanager called,--my second one here,--wood thrush voices rang

-through the mountain side forest, a single thrasher was doing his

-bravest from the tip of a pine (our "brown mocking-bird" is anything

-but a skulker when the lyrical mood is on him), while wood pewees,

-red-eyed vireos, yellow-throated vireos, black-and-white creepers,

-and I do not remember what else, joined in the chorus. Just after

-noon an oven-bird gave out his famous aerial warble. To an aspiring

-soul even a mountain top is but a perch, a place from which to take

-wing.

-

-All these birds, it will be noticed, were such as I might have seen

-in Massachusetts; and indeed, the general appearance of things about

-me was pleasantly homelike. Here was much of the pretty striped

-wintergreen, a special favorite of mine, with bird-foot violets,

-the common white saxifrage (dear to memory as the "Mayflower" of

-my childhood), the common wild geranium (cranesbill, which we were

-told was "good for canker"), and maple-leaved viburnum. One of the

-loveliest flowers was the pink oxalis, and one of the commonest

-was a pink phlox; but I was most pleased, perhaps, with the white

-stonecrop (_Sedum ternatum_), patches of which matted the ground, and

-just now were in full bloom. The familiar look of this plant was a

-puzzle to me. I cannot remember to have seen it often in gardens, and

-I am confident that I never found it before in a wild state except

-once, fifteen years ago, at the Great Falls of the Potomac. Yet here

-on Lookout Mountain it seemed almost as much an old friend as the

-saxifrage or the cranesbill.

-

-I ate my luncheon on Sunset Rock, which literally overhangs the

-mountain side, and commands the finest of valley prospects; and

-then, after another turn through the pines, where the warblers

-were still busy with their all-day meal,--but not the new warbler,

-for which I was still looking,--I crossed the summit and made the

-descent by the St. Elmo road, as before. How long I was on the way

-I am unable to tell; I had learned the brevity of the road, and,

-like a schoolboy with his tart, I made the most of it. Midway down I

-caught sudden sight of an olive bird in the upper branch of a tree,

-with something black about the crown and the cheek. "What's that?" I

-exclaimed; and on the instant the stranger flew across the road and

-up the steep mountain side. I pushed after him in hot haste, over the

-huge boulders, and there he stood on the ground, singing,--a Kentucky

-warbler. Seeing him so hastily, and on so high a perch, and missing

-his yellow under-parts, I had failed to recognize him. As it was, I

-now heard his song for the first time, and rejoiced to find it worthy

-of its beautiful author: _klurwée_, _klurwée_, _klurwée_, _klurwée_,

-_klurwée_; a succession of clear, sonorous dis-syllables, in a fuller

-voice than most warblers possess, and with no flourish before or

-after. Like the bird's dress, it was perfect in its simplicity. I

-felt thankful, too, that I had waited till now to hear it. Things

-should be desired before they are enjoyed. It was another case of

-the schoolboy and his tart; and I went home good-humored. Lookout

-Mountain was not wholly ruined, after all.

-

-The next day found me there again, to my own surprise, for I had

-promised myself a trip down the river to Shellmound. In all the

-street cars, as well as in the city newspapers, this excursion was

-set forth as supremely enjoyable, a luxury on no account to be

-missed,--a fine commodious steamer, and all the usual concomitants.

-The kind people with whom I was sojourning, on Cameron Hill, hastened

-the family breakfast that I might be in season; but on arriving at

-the wharf I found no sign of the steamer, and, after sundry attempts

-to ascertain the condition of affairs, I learned that the steamer did

-not run now. The river was no longer high enough, it was explained;

-a smaller boat would go, or might be expected to go, some hours

-later. Little disposed to hang about the landing for several hours,

-and feeling no assurance that so doing would bring me any nearer to

-Shellmound, I made my way back to the Read House, and took a car for

-Lookout Mountain. In it I sat face to face with the same conspicuous

-placard, announcing an excursion for that day by the large and

-commodious steamer So-and-So, from such a wharf, at eight o'clock.

-But I then noticed that intending passengers were invited, in smaller

-type, to call at the office of the company, where doubtless it would

-be politely confided to them that the advertisement was a "back

-number." So the mistake was my own, after all, and, as the American

-habit is, I had been blaming the servants of the public unjustly.

-

-I was no sooner on the summit than I hastened to the pine wood. At

-first it seemed to be empty, but after a little, hearing the drawling

-_kree_, _kree_, _kree_, of a black-throated blue, I followed it,

-and found the bird. Next a magnolia dropped into sight, and then a

-red-cheeked Cape May, the second one I had ever seen, after fifteen

-or twenty years of expectancy. He threaded a leafless branch back and

-forth on a level with my eyes. I was glad I had come. Soon another

-showed himself, and presently it appeared that the wood, as men speak

-of such things, was full of them. There were black-polls, also, with

-a Blackburnian, a bay-breast, and a good number of palm warblers,

-(typical _palmarum_, to judge from the pale tints); but especially

-there were Cape Mays, including at least two females. As to the

-number of males it is impossible to speak; I never had more than

-two under my eye at once, but I came upon them continually,--they

-were always in motion, of course, being warblers,--till finally, as

-I put my glass on another one, I caught myself saying, in a tone of

-disappointment, "Only a Cape May." But yesterday I might as well have

-spoken of a million dollars as "only a million." So soon does novelty

-wear off. The magnolia and the Blackburnian were in high feather, and

-made a gorgeous pair as chance brought them side by side in the same

-tree. They sang with much freedom; but the Cape Mays kept silence,

-to my deep regret, notwithstanding the philosophical remarks just

-now volunteered about the advantages derivable from a bird's gradual

-disclosure of himself. Such pieces of wisdom, I have noticed, when

-by chance they do not fall into the second or third person, are

-commonly applied to the past rather than the present; a man's past

-being, in effect, not himself, but another. In morals, as in archery,

-the target should be set at a fair distance. The Cape May's song is

-next to nothing,--suggestive of the black-poll's, I am told,--but I

-would gladly have bought a ticket to hear it.

-

-The place might have been made on purpose for the use to which it

-was now put. The pinery, surrounded by hard-wood forest, was like

-an island; and the warblers, for the most part, had no thought of

-leaving it. Had they been feeding in the hard wood,--miles of tall

-trees,--I should have lost them in short order. At the same time, the

-absence of undergrowth enabled me to move about with all quietness,

-so that none of them took the least alarm. Not a black-throated green

-was seen or heard, though yesterday they had been in force both among

-the pines and along the cliffs. A flock of myrtle warblers were

-surprisingly late, it seemed to me; but it was my last sight of them.

-

-The reader will perceive that I was not exploring Lookout Mountain,

-and am in no position to set forth its beauties. It is eighty odd

-miles long, we are told, and in some places more than a dozen miles

-wide. I visited nothing but the northern point, the Tennessee end,

-the larger part of the mountain being in Georgia; and even while

-there I looked twice at the birds, and once at the mountain itself.

-

-At noon, I lay for a long time upon a flat boulder under the tall

-oaks of the western bluff, looking down upon the lower woods, now in

-tender new leaf and most exquisitely colored. There are few fairer

-sights than a wooded mountain side seen from above; only one must

-not be too far above, and the forest should be mainly deciduous.

-The very thought brings before my eyes the long, green slopes of

-Mount Mansfield as they show from the road near the summit,--beauty

-inexpressible and never to be forgotten; and miles of autumn color

-on the sides of Kinsman, Cannon, and Lafayette, as I have enjoyed

-it by the hour, stretched in the September sunshine on the rocks of

-Bald Mountain. Perhaps the earth itself will never be fully enjoyed

-till we are somewhere above it. The Lookout woods, as I now saw

-them, were less magnificent in sweep, but hardly less beautiful. And

-below them was the valley bottom,--Lookout Valley, once the field of

-armies, now the abode of peaceful industry: acres of brown earth,

-newly sown, with no trace of greenness except the hedgerows along the

-brooks and on the banks of Lookout Creek. And beyond the valley was

-Raccoon Mountain, wooded throughout; and behind that, far away, the

-Cumberland range, blue with distance.

-

-A phoebe came and perched at my elbow, dropping a curtsey with

-old-fashioned politeness by way of "How are you, sir?" and a little

-afterward was calling earnestly from below. This is one of the

-characteristic birds of the mountain, and marks well the difference

-in latitude which even a slight elevation produces. I found it

-nowhere in the valley country, but it was common on Lookout and on

-Walden's Ridge. Then, behind me on the summit, another northern

-bird, the scarlet tanager, struck up a labored, rasping, breathless

-tune, hearty, but broken and forced. I say labored and breathless;

-but, happily, the singer was unaware of his infirmity (or can it

-be I was wrong?), and continued without interruption for at least

-half an hour. If he was uncomfortably short-breathed, he was very

-agreeably long-winded. Oven-birds sang at intervals throughout the

-day, and once I heard again the black-billed cuckoo. Yes, Hooker was

-right: Lookout Mountain is Northern, not Southern. But then, as if to

-show that it is not exactly Yankee land, in spite of oven-bird and

-black-bill, and notwithstanding all that Hooker and his men may have

-done, a cardinal took a long turn at whistling, and a Carolina wren

-came to his support with a _cheery_, _cheery_. A far-away crow was

-cawing somewhere down the valley, no very common sound hereabout; a

-red-eye, our great American missionary, was exhorting, of course; a

-black-poll, on his way to British America, whispered something, it

-was impossible to say what; and a squirrel barked. I lay so still

-that a black-and-white creeper took me for a part of the boulder,

-and alighted on the nearest tree-trunk. He goes round a bole just

-as he sings, in corkscrew fashion. Now and then I caught some of

-the louder phrases of a distant brown thrush, and once, when every

-one else fell silent, a catbird burst out spasmodically with a few

-halting, disjointed eccentricities, highly characteristic of a bird

-who can sing like a master when he will, but who seems oftener to

-enjoy talking to himself. Lizards rustled into sight with startling

-suddenness; and one big fellow disappeared so instantaneously--in

-"less than no time," as the Yankee phrase is--that I thought "quick

-as a lizard" might well enough become an adage. Here and there I

-remarked a chestnut-tree, the burs of last year still hanging;

-and chestnut oaks were among the largest and handsomest trees of

-the wood, as they were among the commonest. The temperature was

-perfect,--so says my penciled note. Let the confession not be

-overlooked, after all my railing at the fierce Tennessee sun. It made

-all the pleasure of the hour, too, that there were no troublesome

-insects. I had been in that country for ten days, the mercury had

-been much of the time above 90°, and I had not seen ten mosquitoes.

-

-I left my boulder at last, though it would have been good to remain

-there till night, and wandered along the bluffs to the Point. Here it

-was apparent at once that the wind had shifted. For the first time I

-caught sight of lofty mountains in the northeast; the Great Smokies,

-I was told, and could well believe it. I sat down straightway and

-looked at them, and had I known how things would turn, I would

-have looked at them longer; for in all my three weeks' sojourn in

-Chattanooga, that was the only half-day in which the atmosphere was

-even approximately clear. It was unfortunate, but I consoled myself

-with the charm of the foreground,--a charm at once softened and

-heightened, with something of the magic of distance, by the very

-conditions that veiled the horizon and drew it closer about us.

-

-It is truly a beautiful world that we see from Lookout Point:

-the city and its suburbs; the river with its broad meanderings,

-and, directly at our feet, its great Moccasin Bend; the near

-mountains,--Raccoon and Sand mountains beyond Lookout Valley, and

-Walden's Ridge across the river; and everywhere in the distance

-hills and high mountains, range beyond range, culminating in the

-Cumberland Mountains in one direction, and the Great Smokies in

-another. And as we look at the fair picture we think of what was

-done here,--of historic persons and historic deeds. At the foot of

-the cliffs on which we stand is White House plateau, the battlefield

-of Lookout Mountain. Chattanooga itself is spread out before us,

-with Orchard Knob, Cameron Hill, and the national cemetery. Yonder

-stretches the long line of Missionary Ridge, and farther south,

-recognizable by at least one of the government towers, is the

-battlefield of Chickamauga. Here, if anywhere, we may see places that

-war has made sacred.

-

-The feeling of all this is better enjoyed after one has grown

-oblivious to the things which at first do so much to cheapen the

-mountain,--the hotels, the photographers' shanties, the placards,

-the hurrying tourists, and the general air of a place given over

-to showmen. Much of this seeming desecration is unavoidable,

-perhaps; at all events, it is the part of wisdom to overlook it, as,

-fortunately, by the time of my third visit I was pretty well able to

-do. If that proves impossible, if the visitor is of too sensitive

-a temperament,--to call his weakness by no worse a name,--he can at

-least betake himself to the woods, and out of them see enough, as I

-did from my boulder, to repay him for all his trouble.

-

-The battlefield, as has been said, lies at the base of the

-perpendicular cliffs which make the bold northern tip of the

-mountain,--Lookout Point. I must walk over it, though there is

-little to see, and after a final look at the magnificent panorama I

-descended the steps to the head of the "incline," or, as I should

-say, the cable road. The car dropped me at a sentry-box marked

-"Columbus" (it was easy to guess in what year it had been named), and

-thence I strolled across the plateau,--so called in the narratives of

-the battle, though it is far from level,--past the Craven house and

-Cloud Fort, to the western slope looking down into Lookout Valley,

-out of which the Union forces marched to the assault. The place was

-peaceful enough on that pleasant May afternoon. The air was full

-of music, and just below me were apple and peach orchards and a

-vineyard.

-

-In such surroundings, half wild, half tame, I had hope of finding

-some strange bird; it would be pleasant to associate him with a

-spot so famous. But the voices were all familiar: wood thrushes,

-Carolina wrens, bluebirds, summer tanagers, catbirds, a Maryland

-yellow-throat, vireos (red-eyes and white-eyes), goldfinches, a field

-sparrow (the dead could want no sweeter requiem than he was chanting,

-but the wood pewee should have been here also), indigo-birds, and

-chats. In one of the wildest and roughest places a Kentucky warbler

-started to sing, and I plunged downward among the rocks and bushes

-(here was maiden-hair fern, I remember), hoping to see him. It was

-only my second hearing of the song, and it would be prudent to verify

-my recollection; but the music ceased, and I saw nothing. At the

-turn, where the land begins to decline westward, I came to a low,

-semicircular wall of earth. Here, doubtless, on that fateful November

-morning, when clouds covered the mountain sides, the Confederate

-troops meant to make a stand against the invader. Now a wilderness of

-young blue-green persimmon-trees had sprung up about it, as about

-the Craven house was a similar growth of sassafras. I had already

-noticed the extreme abundance of sassafras (shrubs rather than trees)

-in all this country, and especially on Missionary Ridge.

-

-With my thoughts full of the past, while my senses kept watch of the

-present, I returned slowly to the "incline," where I had five minutes

-to wait for a downward car. It had been a good day, a day worth

-remembering; and just then there came to my ear the new voice for

-which I had been on the alert: a warbler's song, past all mistake,

-sharp, thin, vivacious, in perhaps eight syllables,--a song more like

-the redstart's than anything else I could think of. The singer was in

-a tall tree, but by the best of luck, seeing how short my time was,

-the opera-glass fell upon him almost of itself,--a hooded warbler;

-my first sight of him in full dress (he might have been rigged out

-for a masquerade, I thought), as it was my first hearing of his song.

-If it had been also my last hearing of it, I might have written that

-the hooded warbler, though a frequenter of low thickets, chooses a

-lofty perch to sing from. So easy is it to generalize; that is, to

-tell more than we know. The fellow sang again and again, and, to my

-great satisfaction, a Kentucky joined him,--a much better singer in

-all respects, and much more becomingly dressed; but I gave thanks for

-both. Then the car stopped for me, and we coasted to the base, where

-the customary gang of negroes, heavily chained, were repairing the

-highway, while the guard, a white man, stood over them with a rifle.

-It was a strange spectacle to my eyes, and suggested a considerable

-postponement of the millennium; but I was glad to see the men at work.

-

-Two days afterward (May 10), in spite of "thunder in the morning"

-and one of the safest of weather saws, I made my final excursion

-to Lookout, going at once to the warblers' pines. There were few

-birds in them. At all events, I found few; but there is no telling

-what might have happened, if the third specimen that came under my

-glass--after a black-poll and a bay-breast--had not monopolized my

-attention till I was driven to seek shelter. That was the day when

-I needed a gun; for I suppose it must be confessed that even an

-opera-glass observer, no matter how much in love he may be with his

-particular method of study, and no matter how determined he may be

-to stick to it, sees a time once in a great while when a bird in the

-hand would be so much better than two in the bush that his fingers

-fairly itch for something to shoot with. From what I know of one such

-man, I am sure it would be exaggerating their tenderness of heart

-to imagine observers of this kind incapable of taking a bird's life

-under any circumstances. In fact, it may be partly a distrust of

-their own self-restraint, under the provocations of curiosity, that

-makes them eschew the use of firearms altogether.

-

-My mystery on the present occasion was a female warbler,--of so

-much I felt reasonably assured; but by what name to call her, that

-was a riddle. Her upper parts were "not olive, but of a neutral

-bluish gray," with light wing-bars, "not conspicuous, but distinct,"

-while her lower parts were "dirty, but unstreaked." What at once

-impressed me was her "bareheaded appearance" (I am quoting my

-penciled memorandum), with a big eye and a light eye-ring,--like a

-ruby-crowned kinglet, for which, at the first glance, I mistook her.

-If my notes made mention of any dark streaks or spots underneath, I

-would pluck up courage and hazard a glorious guess, to be taken for

-what it might be worth. As it is, I leave guessing to men better

-qualified, for whose possible edification or amusement I have set

-down these particulars.

-

-While I was pursuing the stranger, but not till I had seen her

-again and again, and secured as many "points" as a longer ogling

-seemed likely to afford me, it began thundering ominously out of

-ugly clouds, and I edged toward some woodland cottages not far

-distant. Then the big drops fell, and I took to my heels, reaching

-a piazza just in time to escape a torrent against which pine-trees

-and umbrella combined would have been as nothing. The lady of the

-house and her three dogs received me most hospitably, and as the rain

-lasted for some time we had a pleasant conversation (I can speak

-for one, at least) about dogs in general and particular (a common

-interest is the soul of talk); in illustration and furtherance of

-which the spaniel of the party, somewhat against his will, was

-induced to "sit up like a gentleman," while I boasted modestly of

-another spaniel, Antony by name, who could do that and plenty of

-tricks beside,--a perfect wonder of a dog, in short. Thus happily

-launched, we went on to discuss the climate of Tennessee (whatever

-may be the soul of talk, the weather supplies it with members and

-a bodily substance) and the charms of Lookout Mountain. She lived

-there the year round, she said (most of the cottagers make the place

-a summer resort only), and always found it pleasant. In winter it

-wasn't so cold there as down below; at any rate, it didn't feel so

-cold,--which is the main thing, of course. Sometimes when she went

-to the city, it seemed as if she should freeze, although she hadn't

-thought of its being cold before she left home. It is one form of

-patriotism, I suppose,--parochial patriotism, perhaps we may call

-it,--that makes us stand up pretty stoutly for our own dwelling-place

-before strangers, however we may grumble against it among ourselves.

-In the present instance, however, no such qualifying explanation

-seemed necessary. In general, I was quite prepared to believe that

-life on a mountain top, in a cottage in a grove, would be found every

-whit as agreeable as my hostess pictured it.

-

-The rain slackened after a while, though it was long in ceasing

-altogether, and I went to the nearest railway station (Sunset

-Station, I believe) and waited half an hour for a train to the Point,

-chatting meanwhile with the young man in charge of the relic-counter.

-Then, at the Point, I waited again--this time to enjoy the prospect

-and see how the weather would turn--till a train passed on "the broad

-gauge" below. Just beyond Fort Cloud it ran into a fine old forest,

-and a sudden notion took me to go straight down through the woods and

-spend the rest of the day rambling in that direction. The weather had

-still a dubious aspect, but, with motive enough, some things can be

-trusted to Providence, and, the steepness of the descent accelerating

-my pace, I was soon on the sleepers, after which it was but a little

-way into the woods. Once there, I quickly forgot everything else at

-the sound of a new song. But _was_ it new? It bore some resemblance

-to the ascending scale of the blue yellow-back, and might be the

-freak of some individual of that species. I stood still, and in

-another minute the singer came near and sang under my eye; the very

-bird I had been hoping for,--a cerulean warbler in full dress; as

-Dr. Coues says, "a perfect little beauty." He continued in sight,

-feeding in rather low branches,--an exception to his usual habit, I

-have since found,--and sang many times over. His complaisance was a

-piece of high good fortune, for I saw no second specimen. The strain

-opens with two pairs of notes on the same pitch, and concludes with

-an upward run much like the blue yellow-back's, or perhaps midway

-between that and the prairie warbler's. So I heard it, I mean to

-say. But everything depends upon the ear. Audubon speaks of it as

-"extremely sweet and mellow" (the last a surprising word), while Mr.

-Ridgway is quoted as saying that the bird possesses "only the most

-feeble notes."

-

-The woods of themselves were well worth a visit: extremely open, with

-broad barren spaces; the trees tall, largely oak,--chestnut oak,

-especially,--but with chestnut, hickory, tupelo, and other trees

-intermingled. Here, as afterward on Walden's Ridge, I was struck

-with the almost total absence of mosses, and the dry, stony character

-of the soil,--a novel and not altogether pleasing feature in the eyes

-of a man accustomed to the mountain forests of New England, where

-mosses cover every boulder, stump, and fallen log, while the feet

-sink into sphagnum as into the softest of carpets.

-

-Comfortable lounging-places continually invited me to linger, and at

-last I sat down under a chestnut oak, with a big broken-barked tupelo

-directly before me. Over the top of a neighboring boulder a lizard

-leaned in a praying attitude and gazed upon the intruder. Once in a

-while some loud-voiced tree-frog, as I suppose, uttered a grating

-cry. A blue-gray gnatcatcher was complaining,--snarling, I might have

-said; a red-eye, an indigo-bird, a field sparrow, and a Carolina wren

-took turns in singing; and a sudden chat threw himself into the air,

-quite unannounced, and, with ludicrous teetering motions, flew into

-the tupelo and eyed me saucily. A few minutes later, a single cicada

-(seventeen-year locust) followed him. With my glass I could see its

-monstrous red eyes and the orange edge of its wing. It kept silence;

-but without a moment's cessation the musical hum of distant millions

-like it filled the air,--a noise inconceivable.

-

-I would gladly have sat longer, as I would gladly have gone much

-farther into the woods, for I had seen none more attractive;

-but a rumbling of thunder, a rapid blackening of the sky, and a

-recollection of the forenoon's deluge warned me to turn back. And

-now, for the first time, although I had been living within sound of

-locusts for a week or more, I suddenly came to trees in which they

-were congregated. The branches were full of them. Heard thus near,

-the sound was no longer melodious, but harsh and shrill.

-

-It seemed cruel that my last day on Lookout Mountain should be so

-broken up, and so abruptly and unseasonably concluded, but so the

-Fates willed it. My retreat became a rout, and of the remainder of

-the road I remember only the hurry and the warmth, and two pleasant

-things,--a few wild roses, and the scent of a grapevine in bloom; two

-things so sweet and homelike that they could be caught and retained

-by a man on the run.

-

-

-

-

-CHICKAMAUGA.

-

-

-The field of Chickamauga--a worthily resounding name for one of

-the great battlefields of the world--lies a few miles south of the

-Tennessee and Georgia boundary, and is distant about an hour's ride

-by rail from Chattanooga. A single morning train outward, and a

-single evening train inward, made an all-day excursion necessary, and

-the time proved to be none too long. Unhappily, as I then thought,

-the sun was implacable, with the mercury in the nineties, though

-it was only the 3d of May; and as I was on foot, and the national

-reservation covers nine or ten square miles, I saw hardly more

-than a corner of the field. This would have been a more serious

-disappointment had my errand been of a topographical or historical

-nature. As the case was, being only a sentimental pilgrim, I ought

-perhaps to have welcomed the burning heat as a circumstance all in

-my favor; suiting the spirit of the place, and constraining me to a

-needful moderation. When a man goes in search of a mood, he must

-go neither too fast nor too far. As the Scripture saith, "Bodily

-exercise profiteth little." So much may readily be confessed now; for

-wisdom comes with reflection, and it is no great matter to bear a

-last year's toothache.

-

-From the railway station I followed, at a venture, a road that soon

-brought me to a comfortable, homelike house, with fine shade trees

-and an orchard. This was the Dyer estate,--so a tablet informed all

-comers. Here, in September, 1863, lived John Dyer, who suddenly

-found his few peaceful acres surrounded and overrun by a hundred

-thousand armed men, and himself drafted into service--if he needed

-drafting--as guide to the Confederate commander. Since then strange

-things had happened to the little farmhouse, which now was nothing

-less than a sort of government headquarters, as I rightly inferred

-from the general aspect of things round about, and the American flag

-flying above the roof. I passed the place without entering, halting

-only to smile at the antics of a white-breasted nuthatch,--my first

-Tennessee specimen,--which was hopping awkwardly about the yard.

-It was a question of something to eat, I suppose, or perhaps of a

-feather for the family nest, and precedents and appearances went for

-nothing. Two or three minutes afterward I came face to face with

-another apparition, a horseman as graceful and dignified, not to say

-majestic, as the nuthatch had been lumbering and ungainly; a man in

-civilian's dress, but visibly a soldier, with a pose and carriage

-that made shoulder-straps superfluous; a man to look at; every inch

-a major-general, at the very least; of whom, nevertheless,--the heat

-or something else giving me courage,--I ventured to inquire, from

-under my umbrella, if there were any way of seeing some of the more

-interesting portions of the battlefield without too much exposure

-to the sun. He showed a little surprise (military gentlemen always

-do, so far as I have observed, when strangers address them), but

-recovered himself, and answered almost with affability. Yes, he said,

-if I would take the first turn to the left, I should pass the spot

-over which Longstreet made the charge that decided the fate of the

-contest, and as he spoke he pointed out the field, which appeared to

-be part of the Dyer farm; then I should presently come within sight

-of the Kelly house, about which the fighting was of the hottest; and

-from there I should do well to go to the Snodgrass Hill tower and the

-Snodgrass house. To do as much as that would require little walking,

-and at the same time I should have seen a good share of what was best

-worth a visitor's notice. I thanked him, and followed his advice.

-

-The left-hand road, of which my informant had spoken, ran between

-the forest--mostly of tall oaks and long-leaved pines--and the

-grassy Dyer field. Here it was possible to keep in the shade, and

-life was comparatively easy; so that I felt no stirrings of envious

-desire when two gentlemen, whom I recognized as having been among my

-fellow-passengers from Chattanooga, came up behind me in a carriage

-with a pair of horses and a driver. As they overtook me, and while

-I was wondering where they could have procured so luxurious a

-turnout, since I had discovered no sign of a public conveyance or a

-livery stable, the driver reined in his horses, and the older of the

-gentlemen put out his head to ask, "Were you in the battle, sir?" I

-answered in the negative; and he added, half apologetically, that he

-and his companion wished to get as many points as possible about the

-field. In the kindness of my heart, I told him that I was a stranger,

-like himself, but that the gentleman yonder, on horseback, seemed

-to be well acquainted with the place, and would no doubt answer all

-inquiries. With a queer look in his face, and some remark that I

-failed to catch, my interlocutor dropped back into his seat, and the

-carriage drove on. It was only afterward that I learned--on meeting

-him again--that he was no other than General Boynton, the man who is

-at the head of all things pertaining to Chickamauga and its history.

-

-In the open field several Bachman finches were singing, while the

-woods were noisier, but less musical, with Maryland yellow-throats,

-black-poll warblers, tufted titmice, and two sorts of vireos.

-Sprinkled over the ground were the lovely spring beauty and the

-violet wood sorrel, with pentstemon, houstonia, and a cheerful pink

-phlox. Here I soon heard a second nuthatch, and fell into a kind of

-fever about its notes, which were clearer, less nasal, than those of

-our New England birds, it seemed to me, and differently phrased.

-Such peculiarities might indicate a local race, I said to myself,

-with that predisposition to surprise which is one of the chief

-compensations of life away from home. As I went on, a wood pewee and

-a field sparrow began singing,--two birds whose voices might have

-been tuned on purpose for such a place. Of the petulant, snappish cry

-of an Acadian flycatcher not quite the same could be said. One of the

-"unreconstructed," I was tempted to call him.

-

-The Kelly house, on the way to which through the woods my Yankee

-eyes were delighted with the sight of loose patches of rue anemones,

-was duly marked with a tablet, and proved to be a cabin of the

-most primitive type, standing in the usual bit of fenced land (the

-smallness of the houseyards, as contrasted with the miles of open

-country round about, is a noticeable feature of Southern landscapes),

-with a corn-house near by, and a tumble-down barn across the way.

-For some time I sat beside the road, under an oak; then, seeing two

-women, older and younger, inside the house, I asked leave to enter,

-the doors being open, and was made welcome with apparent heartiness.

-The elderly woman soon confided to me that she was seventy-six years

-old,--a marvelous figure she seemed to consider it; and when I

-tried to say something about her comparative youthfulness, and the

-much greater age of some ladies of my acquaintance (no names being

-mentioned, of course), she would only repeat that she was awful

-old, and shouldn't live much longer. She meant to improve the time,

-however,--and the unusual fortune of a visitor,--and fairly ran over

-with talk. She didn't belong about here. Oh no; she came from "'way

-up in Tennessee, a hundred and sixty miles!" "'Pears like I'm a long

-way from home," she said,--"a hundred and sixty miles!" Again I

-sought to comfort her. That wasn't so very far. What did she think

-of me, who had come all the way from Massachusetts? She threw up her

-hands, and ejaculated, "Oh, Lor'!" with a fervor to which a regiment

-of exclamation points would scarcely do justice. Yet she had but a

-vague idea of where Massachusetts was, I fancy; for pretty soon she

-asked, "Where did you say you was from? Pennsylvany?" And when I

-said, "Oh no, Massachusetts, twice as far as that," she could only

-repeat, "Oh, Lor'!" Her grandson was at work in the park, and she had

-come down to live with him and his wife. But she shouldn't live long.

-

-The wonder of this new world was still strong upon her. "Them

-moniment things they've put up," she said, "have you seen 'em? Men

-cut in a rock!--three of 'em? Have you seen 'em? Ain't they a sight

-to see?" She referred to the granite monuments of the regulars, on

-which are life-size figures in high relief. And had I seen the tower

-on the hill, she proceeded to ask,--an open iron structure,--and

-what did I think of _that_? She wouldn't go up in it for a bushel

-of money. "Oh yes, you would," I told her. "You would like it, I'm

-sure." But she stuck to her story. She wouldn't do it for a bushel of

-money. She should be dizzy; and she threw up her hands, literally, at

-the very thought, while her granddaughter sat and smiled at my waste

-of breath. I asked if many visitors came here. "Oh, Lor', yes!" the

-old lady answered. "More'n two dozen have been here from 'way up in

-Chicago."

-

-The mention of visitors led the younger woman to produce a box of

-relics, and I paid her a dime for three minie-balls. "I always get

-a nickel," she said, when I inquired the price; but when I selected

-two, and handed her a ten-cent piece, she insisted upon my taking

-another. Wholesale customers deserved handsome treatment. She had

-picked up such things herself before now, but her husband found most

-of them while grubbing in the woods.

-

-The cabin was a one-room affair, of a sort common in that country

-("cracker-boxes," one might call them, if punning were not so

-frowned upon), with a big fireplace, two opposite doors, two beds

-in diagonally opposite corners, and, I think, no window. Here

-was domestic life in something like its pristine simplicity, a

-philosopher might have said: the house still subordinate to the man,

-and the housekeeper not yet a slave to furniture and bric-à-brac. But

-even a philosopher would perhaps have tolerated a second room and a

-light of glass. As for myself, I remembered that I used to read of

-"poor white trash" in anti-slavery novels.

-

-By this time the sun had so doubled its fury that I would not cross

-the bare Kelly field, and therefore did not go down to look at the

-"men cut in a rock;" but after visiting a shell pyramid which marks

-the spot where Colonel King fell,--and near which I saw my first

-Tennessee flicker,--I turned back toward Snodgrass Hill, keeping to

-the woods as jealously as any soldier can have done on the days of

-the battle. At the foot of the hill was a well, with a rude bucket

-and a rope to draw with. Here I drank,--having to stand in the sun,

-I remember,--and then sat down in the shelter of large trees near

-by, with guideboards and index-fingers all about me, while a Bachman

-finch, who occupied a small brush-heap just beyond the well (_he_ had

-no fear of sunshine), entertained me with music. He was a master. I

-had never heard his equal of his own kind, and seldom a bird of any

-kind, that seemed so much at home with his instrument. He sang "like

-half a dozen birds," to quote my own pencil; now giving out a brief

-and simple strain, now running into protracted and intricate warbles;

-and all with the most bewitching ardor and sweetness, and without

-the slightest suggestion of attempting to make a show. A field

-sparrow sang from the border of the grass land at the same moment. I

-wished he could have refrained. Nothing shall induce me to say a word

-against him; but there are times when one would rather be spared even

-the opportunity for a comparison.

-

-As I went up the hill under the tall trees, largely yellow pines, a

-crested flycatcher stood at the tip of one of the tallest of them,

-screaming like a bird of war; and further on was a red-cockaded

-woodpecker, flitting restlessly from trunk to trunk, its flight

-marked with a musical woodpeckerish wing-beat,--like the downy's

-purr, but louder. I had never seen the bird before except in the

-pine-lands of Florida, nor did I see it afterward except on this same

-hill, at a second visit. It is a congener of the downy and the hairy,

-ranking between them in size, and by way of distinction wears a big

-white patch, an ear-muff, one might say, on the side of its head. Its

-habitat is strictly southern, so that its name, _Dryobates borealis_,

-though easily rememberable, seems but moderately felicitous.

-

-Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the day--the most comfortable,

-certainly, but the words are not synonymous--was a two-hour siesta on

-the Snodgrass Hill tower, above the tops of the highest trees. The

-only two landmarks of which I knew the names were Missionary Ridge

-and Lookout Mountain; the latter running back for many miles into

-Georgia, like a long wooded plateau, till it rises into High Point at

-its southern end, and breaks off precipitously.

-

-Farther to the south were low hills followed by a long mountain

-of beautiful shape,--Pigeon Mountain, I heard it called,--with

-elevations at each end and in the middle. And so my eye made the

-round of the horizon, hill after hill in picturesque confusion, till

-it returned to Missionary Ridge, with Walden's Ridge rising beyond,

-and Lookout Point on the left: a charming prospect, especially for

-its atmosphere and color. The hard woods, with dark pines everywhere

-among them to set them off, were just coming into leaf, with all

-those numberless, nameless, delicate shades of green that make

-the glory of the springtime. The open fields were not yet clear

-green,--if they ever would be,--but green and brown intermixed,

-while the cultivated hillsides, especially on Missionary Ridge, were

-of a deep rich reddish-brown. The air was full of beautifying haze,

-and cumulus clouds in the south and west threw motionless shadows

-upon the mountain woods.

-

-Around me, in different parts of the battlefield, were eight or ten

-houses and cabins, the nearest of them, almost at my feet, being the

-Snodgrass house, famous as the headquarters of General Thomas, the

-hero of the fight,--the "Rock of Chickamauga,"--who saved the Union

-army after the field was lost. All was peaceful enough there now,

-with the lines full of the week's washing, which a woman under a

-voluminous sunbonnet was at that moment taking in (in that sun things

-would dry almost before the clothes-pins could be put on them, I

-thought), while a red-gowned child, and a hen with a brood of young

-chickens, kept close about her feet. Her husband, like the occupant

-of the Kelly house, was no doubt one of the government laborers, who

-to-day were burning refuse in the woods,--invisible fires, from each

-of which a thin cloud of blue smoke rose among the trees. The Dyer

-house, in a direction nearly opposite the Snodgrass house, stood

-broadly in the open, with an orchard behind it, and dark savins

-posted here and there over the outlying pasture.

-

-Even at noonday the air was full of music: first an incessant tinkle

-of cow-bells rising from all sides, wondrously sweet and soothing;

-then a continuous, far-away hum, like a sawmill just audible in

-the extreme distance, or the vibration of innumerable wires, miles

-remote, perhaps,--a noise which I knew neither how to describe nor

-how to guess the origin of, the work of seventeen-year locusts, I

-afterward learned; and then, sung to this invariable instrumental

-accompaniment,--this natural pedal point, if I may call it so,--the

-songs of birds.

-

-The singers were of a quiet and unpretentious sort, as befitted

-the hour: a summer tanager; a red-eyed vireo; a tufted titmouse;

-a Maryland yellow-throat, who cried, "What a pity! What a pity!

-What a pity!" but not as if he felt in the least distressed about

-it; a yellow-throated vireo, full-voiced and passionless; a field

-sparrow, pretty far off; a wood pewee; a yellow-billed cuckoo; a

-quail; a Carolina wren, with his "Cherry, cherry, cherry!" and a

-Carolina chickadee,--a modest woodland chorus, interrupted now by the

-jubilant cackling of a hen at the Snodgrass house (if a man's daily

-achievements only gave him equal satisfaction!) and now by the scream

-of a crested flycatcher.

-

-The most interesting member of the choir, though one of the

-poorest of them all as a singer, is not included in the foregoing

-enumeration. While I lay dreaming on the iron floor of the tower,

-enjoying the breeze, the landscape, the music, and, more than all,

-the place, I was suddenly brought wide awake by a hoarse drawling

-note out of the upper branches of a tall oak a little below my level.

-I caught a glimpse of the bird, having run down to a lower story of

-the tower for that purpose. Then he disappeared, but after a while,

-from the same tree, he called again; and again I saw him, but not

-well. Another long absence, and once more, still in the same tree, he

-sang and showed himself: a blue-winged yellow warbler, an exquisite

-bunch of feathers, but with a song of the oddest and meanest,--two

-syllables, the first a mere nothing, and the second a husky drawl,

-in a voice like the blue golden-wing's. Insignificant and almost

-contemptible as it was, a shabby expression of connubial felicity, to

-say the least, I counted myself happy to have heard it, for novelty

-covers a multitude of sins.

-

-The yellow-throated warblers were hardly less interesting than the

-blue-wing, though they threw me into less excitement. For a long

-time I heard them without heeding them. From the day of my arrival

-in Chattanooga I had been surrounded by indigo-birds in numbers

-beyond anything that a New England mind ever dreams of. As a matter

-of course they were singing here on Snodgrass Hill, or so I thought.

-But by and by, as the lazy notes were once more repeated, there came

-over me a sudden sense of difference. "_Was_ that an indigo-bird?" I

-said to myself. "Wasn't it a yellow-throated warbler?" I was sitting

-among the tops of the pine-trees; the birds had been droning almost

-in my very ears, and without a thought I had listened to them as

-indigo-birds. It confirmed what I had written in Florida, that the

-two songs are much alike; but it was a sharp lesson in caution. When

-a prudent man finds himself thus befooled, he begins to wonder how it

-may be with the remainder of that precious body of notions, inherited

-and acquired, to which, in all but his least complacent moods, he has

-been accustomed to give the name of knowledge.

-

-Here was a lesson, also, in the close relation that everywhere

-subsists between the distribution of plants and the distribution of

-animals. These were the only yellow pines noticed in the neighborhood

-of Chattanooga; and in them, and nowhere else, I found two birds

-of the Southern pine-barrens, the red-cockaded woodpecker and the

-yellow-throated warbler.

-

-At the base of the tower, when I finally descended, I paused a moment

-to look at a cluster of graves, eight or ten in all, unmarked save

-by a flagging of small stones; one of those family or neighborhood

-burying-grounds, the occupants of which--happier than most of us, who

-must lie in crowded cities of the dead--repose in decent privacy,

-surrounded by their own, with no ugly staring white slabs to publish

-their immemorable names to every passer-by.

-

-From the hill it was but a few steps to the Snodgrass house, where

-a woman stood in the yard with a young girl, and answered all my

-inquiries with cheerful and easy politeness. None of the Snodgrass

-family now occupied the house, she said, though one of the daughters

-still lived just outside the reservation. The woman had heard

-her describe the terrible scenes on the days of the battle. The

-operating-table stood under this tree, and just there was a trench

-into which the amputated limbs were thrown. Yonder field, now grassy,

-was then planted with corn; and when the Federal troops were driven

-through it, they trod upon their own wounded, who begged piteously

-for water and assistance. A large tree in front of the house was

-famous, the woman said; and certainly it was well hacked. A picture

-of it had been in "The Century." General Thomas was said to have

-rested under it; but an officer who had been there not long before to

-set up a granite monument near the gate told her that General Thomas

-didn't rest under that tree, nor anywhere else. Two things he did,

-past all dispute: he saved the Federal army from destruction and made

-the Snodgrass farmhouse an American shrine.

-

-When our talk was ended I returned to the hill, and thence sauntered

-through the woods--the yellow-throated warblers singing all about me

-in the pine-tops--down to the vicinity of the railroad. Here, finding

-myself in the sun again, I made toward a shop near the station,--shop

-and post-office in one,--where fortunately there were such edibles,

-semi-edibles, as are generally to be looked for in country groceries.

-Meanwhile there came on a Tennessee thunder shower, lightning of

-the closest and rain by the bucketful; and, driven before it, an

-Indiana soldier made his appearance, a wiry little man of fifty or

-more. He had been spending the day on the field, he told me. In one

-hand he carried a battered and rusty cartridge-box, and out of his

-pockets he produced and laid on the counter a collection of bullets.

-His were relics of the right stamp,--found, not purchased,--and not

-without a little shamefacedness I showed him my three minie-balls.

-"Oh, you have got all Federal bullets," he said; and on my asking

-how he could tell that, he placed a Confederate ball beside them, and

-pointed out a difference in shape. He was a cheery, communicative

-body, good-humored but not jocose, excellent company in such an

-hour, though he had small fancy for the lightning, it seemed to me.

-Perhaps he had been under fire so often as to have lost all relish

-for excitement of that kind. He was not at the battle of Chickamauga,

-he said, but at Vicksburg; and he gave me a vivid description of his

-work in the trenches, as well as of the surrender, and the happiness

-of the half-starved defenders of the city, who were at once fed by

-their captors.

-

-All his talk showed a lively sense of the horrors of war. He had

-seen enough of fighting, he confessed; but he couldn't keep away

-from a battlefield, if he came anywhere near one. He had been to the

-national cemetery in Chattanooga, and agreed with me that it was a

-beautiful place; but he had heard that Southern soldiers were lying

-in unmarked graves just outside the wall (a piece of misinformation,

-I have no doubt), and he didn't think it right or decent for the

-government to discriminate in that way. The Confederates were just as

-sincere as the Union men; and anyhow, vengeance ought not to follow a

-man after he was dead. Evidently he had fought against an army and a

-cause, not against individuals.

-

-When the rain was over, or substantially so, I proposed to improve

-an hour of coolness and freshness by paying another visit to

-headquarters; but my Indiana veteran was not to be enticed out of

-shelter. It was still rather wet, he thought. "I'm pretty careful

-of my body," he added, by way of settling the matter. It had been

-through so much, I suppose, that he esteemed it precious.

-

-I set out alone, therefore, and this time went into the Dyer house,

-after drinking from a covered spring across the way. But there was

-little to see inside, and the three or four officers and clerks

-were occupied with maps and charts,--courteous, no doubt, but with

-official and counting-house courtesy; men of whom you could well

-enough ask a definite question, but with whom it would be impossible

-to drift into random talk. There was far better company outside. Even

-while I stood in the back door, on my way thither, there suddenly

-flashed upon me from a treetop by the fence a splendid Baltimore

-oriole. He fairly "gave me a start," and I broke out to the young

-fellow beside me, "Why, there's a Baltimore oriole!" The exclamation

-was thrown away, but I did not mind.

-

-It was the birds' own hour,--late afternoon, with sunshine after

-rain. The orchard and shade-trees were alive with wings, and the air

-was loud. How brilliant a company it was a list of names will show:

-a mocking-bird, a thrasher, several catbirds, a pair of bluebirds,

-a pair of orchard orioles, a summer tanager, a wood pewee, and a

-flicker, with goldfinches and indigo-birds, and behind the orchard a

-Bachman finch. For bright colors and fine voices that was a chorus

-hard to beat. As for the Baltimore oriole, the brightest bird of the

-lot, and the only one of his race that I found in all that country,

-he looked most uncommonly at home--to me--in the John Dyer trees. I

-was never gladder to see him.

-

-A strange fate this that had befallen these Georgia farms, owned

-once by Dyer, Snodgrass, Kelly, Brotherton, and the rest: the

-plainest and most ordinary of country houses, in which lived the

-plainest of country people, with no dream of fame, or of much else,

-perhaps, beyond the day's work and the day's ration. Then comes

-Bragg retreating before Rosecrans, who is manoeuvring him out of

-Tennessee. Here the Confederate leader turns upon his pursuers. Here

-he--or rather, one of his subordinates--wins a great victory, which

-nevertheless, as a Southern historian says, "sealed the fate of the

-Southern Confederacy." Now the farmers are gone, but their names

-remain; and as long as the national government endures, pilgrims from

-far and near will come to walk over the historic acres. "This is the

-Dyer house," they will say, "and this is the Kelly house, and this

-is the Snodgrass house." So Fame catches up a chance favorite, and

-consigns the rest to oblivion.

-

-My first visit to Chickamauga left so pleasant a taste that only two

-days afterward I repeated it. In particular I remembered my midday

-rest among the treetops, and my glimpse of the blue-winged warbler.

-It would be worth a day of my vacation to idle away another noon so

-agreeably, and hear again that ridiculous makeshift of a bird-song.

-Field ornithology has this for one of its distinguishing advantages,

-that every excursion leaves something for another to verify or finish.

-

-This time I went straight to Snodgrass Hill through the woods, and

-was barely on the steps of the tower before I heard the blue-wing.

-As well as I could judge, the voice came from the same oak that the

-bird had occupied two days before. I was in luck, I thought; but the

-miserly fellow vouchsafed not another note, and I could not spend

-the forenoon hours in waiting for him. Two red-cockaded woodpeckers

-were playing among the trees, where, like the blue-wing and the

-yellow-throats, they were doubtless established in summer quarters.

-"Sap-suckers," one of the workmen called them. They were common, he

-said, but likely enough he failed to discriminate between them and

-their two black-and-white relatives. Red-headed woodpeckers were

-_not_ common here (I had seen a single bird, displaying its colors

-from a lofty dead pine), but were abundant and very destructive,

-so my informant declared, on Lookout Mountain. Turkeys were still

-numerous on the mountain, and only the Sunday before one had been

-seen within the park limits.

-

-The Bachman finch was again in tune at his brush-heap near the well,

-and between the music and a shady seat I was in no haste to go

-further. Finally, I experimented to see how near the fellow would let

-me approach, taking time enough not to startle him in the process.

-It was wonderful how he held his ground. The "Rock of Chickamauga"

-himself could not have been more obstinate. I had almost to tread on

-him before he would fly. He was a great singer, a genius, and a poet,

-

-              "with modest looks,

-    And clad in homely russet brown,"

-

-and withal a lover of the sun,--a bird never to be forgotten. I wish

-I knew how to praise him.

-

-To-day, as on my previous visit, I remarked a surprising scarcity of

-migrants. With the exception of black-poll warblers, I am not certain

-that I saw any, though I went nowhere else without finding them in

-good variety. Had my imagination been equal to such a stretch, I

-might have suspected that Northern birds did not feel at home on the

-scene of a great Southern victory. Here and there a nuthatch called,

-and again I seemed to perceive a decided strangeness in the voice.

-From the tip of a fruit-tree in the Kelly yard a thrasher or a mocker

-was singing like one possessed. It was impossible to be sure which it

-was, and the uncertainty pleased me so much, as a testimony to the

-thrasher's musical powers, that I would not go round the house in the

-sun to get a nearer observation. Instead, I went down to look at the

-monuments of the regulars, with their "men cut in a rock." Thence I

-returned to Snodgrass Hill for my noonday rest, stopping once more

-at the well, of course, and reading again some of the placards, the

-number of which just here bore impressive witness to the fierceness

-of the battle at this point. One inscription I took pains to copy:--

-

-    [Pointing hand sign] GEN. J. B. HOOD WAS WOUNDED 11.10 A. M.

-    20 SEPT. '63 IN EDGE OF TIMBER ON COVE ROAD 1/2 MILE EAST OF

-    SOUTH, LOOSING HIS LEG.

-

-It was exactly eleven o'clock as I went up the hill toward the

-tower, and the workmen were already taking down their dinner-pails.

-Standard time, so called, is an unquestioned convenience, but the

-stomach of a day-laborer has little respect for convention, and is

-not to be appeased by a setting back of the clock. For my own part,

-I was not hungry,--in that respect, as in some others, I might have

-envied the day-laborers,--but as men of a certain amusing sort are

-said to turn up their trousers in New York when it rains in London,

-so I felt it patriotic to nibble at my luncheon as best I could, now

-that the clocks were striking twelve in Boston.

-

-The hour (but it was two hours) calls for little description. The

-breeze was delicious, and the hazy landscape beautiful. The cow-bells

-and the locusts filled the air with music, the birds kept me company,

-and for half an hour or more I had human society that was even more

-agreeable. When the workmen had eaten their dinner at the foot of the

-tower, four of them climbed the stairs, and my field-glass proved so

-pleasing a novelty that they stayed till their time was up, to the

-very last minute. One after another took the glass, and no sooner

-had it gone the rounds once than it started again; for meanwhile

-every man had thought of something else that he wanted to look at.

-They were above concealing their delight, or affecting any previous

-acquaintance with such a toy, and probably I never before gave so

-much pleasure by so easy a means. I believe I was as happy as if the

-blue-wing had sung a full hour. They were rough-looking men, perhaps,

-at least they were coarsely dressed, but none of them spoke a rude

-word; and when the last moment came, one of them, in the simplest

-and gentlest manner, asked me to accept three relics (bullets) which

-he had picked up in the last day or two on the hill. It was no great

-thing, to be sure, but it was better: it was one of those little

-acts which, from their perfect and unexpected grace, can never be

-forgotten.

-

-A jaunt through the woods past the Kelly house, after luncheon,

-brought me to a superfine, spick-and-span new road,--like the new

-government "boulevard" on Missionary Ridge, of which it may be a

-continuation,--following which I came to the Brotherton house,

-another war-time landmark, weather-beaten and fast going to ruin.

-In the woods--cleared of underbrush, and with little herbage--were

-scattered ground flowers: houstonia, yellow and violet oxalis, phlox,

-cranesbill, bird-foot violets, rue anemones, and spring beauties. I

-remarked especially a bit of bright gromwell, such as I had found

-first at Orchard Knob, and a single tuft of white American cowslip

-(_Dodecatheon_), the only specimen I had ever seen growing wild. The

-flower that pleased me most, however, was the blood-red catchfly,

-which I had seen first on Missionary Ridge. Nothing could have been

-more appropriate here on the bloody field of Chickamauga. Appealing

-to fancy instead of to fact, it nevertheless spoke of the battle

-almost as plainly as the hundreds of decapitated trees, here one and

-there one, which even the most careless observer could not fail to

-notice.

-

-From the Brotherton house to the post-office was a sunny stretch, but

-under the protection of my umbrella I compassed it; and then, passing

-the Widow Glenn's (Rosecrans's headquarters), on the road to Crawfish

-Springs, I came to a diminutive body of water,--a sink-hole,--which

-I knew at once could be nothing but Bloody Pond. At the time of the

-fight it contained the only water to be had for a long distance.

-It was fiercely contended for, therefore, and men and horses drank

-from it greedily, while other men and horses lay dead in it, having

-dropped while drinking. Now a fence runs through it, leaving an outer

-segment of it open to the road for the convenience of passing teams;

-and when I came in sight of the spot, two boys were fishing round

-the further edge. Not far beyond was an unfinished granite tower, on

-which no one was at work, though a derrick still protruded from the

-top. It offered the best of shade,--the shadow of a great rock,--in

-the comfort of which I sat awhile, thinking of the past, and watching

-the peaceful labors of two or three men who were cultivating a

-broad ploughed field directly before me, crossing and recrossing

-it in the sun. Then I took the road again; but by this time I had

-relinquished all thought of walking to Crawfish Springs, and so did

-nothing but idle along. Once, I remember, I turned aside to explore

-a lane running up to a hillside cattle pasture, stopping by the way

-to admire the activities--and they _were_ activities--of a set of

-big scavenger beetles. Next, I tried for half a mile a fine new road

-leading across the park to the left, with thick, uncleared woods on

-one side; and then I went back to Bloody Pond.

-

-The place was now deserted, and I took a seat under a tree opposite.

-Prodigious bullfrogs, big enough to have been growing ever since the

-war, lay here and there upon the water; now calling in the lustiest

-bass, now falling silent again after one comical expiring gulp. It

-was getting toward the cool of the afternoon. Already the birds felt

-it. A wood thrush's voice rang out at intervals from somewhere beyond

-the ploughed land, and a field sparrow chanted nearer by. At the same

-time my eye was upon a pair of kingbirds,--wayfarers hereabout, to

-judge from their behavior; a crested flycatcher stood guard at the

-top of a lofty dead tree, and a rough-winged swallow alighted on

-the margin of the pool, and began bathing with great enjoyment. It

-made me comfortable to look at him. By and by two young fellows with

-fishing-poles came down the railroad.

-

-"Why is this called Bloody Pond?" I asked.

-

-"Why?"

-

-"Yes."

-

-"Why, there were a lot of soldiers killed here in the war, and the

-pond got bloody."

-

-The granite tower in the shadow of which I had rested awhile ago was

-General Wilder's monument, they said. His headquarters were there.

-Then they passed on down the track out of sight, and all was silent

-once more, till a chickadee gave out his sweet and quiet song just

-behind me, and a second swallow dropped upon the water's edge. The

-pond was of the smallest and meanest,--muddy shore, muddy bottom, and

-muddy water; but men fought and died for it in those awful September

-days of heat and dust and thirst. There was no better place on the

-field, perhaps, in which to realize the horrors of the battle, and I

-was glad to have the chickadee's voice the last sound in my ears as I

-turned away.

-

-

-

-

-ORCHARD KNOB AND THE NATIONAL CEMETERY.

-

-

-The street cars that run through the open valley country from

-Chattanooga to Missionary Ridge, pass between two places of peculiar

-interest to Northern visitors,--Orchard Knob on the left, and the

-national cemetery on the right. Of these, the Knob remains in all

-the desolation of war-time; unfenced, and without so much as a

-tablet to inform the stranger where he is and what was done here; a

-low, round-topped hill, dry, stony, thin-soiled, with out-cropping

-ledges and a sprinkling of stunted cedars and pines. Some remains of

-rifle-pits are its only monument, unless we reckon as such a cedar

-rather larger than its fellows, which must have been of some size

-thirty years ago, and now bears the marks of abundant hard usage.

-

-The hill was taken by the Federal troops on the 23d of November,

-1863, by way of "overture to the battle of Chattanooga," Grant,

-Thomas, Hooker, Granger, Howard, and others overlooking the

-engagement from the ramparts of Fort Wood. The next day, as all

-the world knows, Hooker's men carried Lookout Mountain, while the

-multitude below, hearing the commotion, wondered what could be going

-on above them, till suddenly the clouds lifted, and behold, the

-Confederates were in full flight. Then, says an eye-witness, there

-"went up a mighty cheer from the thirty thousand in the valley,

-that was heard above the battle by their comrades on the mountain."

-On the day following, for events followed each other fast in that

-spectacular campaign, Grant and Thomas had established themselves on

-Orchard Knob, and late in the afternoon the Union army, exceeding its

-orders, stormed Missionary Ridge, put the army of Bragg to sudden

-rout, and completed one of the really decisive victories of the war.

-

-For a man who wishes to feel the memory of that stirring time there

-is no better place than Orchard Knob, where Grant stood and anxiously

-watched the course of the battle, a battle of which he declared that

-it was won "under the most trying circumstances presented during

-the war." For my own part, I can see the man himself as I read the

-words of one who was there with him. The stormers of Missionary

-Ridge, as I have said, after making the demonstration they had been

-ordered to make, kept on up the slope, thinking "the time had come

-to finish the battle of Chickamauga." "As soon as this movement was

-seen from Orchard Knob," writes General Fullerton, "Grant turned

-quickly to Thomas, who stood by his side, and I heard him say

-angrily, 'Thomas, who ordered those men up the ridge?' Thomas replied

-in his usual slow, quiet manner, 'I don't know; I did not.' Then,

-addressing General Gordon Granger, he said, 'Did you order them up,

-Granger?' 'No,' said Granger; 'they started up without orders. When

-those fellows get started all hell can't stop them.'" In the heat of

-battle a soldier may be pardoned, I suppose, if his speech smells

-of sulphur; and after the event an army is hardly to be censured

-for beating the enemy a day ahead of time. I speak as a civilian.

-Military men, no doubt, find insubordination, even on the right side,

-a less pardonable offense; a fact which may explain why General

-Grant, in his history of the battle, written many years afterward,

-makes no mention of this its most dramatic incident, so that the

-reader of his narrative would never divine but that everything had

-been done according to the plans and orders of the general in command.

-

-Orders or no orders, the fight was won. That was more than thirty

-years ago. It was now a pleasant May afternoon, the afternoon of

-May-day itself. The date, indeed, was the immediate occasion of

-my presence. I had started from Chattanooga with the intention of

-going once more to Missionary Ridge, which just now offered peculiar

-attractions to a stranger of ornithological proclivities. But the car

-was full of laughing, smartly dressed colored people; they were bound

-for the same place, it appeared, on their annual picnic; and, being

-in a quiet mood, I took the hint and dropped out by the way.

-

-There was much to feel but little to see at Orchard Knob; and yet

-I recall two plants that I found there for the first time; a low

-gromwell (_Lithospermum canescens_), with clustered bright yellow

-flowers, and an odd and homely greenish milkweed (_Asclepias

-obovata_). The yarrow-leaved ragwort was there also, and the tall

-blue baptisia; but as well as I can recollect, not one dainty and

-modest nosegay-blossom; not even the houstonia, which seemed to grow

-everywhere, though after a strangely sparse and depauperate fashion.

-As I said to begin with, the Knob is a desolate place. It made me

-think of the Scriptural phrase about "the besom of destruction." I

-can imagine that mourners of the "Lost Cause," if such there still

-be, might see upon it the signs of a place accursed.

-

-Far otherwise is it with the national cemetery. That is a spot

-of which the nation takes care. Here are shaven lawns, which,

-nevertheless, you are permitted to walk over; and shrubbery and

-trees, both in grateful profusion, but not planted so thickly as to

-make the inclosure either a wood or a garden; and where the ledge

-crops out, it is pleasingly and naturally draped with vines of the

-Virginia creeper. One thing I noticed upon the instant; there were

-no English sparrows inside the wall. The city is overrun with them

-beyond anything I have seen elsewhere; within two hundred feet of

-the cemetery gate, as I passed out, there were at least two hundred

-sparrows; but inside, on three visits, I saw not one! How this

-exemption had been brought about, I did not learn; but it makes of

-the cemetery a sort of heavenly place. I felt the silence as the

-sweetest of music (it was a Sunday afternoon), and thought instantly

-of Comus and his "prisoned soul" lapped in Elysium. If I knew whom to

-thank, I would name him.

-

-A mocking-bird, aloft upon the topmost twig of a tall willow near the

-entrance, was pouring forth a characteristic medley, in the midst

-of which he suddenly called _wick-a-wick_, _wick-a-wick_, in the

-flicker's very happiest style. "So flickers must now and then come to

-Chattanooga," I said to myself, for up to that time I had seen none.

-It was a pleasure to hear this great songster of the South singing

-above these thousands of Northern graves. It seemed _right_; for time

-and the event will prove, if, indeed, they have not proved already,

-that the South, even more than the North, has reason to be glad of

-the victory which these deaths went far to win.

-

-A tablet on one of the cannons which stand upright on the highest

-knoll informs visitors that the cemetery was "established" in 1863.

-The number of burials is given as 12,876, of which nearly five

-thousand are of bodies unidentified. A great proportion of the

-stones bear nothing but a number. On others is a name, or part of a

-name, with the name of the State underneath. One I noticed that was

-inscribed:--

-

-        JOHN

-

-        N. Y.

-

-An attendant of whom I inquired if any New England men were

-here, answered that there were a few members of the Thirty-third

-Massachusetts. I hope the New Englanders resident in Chattanooga do

-not forget them on Memorial Day.

-

-Twice in the year, at least, the place has many Northern visitors.

-They arrive on wings, mostly by night, and such of them as came under

-my eye acted as if they appreciated the quiet of the inclosure,

-a quiet which their own presence made but the more appreciable.

-Scattered over the lawns were silent groups of white-throated

-sparrows,--on their way to New Hampshire, perhaps, or it might be to

-upper Michigan; and not far from the entrance, and almost directly

-under the mocking-bird, were two or three white-crowned sparrows,

-the only ones found in Tennessee. On an earlier visit (April 29)

-I saw here my only Tennessee robins--five birds; and most welcome

-they were. Months afterward, a resident of Missionary Ridge wrote

-to me that a pair had nested in the cemetery that year, though to

-his great regret he did not know of it till too late. He had never

-seen a robin's nest, he added, and was acquainted with the bird only

-as a migrant. Such are some of the deprivations of life in eastern

-Tennessee. May and June without robins or song sparrows!

-

-On the last of my three visits, a small flock of black-poll warblers

-were in the trees, and two of them gave me a pleasant little

-surprise by dropping to the ground, and feeding for a long time

-upon the lawn. That was something new for black-polls, so far as my

-observation had gone, and an encouraging thing to look at: another

-sign, where all signs are welcome, that the life of birds is less

-strictly instinctive--less a matter of inherited habit, and more

-a matter of personal intelligence--than has commonly been assumed.

-In general, no doubt, like human beings, they do what their fathers

-did, what they themselves have done heretofore. So much is to be

-expected, since their faculties and desires remain the same, and they

-have the same world to live in; but when exceptional circumstances

-arise, their conduct becomes exceptional. In other words, they do

-as a few of the quicker-witted among men do--suit their conduct to

-altered conditions. A month ago I should have said, after years of

-acquaintance, that no birds could be more strictly arboreal than

-golden-crowned kinglets. But recently, I happened upon a little group

-of them that for a week or more fed persistently on the ground in

-a certain piece of wood. Then and there, for some reason, food was

-plentiful on the snow and among the dead leaves; and the kinglets had

-no scruples about following where duty called them.

-

-At the same time a friend of mine, a young farmer, was at his

-winter's work in the woods; and being alone, and a lover of birds,

-he had taken a fancy to experiment with a few chickadees, to see

-how tame a little encouragement would make them. A flock of five

-came about him day after day, at luncheon-time, and by dint of

-sitting motionless he soon had two of them on terms of something like

-intimacy; so that they would alight on his hand and help themselves

-to a feast. He was not long in discovering, and reporting to me, that

-they carried much of the food to the trees round about, and packed it

-into crannies of the bark.

-

-"Are you sure of that?" I asked.

-

-"Oh, yes," he answered; "I saw them do it, and then I went to the

-trees and found the crumbs."

-

-Did any one ever suspect the chickadee of such providence? If so, I

-never heard of it; and it is more likely, I think, that the birds had

-never before done anything of the sort; but now, finding suddenly a

-supply far in excess of the demand (one day they ate and carried away

-half a doughnut), they had sense enough to improve the opportunity.

-What they had done, or had not done, in times past, was nothing to

-the point, since they were creatures not of memory alone, but of

-intelligence and a measure of reason.

-

-Beside the unmistakable migrants,--white-throats, white-crowns,

-and black-polls,--there were numbers of more southern birds in the

-national cemetery. Among them I noticed a yellow-billed cuckoo, crow

-blackbirds, orchard orioles, summer tanagers, catbirds, a thrasher,

-a bluebird, wood pewees, chippers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, yellow

-warblers, wood thrushes, and chats. All these looked sufficiently at

-home except the chats; and it helps to mark the exceeding abundance

-of these last in the Chattanooga region that they should show

-themselves without reserve in a spot so frequented and so wanting in

-close cover. One of the orioles sang in the manner of a fox sparrow,

-while one that sang daily under my window, on Cameron Hill, never

-once suggested that bird, but often the purple finch. The two facts

-offer a good idea of this fine songster's quality and versatility.

-The organ tones of the yellow-throated vireo and the minor whistle of

-the wood pewee were sweetly in harmony with the spirit of the place,

-a spirit hard fully and exactly to express, a mingling of regret

-and exultation. What mattered it that all these men had perished,

-as it seemed, before their time?--that so many of them were lying

-in nameless graves? We shall all die; few of us so worthily; and

-when we are gone, of what use will be a name upon a stone, a name

-which, after a few years at the most, no passer-by will be concerned

-to read? Happy is he who dies to some purpose. It would have been

-good, I thought, to see over the cemetery gate the brave old Latin

-sentence, _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_.

-

-The human visitors, of whom one day there might have been a hundred,

-were largely people of color. All were quiet and orderly, in couples

-and family groups. Most of them, I remarked, went to look at the

-only striking monument in the grounds, a locomotive and tender (the

-"General") on a pedestal of marble--"Ohio's Tribute to the Andrews

-Raiders, 1862." On three faces of the pedestal are lists of the

-"exchanged," the "executed," and the "escaped."

-

-One thing, one only, grated upon my feelings. In a corner of

-the inclosure is the Superintendent's house, with a stable and

-out-buildings; and at the gate the visitor is suddenly struck in

-the face with this notice in flaring capitals: KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS

-YOU! That is brutality beyond excuse. But perhaps it answers its

-purpose. For my own part, I got out of the neighborhood as quickly as

-possible. I liked better the society of the graves; at such a price a

-dead soldier was better than a live superintendent; and to take the

-unpleasant taste out of my mouth I stopped to read again a stanza on

-one of the metal tablets set at intervals along the driveway:--

-

-    "On Fame's eternal camping ground

-        Their silent tents are spread,

-    And Glory guards, with solemn round,

-        The bivouac of the dead."

-

-Far be the day when these Southern fields of Northern graves shall

-fall into forgetfulness and neglect.

-

-

-

-

-AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER.

-

-

-To an idler desirous of seeing wild life on easy terms Chattanooga

-offers this advantage, that electric cars take him quickly out of the

-city in different directions, and drop him in the woods. In this way,

-on an afternoon too sultry for extended travel on foot, I visited a

-wooded hillside on the further bank of the Tennessee, a few miles

-above the town.

-

-The car was still turning street corner after street corner, making

-its zigzag course toward the bridge, when I noticed a rustic old

-gentleman at my side looking intently at the floor. Apparently he

-suspected something amiss. He was unused to the ways of electricity,

-I thought,--a verdancy by no means inexcusable. But as he leaned

-farther forward, and looked and listened with more and more

-absorption, the matter--not his ignorance, but his simple-hearted

-betrayal of it--began to seem amusing. For myself, to be sure, I knew

-nothing about electricity, but I had wit enough to sit still and

-let the car run; a degree of sophistication which passes pretty well

-as a substitute for wisdom in a world where men are distinguished

-from children not so much by more knowledge as by less curiosity.

-In the present instance, however, as the event proved, the dunce's

-cap belonged on the other head. My countryman's stare was less

-verdant than his next neighbor's smile; for in a few minutes the

-conductor was taking up a trap door at our feet, to get at the works,

-some part of which had fallen out of gear, though they were still

-running. Twice the car was stopped for a better examination into the

-difficulty, and at last a new wedge, or something else, was inserted,

-and we proceeded on our way, while the motorman who had done the job

-busied himself with removing from his coat, as best he could, the oil

-with which it had become besmeared in the course of the operation.

-It was rather hard, he thought, to have to spoil his clothes in

-repair-shop work of that kind, especially as he was paid nothing for

-it, and had to find himself. As for my rustic-looking seatmate, he

-was an old hand at the business, it appeared, and his practiced ear

-had detected a jar in the machinery.

-

-We left the car in company, he and I, at the end of the route,

-and pretty soon it transpired that he was an old Union soldier,

-of Massachusetts parentage, but born in Canada and a member of a

-Michigan regiment. Just how these autobiographical details came to

-be mentioned I fail now to remember, but in that country, where so

-much history had been made, it was hard to keep the past out of

-one's conversation. He had been in Sheridan's force when it stormed

-Missionary Ridge. As they went up the heights, he said, they were

-between two fires; as much in danger from Federal bullets as from

-Confederate; "but Sheridan kept right on." An old woman who lived on

-the Ridge told him that she asked General Bragg if the Yankees would

-take the hill. "Take the hill!" said Bragg; "they could as well fly."

-Just then she saw the blue-coats coming, and pointed them out to the

-General. He looked at them, put spurs to his horse, "and," added the

-woman, "I ain't seen him since." All of which, for aught I know, may

-be true.

-

-The talkative veteran was now on his way to find an old friend of his

-who lived somewhere around here, he didn't know just where; and as

-my course lay in the same general direction we went across lots and

-up the hill together, he rehearsing the past, and I gladly putting

-myself to school. In my time history was studied from text-books;

-but the lecture system is better. By and by we approached a solitary

-cabin, on the dilapidated piazza of which sat the very man for whom

-my companion was looking. "Very sick to-day," he said, in response

-to a greeting. His appearance harmonized with his words,--and with

-the piazza; and his manners were pitched on the same key; so that

-it was in a downright surly tone that he pointed out a gate through

-which I could make an exit toward the woods on the other side of

-the house. I had asked the way, and was glad to take it. Not that

-I was greatly offended. A sick man on one of his bad days has some

-excuse for a little impatience; a far better excuse than I should

-have for alluding to the matter at this late date, if I did not

-improve the occasion to add that this was the only bit of anything

-like incivility that I have ever received at the South, where I have

-certainly not been slow to ask questions of all sorts of people.

-

-A little jaunt along a foot-path brought me unexpectedly to a second

-cabin, uninhabited. It was built of boards, not logs, with the

-usual outside chimney at one end, a broad veranda, a door, and no

-window; a house to fill a social economist with admiration at the

-low terms to which civilized life can be reduced. Thoreau himself

-was outdone, though the veranda, it must be confessed, seemed a

-dispensable bit of fashionable conformity, with forest trees on all

-sides crowding the roof. Half the floor had fallen away; yet the

-house could not have been long unoccupied, for at one end the wall

-was hung with newspapers, among which was a Boston "weekly" less than

-two years old. From it looked the portrait of a New England college

-president, and at the head of the page stood a list of "eminent

-contributors." I ran the names over, but somehow, in these wild and

-natural surroundings, they did not seem so very impressive. I think

-it has been said before, perhaps by Thoreau, that most of what we

-call literature wears an artificial and unimportant look when taken

-out-of-doors.

-

-Near this cabin I struck a road ("a sort of road," according to

-my notebook) through the woods, following which I shortly came to

-a grave-yard, or rather to a bunch of graves, for there was no

-inclosure, nor even a clearing. One grave--or it may have been a

-tiny family lot--was surrounded by a curb of stone. The others, with

-a single exception, were marked only by low mounds of gravel. The

-one exception was a grave with a head-board,--the grave of "Little

-Theodosia," a year and some months old. "Theodosia!"--even into a

-windowless cabin a baby brings romance. Under the name and the two

-dates was this legend: "She is happy." Of ten inscriptions on marble

-monuments nine will be found less simply appropriate.

-

-By a circuitous course the wood road brought me to a larger cabin, in

-a larger clearing. Here a pleasant-spoken, neighborly woman, with a

-child in her arms, called off her dog, and pointed out a path beyond

-a pair of bars. That path, she said, would carry me to the river,--to

-the water's edge. And so it did, down a pleasant wooded hillside,

-which an unwonted profusion of bushes and ferns made exceptionally

-attractive. At the end of the path a lordly elm and a lordlier

-buttonwood, both of them loaded with lusty vines (besides clusters of

-mistletoe, I believe), gave me shelter from the sun while I sat and

-gazed at the strong eager current of the Tennessee hurrying onward

-without a ripple. As my foot touched the beach a duck--I could not

-tell of what kind--sprang out of the water and went dashing off.

-She had learned her lesson. In the duck's primer one of the first

-questions is: "What is a man?" and the answer follows: "Man is a

-gun-bearing animal." In the treetops a golden warbler and a redstart

-were singing. Then I heard a puffing of steam, and by and by a tug

-came round a turn, pushing laboriously up stream a loaded barge. It

-was the Ocoee of Chattanooga, and the two or three mariners on board

-seemed to find the sight of a stranger in that unlooked-for place a

-welcome break in the monotony of their inland voyage.

-

-On the bushy, ferny slope, as I returned, two Kentucky warblers were

-singing in opposite directions. So I called them, at all events. But

-they were too far away to be gone after, as my mood then was, and

-soon I began to wonder whether I might not be mistaken. Possibly they

-were Carolina wrens, whose _cherry_ is not altogether unlike the

-Kentucky's _klurwee_. The question will perhaps seem unreasonable to

-readers long familiar with the two birds; but let them put themselves

-in a stranger's place, remembering that this was only his third or

-fourth hearing of the Kentucky's music. As the doubt grew on me (and

-nothing grows faster than doubt) I sat down and listened. Yes, they

-were Kentuckies; but anon the uncertainty came back, and I kept my

-seat. Then a sound of humming-bird wings interrupted my cogitations,

-and in another moment the bird was before me, sipping at a scarlet

-catchfly,--battlefield pink. I caught the flash of his throat. It

-was as red as the flower--beyond which there is nothing to be said.

-Then he vanished (rather than went away), as humming-birds do; but in

-ten minutes he was there again. I was glad to see him. Birds of his

-kind were rare about Chattanooga, though afterwards, in the forests

-of Walden's Ridge, they became as common as I ever saw them anywhere.

-The two invisible Kentuckies wore out my patience, but as I came to

-the bars another sang near me. Him, by good luck, I saw in the act,

-and for the time, at least, my doubts were quieted.

-

-In the woods and thickets, as I sauntered along, I heard blue

-golden-winged warblers, two more Kentuckies, a blue-gray gnatcatcher,

-a Bachman's finch, a wood pewee, a quail, and the inevitable chats,

-indigo-birds, prairie warblers, and white-eyed vireos. Then, as

-I drew near the car track, I descended again to the river-bank

-and walked in the shade of lofty buttonwoods, willows, and white

-maples, with mistletoe perched in the upper branches, and poison ivy

-climbing far up the trunks; the whole standing in great contrast to

-the comparatively stunted growth, mainly oak,--and largely black

-jack,--on the dry soil of the hillside. Across the river were broad,

-level fields, brown with cultivation, in which men were at work, and

-from the same direction came loud rasping cries of batrachians of

-some kind. For aught that my ear could detect, they might be common

-toads uttering their mysterious, discordant midsummer screams in

-full chorus. Here were more indigo-birds, with red-eyes, white-eyes,

-lisping black-poll warblers, redstarts, a yellow-billed cuckoo

-(furtive as ever, like a bird with an evil conscience), catbirds, a

-thrasher, a veery in song (a luxury in these parts), orchard orioles,

-goldfinches, and chippers. A bluebird was gathering straws, and a

-carrion crow, one of two seen in Tennessee, was soaring high over the

-river.

-

-The "pavilion," at the terminus of the car route, was deserted, and I

-sat on the piazza enjoying the really beautiful prospect--the river,

-the woods, and the cultivated fields. The land hereabout was all in

-the market. In truth, the selling of building lots seemed to be one

-of the principal industries of Chattanooga; and I was not surprised

-to find the good-humored young fellow behind the counter--with its

-usual appetizing display of cigars, drinks, and confectionery--full

-of the glories and imminent possibilities of this particular

-"suburb." He believed in the river. Folks would come this way, where

-it was high and cool. (On that particular afternoon, to be sure, it

-was neither very high nor very cool, but of course the weather isn't

-always good anywhere.) "Lookout Mountain ain't what it used to be,"

-he said, in a burst of confidence. "It's done seen its best days.

-Yes, sir, it's done seen its best days." It was not for a stranger,

-with no investment in view, to take sides in such competitions and

-rivalries. I believed in the river and the mountain both, and hoped

-that both would survive their present exploitation. I liked his talk

-better when it turned upon himself. Nothing is more exhilarating than

-an honest bit of personal brag. He was never sick, he told me. He

-knew nothing of aches or pains. He could do anything without getting

-tired. Save for his slavery to the counter, he seemed almost as well

-off as the birds.

-

-

-

-

-A MORNING IN THE NORTH WOODS.

-

-

-The electric car left me near the Tennessee,--at "Riverview,"--and

-thence I walked into the woods, meaning to make a circuit among the

-hills, and at my convenience board an inward-bound car somewhere

-between that point and the city. The weather was of the kind that

-birds love: warm and still, after heavy showers, with the sun now

-and then breaking through the clouds. The country was a suburb in

-its first estate: that is to say, a land company had laid out miles

-of streets, but as yet there were no houses, and the woods remained

-unharmed. That was a very comfortable stage of the business to a man

-on my errand. The roads gave the visitor convenience of access,--a

-ready means of moving about with his eyes in the air,--and at the

-same time, by making the place more open, they made it more birdy;

-for birds, even the greater part of wood birds, like the borders of a

-forest better than its darker recesses.

-

-One thing I soon perceived: the rain had left the roads in a

-condition of unspeakable adhesiveness. The red clay balled up my

-heels as if it had been moist snow, till I pitched forward as I

-walked. I fancied that I understood pretty well the sensations of

-a young lady in high-heeled shoes. One moment, too, my feet were

-weighted with lead; then the mass fell off in a sudden big lump, and

-my next few steps were on air. A graceful, steady, self-possessed

-gait was out of the question. As for abstaining from all appearance

-of evil--well, as another and more comfortable Scripture says, "There

-is a time for everything." However, I was not disposed to complain.

-We read much about the tribulations of Northern soldiers on the march

-in Virginia,--of entire armies mud-bound and helpless. Henceforth I

-shall have some better idea of what such statements mean. In that

-part of the world, I am assured, rubber overshoes have to be tied

-on the feet with strings. Mother Earth does not believe in such

-effeminacies, and takes it upon herself to pull them off.

-

-The seventeen-year locusts made the air ring. Heard at the right

-distance, the sound has a curious resemblance, noticed again and

-again, to the far-away, barely audible buzz of an electric car. For

-a week the air of the valley woods had been full of it. I wondered

-over it for a day or two, with no suspicion of its origin. Then, as I

-waited for a car at the base of Missionary Ridge, a colored man who

-stood beside me on the platform gave me, without meaning it, a lesson

-in natural history.

-

-"The locuses are goin' it, this mornin', ain't they?" he said.

-

-"The locuses?" I answered, in a tone of inquiry.

-

-"Yes. Don't you hear 'em?"

-

-He meant my mysterious universal hum, it appeared. But even then I

-did not know that he spoke of the big, red-eyed cicada that I had

-picked off a fence a day or two before and looked at for a moment

-with ignorant curiosity. And even when, by dint of using my own eyes,

-I learned so much, I was still unaware that this cicada was the

-famous seventeen-year locust. Here in the north woods I more than

-once passed near a swarm of the insects. At short range the noise

-loses its musical character; so that it would be easy to hear it

-without divining any connection between it and the grand pervasive

-hum of the universal chorus.

-

-One of the first birds at which I stopped to look was a Kentucky

-warbler, walking about the ground and pausing now and then to sing;

-one of six or seven seen and heard during the forenoon. Few birds are

-more freely and easily observed. I mean in open woodlands with clear

-margins, such as I was now exploring. In a mountain forest, where

-they haunt brookside jungles of laurel and rhododendron, the story is

-different, as a matter of course. How it happens that the same bird

-is equally at home in surroundings so dissimilar is a question I make

-no attempt to answer.

-

-All the hill woods, mostly oak, were dry and stony; but after a

-while I came unexpectedly to a valley, a place of another sort;

-not moist, to be sure, but looking as if it had been moist at some

-time or other; and with pleasant grassy openings and another set

-of trees--red maples, persimmons, and sweet-gums. Here was a fine

-bunch of birds, including many migrants, and I went softly hither

-and thither, scanning the branches of one tree after another, as a

-note or the stirring of a leaf attracted me, ready every minute for

-the sight of something new and wonderful. I found nothing,--nothing

-new and wonderful, I mean,--but I had all the exhilaration of

-the chase. In the company, nearly all of them in song, were wood

-thrushes, a silent palm warbler (red-poll), a magnolia warbler, three

-Canadian flycatchers, many black-polls, one or two redstarts, a

-chestnut-sided warbler, a black-and-white creeper, a field sparrow,

-a yellow-throated vireo, a wood pewee, an Acadian flycatcher, and

-two or more yellow-billed cuckoos. The red-poll was of a very pale

-complexion (but I assert nothing as to its exact identity, specific

-or sub-specific), and seemed to me unreasonably late. It was the 11th

-of May, and birds of its kind had been passing through Massachusetts

-by the middle of April. Chestnut-sides were scarce enough to be

-interesting, and it was good to hear this lover of berry fields and

-the gray birch singing from a sweet-gum.

-

-When at last I turned away from the grassy glade,--where cattle were

-pasturing, as I now remember,--and went back among the dry hills

-(through the powdery soil of which the almost daily showers seemed

-to run as through a sieve), I presently caught sight of a scarlet

-tanager,--a beauty, and, except on the mountains, a rarity. Then I

-stopped--on a street corner!--to admire the singing of a Bachman's

-finch, wishing also to compare his plumage with that of a bird seen

-and greatly enjoyed a few days before at Chickamauga. To judge from

-my limited observation, this is one of the sparrows--the song sparrow

-being another--which exhibit a strange diversity of individual

-coloration; as if the fashion were not yet fully set, or perhaps

-were being outgrown. The bird here in the north woods, so far as

-color and markings went, might well enough have been of a different

-species from that of the Chickamauga singer, yet there was no reason

-to suspect the presence of more than one variety of _Peucæa_, so far

-as I knew, and the music of the two birds was precisely the same. A

-wonderfully sweet and various tune it is; with sometimes a highly

-ventriloquial effect, as if the different measures or phrases came

-from different points. It opens like the song heard in the Florida

-flat-woods, but is even more varied, both in voice and in musical

-form. So it seemed to me, I mean to say; but hearing the two a year

-apart, I cannot speak without reserve. It is pleasanter--as well as

-safer--to praise both singers than to exalt one to the pulling down

-of the other. In appearance, Bachman's finch is one of the dullest,

-dingiest, least prepossessing members of its great family; but its

-voice and musical genius make it a treasure, especially in this

-comparatively sparrowless country of eastern Tennessee.

-

-I have remarked that I found this bird upon a street corner.

-Unhappily my notes do not enable me to be more specific. It may have

-been at the corner of Court and Tremont Streets, or, possibly, at the

-junction of Tremont and Dartmouth Streets. All these names appear in

-my memoranda. Boston people should have had a hand in this business,

-I said to myself. It was on Federal Street (so much I put down) that

-I saw my only Tennessee rose-breasted grosbeak. He, or rather she,

-was the most interesting bird of the forenoon, and matched the one

-Baltimore oriole seen at Chickamauga. I heard the familiar _click_,

-as of rusty shears, and straightway took chase. For some minutes

-my search was in vain, and once I feared I had been fooled. A bird

-flew out of the right tree, as I thought, but showed yellow, and the

-next moment set up the _clippiticlip_ call of the summer tanager.

-Could that bird have also a note like the rose-breast's? It was not

-impossible, of course, for one does not exhaust the vocabulary of

-a bird in a month's acquaintance; but I could not think it likely,

-thick as tanagers had been about me; and soon the _click_ was

-repeated, and this time I put my eye on its author,--a feminine

-rose-breast. Perhaps it was nothing more than an accident that she

-was my only specimen; but so showy a bird, with so lovely a song and

-so distinctive a signal, could hardly have escaped notice had it been

-in any degree common.

-

-Wood thrushes sang on all sides. They had need to be abundant

-and free-hearted, since they stand in that region for the whole

-thrush family. Blue golden-winged warblers, too, were generously

-distributed, and, as happens to me now and then in Massachusetts,

-I found one with a song so absurdly peculiar that I spent some time

-in making sure of its author. It is to be hoped that this tendency

-to individual variation will persist and increase in the case of

-this species till something more melodious than its present sibilant

-monotony is evolved; till beauty and art are mated, as they ought

-to be. Who would not love to hear the music of all our birds a few

-millions of years hence? What a singer the hermit thrush will be,

-for example, when his tune is equal to his voice! Indigo-birds,

-white-eyed vireos and prairie warblers abounded. As for the chats,

-they saluted me on the right and on the left, till I said, "Chats,

-Chattanooga," and felt almost as if Nature had perpetrated a huge

-fantastic pun on her own account. If I could have had the ear of the

-enterprising owners of this embryo suburb,--a syndicate, I dare say

-they call themselves,--I would have suggested to them to name it

-"Chat City."

-

-I wandered carelessly about, now following a bird over a rounded

-hill (one, I remember, was covered literally from end to end with

-the common brake,--_Pteris_,--which will give the reader an idea of

-its sterility), now keeping to the road. In such a soil flowers were

-naturally scarce; but I noticed houstonia, phlox, hieracium, senecio,

-pentstemon, and specularia. Like the brake, the names are suggestive

-of barrenness. The senecio (ragwort), a species with finely cut

-leaves (_S. millefolium_), was first seen on Missionary Ridge. There,

-as here, it had a strange, misplaced appearance in my eyes, looking

-much like our familiar _S. aureus_, but growing in dry woods!

-

-So the morning passed. The hours were far too brief, and I would

-have stretched them into the afternoon, but that my trunk was packed

-for Walden's Ridge. It was necessary to think of getting back to the

-city, and I took a quicker pace. Two more Kentucky warblers detained

-me for a moment; a quail sprang up from under my feet; and on the

-other side of the way an oven-bird sang--the only one found in the

-valley. Then I came to the car-track; but somehow things wore an

-unexpected look, and a preacher, very black, solemn, and shiny, gave

-me to understand, in answer to a question, that the city lay not

-where I thought, but in an opposite direction. Instead of making a

-circuit I had cut straight across the country (an unusual form of

-bewilderment), and had come to another railway. But no harm was done.

-In that corner of the world all roads lead to Chattanooga.

-

-

-

-

-A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE.

-

-

-I.

-

-Throughout my stay in Chattanooga I looked often and with desire at

-a long, flat-topped, perpendicular-sided, densely wooded mountain,

-beyond the Tennessee River. Its name was Walden's Ridge, I was told;

-the top of it was eighty miles long and ten or twelve miles wide;

-if I wanted a bit of wild country, that was the place for me. Was

-it accessible? I asked. And was there any reasonable way of living

-there? Oh yes; carriages ran every afternoon from the city, and there

-were several small hotels on the mountain. So it happened that I

-went to Walden's Ridge for my last week in Tennessee, and have ever

-since thanked my stars--as New England Christians used to say, in my

-boyhood--for giving me the good wine at the end of the feast.

-

-The wine, it is true, was a little too freely watered. I went up the

-mountain in a rain, and came down again in a rain, and of the seven

-intervening days five were showery. The showers, mostly with thunder

-and lightning, were of the sort that make an umbrella ridiculous,

-and my jaunts, as a rule, took me far from shelter. Yet I had little

-to complain of. Now and then I was put to my trumps, as it were; my

-walk was sometimes grievously abbreviated, and my pace uncomfortably

-hurried, but by one happy accident and another I always escaped a

-drenching. Worse than the water that fell--worse, and not to be

-escaped, even by accident---was that which saturated the atmosphere,

-making every day a dog-day, and the week a seven-day sweat. And

-then, as if to even the account, on the last night of my stay I

-was kept awake for hours shivering with cold; and in the morning,

-after putting on all the clothing I could wear, and breakfasting

-in a snowstorm, I rode down the mountain in a state suggestive of

-approaching congelation. "My feet are frozen, I know they are," said

-the lady who sat beside me in the wagon; but she was mistaken.

-

-This sudden drop in the temperature seemed to be a trial even to the

-natives. As we drove into Chattanooga, it was impossible not to

-smile at the pinched and woebegone appearance of the colored people.

-What had they to do with weather that makes a man hurry? And the next

-morning, when an enterprising, bright-faced white boy ran up to me

-with a "'Times,' sir? Have a 'Times'?" I fear he quite misapprehended

-the more or less quizzical expression which I am sure came into my

-face. I was looking at his black woolen mittens, and thinking how

-well he was mothered. It was the 19th of May; for at least three

-weeks, to my own knowledge, the city had been sweltering under the

-hottest of midsummer heats,--94° in the shade, for example; and now,

-mittens and overcoats!

-

-I should be sorry to exaggerate, or leave a false impression. In

-this day of literary conscientiousness, when writers of fiction

-itself are truth-tellers first, and story-tellers afterwards,--if

-at all,--it behooves mere tourists and naturalists to speak as

-under oath. Be it confessed, then, that the foregoing paragraphs,

-though true in every word, are not to be taken too seriously. If the

-weather, "the dramatic element in scenery," happened not to suit the

-convenience of a naturally selfish man, now ten times more selfish

-than usual--as is the rule--because he was on his annual vacation, it

-does not follow that it was essentially bad. The rains were needed,

-the heat was to have been expected, and the cold, unseasonable and

-exceptional, was not peculiar to Tennessee. As for the snow, it was

-no more than I have seen before now, even in Massachusetts,--a week

-or two earlier in the month; and it lent such a glory to the higher

-Alleghanies, as we passed them on our way homeward, that I might

-cheerfully have lain shivering for _two_ nights in that unplastered

-bedroom, with its window that no man could shut, rather than miss the

-spectacle. Eastern Tennessee, I have no doubt, is a most salubrious

-country; properly recommended by the medical fraternity as a refuge

-for consumptive patients. If to me its meteorological fluctuations

-seemed surprisingly wide and sudden, it was perhaps because I had

-been brought up in the equable climate of New England. It would be

-unfair to judge the world in general by that favored spot.

-

-The road up the mountain--the "new road," as it is called--is a

-notable piece of work, done, I was told, by the county chain-gangs.

-The pleasure of the ascent, which naturally would have been great,

-was badly diminished by the rain, which made it necessary to keep the

-sides of the wagon down; but I was fortunate in my driver. At first

-he seemed a stolid, uncommunicative body, and when we came to the

-river I made sure he could not read. As we drove upon the bridge,

-where straight before his eyes was a sign forbidding any one to drive

-or ride over the bridge at a pace faster than a walk, under a penalty

-of five dollars for each offense, he whipped up his horse and his

-mule (the mule the better horse of the two), and they struck into a

-trot. Halfway across we met another wagon, and its driver too had let

-his horses out. Illiteracy must be pretty common in these parts, I

-said to myself. But whatever my driver's educational deficiencies, it

-did not take long to discover that in his own line he was a master.

-He could hit the ear of his mule with the end of his whip with a

-precision that was almost startling. In fact, it _was_ startling--to

-the mule. For my own part, as often as he drew back his hand and let

-fly the lash, my eye was glued to the mule's right ear in spite of

-myself. Had my own ears been endowed with life and motion, instead

-of fastened to my head like blocks of wood, I think they too would

-have twitched. I wondered how long the man had practiced his art. He

-appeared to be not more than forty-five years old. Perhaps he came of

-a race of drivers, and so began life with some hereditary advantages.

-At all events, he was a specialist, with the specialist's motto,

-"This one thing I do."

-

-We were hardly off the bridge and in the country before I began

-plying him with questions about this and that, especially the wayside

-trees. He answered promptly and succinctly, and turned out to be

-a man who had kept his eyes open, and, better still, knew how to

-say, "No, suh," as well as, "Yes, suh." (There is no mark in the

-dictionaries to indicate the percussive brevity of the vowel sound

-in "suh" as he pronounced it.) The big tupelo he recognized as the

-"black-gum." "But isn't it ever called 'sour-gum'?" "No, suh." He

-knew but one kind of tupelo, as he knew but one kind of "ellum."

-There were many kinds of oaks, some of which he named as we passed

-them. This botanical catechism presently waked up the only other

-passenger in the wagon, a modest girl of ten or twelve years. She

-too, it appeared, had some acquaintance with trees. I had asked the

-driver if there were no long-leaved pines hereabout. "No, suh,"

-he said. "But I think I saw some at Chickamauga the other day,"

-I ventured. (It was the only place I did see them, as well as I

-remember.) "Yes, sir," put in the girl, "there are a good many

-there." "Good for you!" I was ready to say. It was a pretty rare

-schoolgirl who, after visiting a battlefield, could tell what kind of

-pines grow on it. Persimmons? Yes, indeed, the girl had eaten them.

-There was a tree by the fence. Had I never eaten them? She seemed to

-pity me when I said "No," but I fancied she would have preferred to

-see me begin with one a little short of ripe.

-

-As for the birds of Walden's Ridge, the driver said, there were

-partridges, pheasants, and turkeys. He had seen ravens, also, but

-only in winter, he thought, and never in flocks. His brother had

-once shot one. About smaller birds he could not profess to speak.

-By and by he stopped the carriage. "There's a bird now," he said,

-pointing with his whip. "What do you call that?" It was a summer

-tanager, I told him, or summer redbird. Did he know another redbird,

-with black wings and tail? Yes, he had seen it; that was the male,

-and this all-red one was the female. Oh no, I explained; the birds

-were of different species, and the females in both cases were yellow.

-He did not insist,--it was a case of a driver and his fare; but he

-had always been told so, he said, and I do not flatter myself that

-I convinced him to the contrary. It is hard to believe that one man

-can be so much wiser than everybody else. A Massachusetts farmer once

-asked me, I remember, if the night-hawk and the whippoorwill were

-male and female of the same bird. I answered, of course, that they

-were not, and gave, as I thought, abundant reason why such a thing

-could not be possible. But I spoke as a scribe. "Well," remarked the

-farmer, when I had finished my story, "some folks _say_ they be, but

-I guess they _ain't_."

-

-With such converse, then, we beguiled the climb to the "Brow,"--the

-top of the cliffs which rim the summit of the mountain, and give it

-from below a fortified look,--and at last, after an hour's further

-drive through the dripping woods, came to the hotel at which I was to

-put up--or with which I was to put up--during my stay on the Ridge.

-

-I had hardly taken the road, the next morning, impatient to see

-what this little world on a mountain top was like, before I came to

-a lovely brook making its devious course among big boulders with

-much pleasant gurgling, in the shadow of mountain laurel and white

-azalea,--a place highly characteristic of Walden's Ridge, as I was

-afterwards to learn. Just now, naturally, there was no stopping so

-near home, though a Kentucky warbler, with his cool, liquid song, did

-his best to beguile me; and I kept on my way, past a few houses, a

-tiny box of a post-office, a rude church, and a few more houses, till

-just beyond the last one the road dropped into the forest again, as

-if for good. And there, all at once I seemed to be in New Hampshire.

-The land fell away sharply, and at one particular point, through a

-vista, the forest could be seen sloping down on either side to the

-gap, beyond which, miles away, loomed a hill, and then, far, far in

-the distance, high mountains dim with haze. It was like a note of

-sublimity in a poem that till now had been only beautiful.

-

-From the bottom of the valley came a sound of running water, and

-between me and the invisible stream a chorus of olive-backed thrushes

-were singing,--the same simple and hearty strains that, in June and

-July, echo all day long through the woods of the Crawford Notch. The

-birds were on their way from the far South, and were happy to find

-themselves in so homelike a place. Then, suddenly, amid the golden

-voices of the thrushes, I caught the wiry notes of a warbler. They

-came from the treetops in the valley, and--so I prided myself upon

-guessing--belonged to a cerulean warbler, a bird of which I had seen

-my first and only specimen a week before, on Lookout Mountain. Down

-the steep hillside I scrambled,--New Hampshire clean forgotten,--and

-was just bringing my glass into play when the fellow took wing, and

-began singing at the very point I had just left. I hastened back; he

-flew again, farther up the hill, and again I put myself out of breath

-with pursuing him. Again and again he sang, now in this tree, now in

-that, but there was no getting sight of him. The trees should have

-been shorter, or the bird larger. Straight upward I gazed, till the

-muscles of my neck cried for mercy. At last I saw him, flitting amid

-the dense foliage, but so far above me, and so exactly between me and

-the sun, that I might as well not have seen him at all.

-

-It was a foolish half-hour. The bird, as I afterwards discovered, was

-nothing but a blue yellow-back, with an original twist to his song.

-In Massachusetts, I should not have listened to it twice, but on new

-hunting-grounds a man is bound to look for new game; else what would

-be the use of traveling? It was a foolish half-hour, I say; but I

-wish some moralist would explain, in a manner not inconsistent with

-the dignity of human nature, how it happens that foolish half-hours

-are commonly so much more enjoyable at the time, and so much

-pleasanter in the retrospect, than many that are more reasonably

-employed.

-

-I swallowed my disappointment, and presently forgot it, for at the

-first turn in the road I found myself following the course of a brook

-or creek, between which and myself was a dense thicket of mountain

-laurel and rhododendron, with trees and other shrubs intermingled.

-The laurel was already in full bloom, while the rhododendrons held

-aloft clusters of gorgeous rose-purple buds, a few of which, the

-middle ones of the cluster, were just bursting into flower. Here

-was beauty of a new order,--such wealth and splendor of color in

-surroundings so romantic. And the place, besides, was alive with

-singing birds: hooded warblers, Kentucky warblers, a Canadian

-warbler, a black-throated blue, a black-throated green, a blue

-yellow-back, scarlet tanagers, wood pewees, wood thrushes, a field

-sparrow (on the hillside beyond) a cardinal, a chat, a bunch of

-white-throated sparrows, and who could tell what else? It was an

-exciting moment. Luckily, a man can look and listen both at once.

-Here was a fringe-tree, a noble specimen, hung with creamy-white

-plumes; here was a magnolia, with big leaves and big flowers; and

-here was a flowering dogwood, not to be put out of countenance in

-any company; but especially, here were the rhododendrons! And all

-the while, deep in the thickest of the bushes, some unknown bird was

-singing a strange, breathless jumble of a song, note tripping over

-note,--like an eager churchman with his responses, I kept saying to

-myself, with no thought of disrespect to either party. It cost me a

-long vigil and much patient coaxing to make the fellow out, and he

-proved to be merely a Wilson's blackcap, after all; but he was the

-only bird of his kind that I saw in Tennessee.

-

-On this first visit I did not get far beyond the creek, through the

-bed of which the road runs, with a single log for foot-passengers.

-I had spent at least an hour in going a hundred rods, and it was

-already drawing near dinner time. But I returned to the spot that

-very afternoon, and half a dozen times afterward. So poor a traveler

-am I, so ill fitted to explore a new country. Whenever nothing in

-particular offered itself, why, it was always pretty down at Falling

-Water Creek. There I saw the rhododendrons come into exuberant

-bloom, and there I oftenest see them in memory, though I found them

-elsewhere in greater abundance, and in a setting even more romantic.

-

-More romantic, perhaps, but hardly more beautiful. I remember, just

-beyond the creek, a bank where sweet bush (_Calycanthus_), wild

-ginger (_Asarum_), rhododendron, laurel, and plenty of trailing

-arbutus (the last now out of flower) were growing side by side,--a

-rare combination of beauty and fragrance. And within a few rods

-of the same spot I sat down more than once to take a long look at

-a cross-vine covering a dead hemlock. The branches of the tree,

-shortening regularly to the top, were draped heavily with gray

-lichens, while the vine, keeping mostly near the trunk and climbing

-clean to the tip,--fifty feet or more, as I thought,--was hung

-throughout with large, orange-red, gold-lined bells. Their numbers

-were past guessing. Here and there a spray of them swung lightly from

-the end of a branch, as if inviting the breeze to lend them motion

-and a voice. The sight was worth going miles to see, and yet I passed

-it three times before it caught my eye, so full were the woods of

-things to look at. After all, _is_ it a poor traveler who turns again

-and again into the same path? Whether is better, to read two good

-books once, or one good book twice?

-

-A favorite shorter walk, at odd minutes,--before breakfast and

-between showers,--was through the woods for a quarter of a mile to a

-small clearing and a cabin. On a Sunday afternoon I ventured to pass

-the gate and make a call upon my neighbors. The doors of the house

-stood open, but a glance inside showed that there was no one there,

-and I walked round it, inspecting the garden,--corn, beans, and

-potatoes coming on,--till, just as I was ready to turn back into the

-woods, I descried a man and woman on the hillside not far away; the

-man leading a mule, and the woman picking strawberries. At sight of

-a stranger the woman fell behind, but the man kept on to the house,

-greeted me politely, and invited me to be seated under the hemlock,

-where two chairs were already placed. After tying the mule he took

-the other chair, and we fell into talk about the weather, the crops,

-and things in general. When the wife finally appeared, I rose, of

-course; but she went on in silence and entered the house, while the

-husband said, "Oh, keep your seat." We continued our conversation

-till the rain began to fall. Then we picked up our chairs and

-followed the woman inside. She sat in the middle of the room (young,

-pretty, newly married, and Sunday-dressed), but never once opened her

-lips. Her behavior was in strict accordance with local etiquette, I

-was afterward assured (as if _all_ etiquette were not local); but

-though I admire feminine modesty as much as any man, I cannot say

-that I found this particular manifestation of it altogether to my

-liking. Silence is golden, no doubt, and gold is more precious than

-silver, but in cases of this figurative sort I profess myself a

-bimetallist. A _little_ silver, I say; enough for small change, at

-any rate; and if we can have a pretty free coinage, why, so much the

-better, though as to that, it must be admitted, a good deal depends

-upon the "image and superscription." However, my hostess followed her

-lights, and reserved her voice--soft and musical let us hope--for

-her husband's ear.

-

-They had not lived in the house very long, he told me, and he did

-not know how many years the land had been cleared. There was a fair

-amount of game in the woods,--turkeys, squirrels, pheasants, and so

-on,--and in winter the men did considerable hunting. Formerly there

-were a good many deer, but they had been pretty well killed off.

-Turkeys still held out. They were gobbling now. His father had been

-trying for two or three weeks, off and on, to shoot a certain old

-fellow who had several hens with him down in the valley. His father

-could call with his mouth better than with any "caller," but so far

-the bird had been too sharp for him. The son laughed good-naturedly

-when I confessed to an unsportsmanlike sympathy with the gobbler.

-

-The cabin, built of hewn logs, with clay in the chinks, was neatly

-furnished, with beds in two corners of the one room, a stone chimney,

-two doors directly opposite each other, and no window. The doors,

-it is understood, are always to be open, for ventilation and light.

-Such is the custom; and custom is nowhere more powerful than in

-small rustic communities. If a native, led away by his wife, perhaps,

-puts a window into his new cabin, the neighbors say, "Oh, he is

-building a glass house, isn't he?" It must be an effeminate woman,

-they think, who cannot do her cooking and sewing by the light of

-the door. None the less, in a climate where snow is possible in the

-middle of May, such a Spartan arrangement must sometimes be found

-a bit uncomfortable by persons not to the manner born. A preacher

-confided to me that in his pastoral calls he had once or twice made

-bold to push to a door directly at his back, when the wind was cold;

-but the innovation was ill received, and the inmates of the house,

-doubtless without wishing to hurt their minister's feelings,--since

-he had meant no harm, to be sure, but was simply unused to the ways

-of the world,--speedily found some excuse for rectifying his mistake.

-Probably there is no corner of the world where the question of fresh

-air and draughts is not available for purposes of moral discipline.

-

-Beside the path to the cabin, on the 13th of May, was a gray-cheeked

-thrush, a very gray specimen, sitting motionless in the best of

-lights. "Look at me," he seemed to say. "I am no olive-back. My

-cheeks are not sallow." On the same day, here and in another place,

-I saw white-throated sparrows. Their presence at this late hour was

-a great surprise, and suggested the possibility of their breeding

-somewhere in the Carolina mountains, though I am not aware that such

-an occurrence has ever been recorded. Another recollection of this

-path is of a snow-white milkweed (_Asclepias variegata_),--white with

-the merest touch of purple to set it off,--for the downright elegance

-of which I was not in the least prepared. The queen of all milkweeds,

-surely.

-

-After nightfall the air grew loud with the cries of batrachians and

-insects, an interesting and novel chorus. On my first evening at the

-hotel I was loitering up the road, with frequent auditory pauses,

-thinking how full the world is of unseen creatures which find their

-day only after the sun goes down, when in a woody spot I heard behind

-me a sound of footsteps. A woman was close at my heels, fetching a

-pail of water from the spring. I remarked upon the many voices. She

-answered pleasantly. It was the big frogs that I heard, she reckoned.

-

-"Do you have whippoorwills here?" I asked.

-

-"Plenty of 'em," she answered, "plenty of 'em."

-

-"Do you hear them right along the road?"

-

-"Yes, sir; oh yes."

-

-We had gone hardly a rod further before we exclaimed in the same

-breath, "There is one now!"

-

-I inquired if there was another bird here, something like the

-whippoorwill, meaning the chuck-will's-widow. But she said no; she

-knew of but one.

-

-"How early does the whippoorwill get here?" said I.

-

-"Pretty early," she answered.

-

-"By the first of April, should you say?"

-

-"Yes, sir, I think about then. I know the timber is just beginning to

-put out when they begin to holler."

-

-This mannerly treatment of a stranger was more Christian-like than

-the stately silence of my lady of the cabin, it seemed to me. I

-liked it better, at all events. I had learned nothing, perhaps; but

-unless a man is far gone in philosophy he need not feel bound to

-increase in wisdom every time a neighbor speaks to him; and anyhow,

-that expression about the "putting out of the timber" had given me

-pleasure. Hearing it thus was better than finding it upon a page

-of Stevenson, or some other author whose business in life is the

-picking of right words. Let us have some silver, I repeat. I am ready

-to believe, what I have somewhere read, that men will have to give

-account not only for every idle word, but for every idle silence.

-

-The summit of the Ridge, as soon as one leaves its precipitous rocky

-edge,--the Brow, so called,--is simply an indefinite expanse of

-gently rolling country, thin-soiled, but well watered, and covered

-with fine open woods, rambling through which the visitor finds little

-to remind him of his elevation above the world. I heard a resident

-speak of going to the "top of the mountain," however, and on inquiry

-learned that a certain rocky eminence, two miles, more or less, from

-Fairmount (the little "settlement" where I was staying), went by

-that name, and was supposed to be the highest point of the Ridge.

-My informant kindly made me a rough map of the way thither, and one

-morning I set out in that direction. It would be shameful to live for

-a week on the "summit" of a mountain, and not once go to the "top."

-

-The glory of Walden's Ridge, as compared with Lookout Mountain,--so

-the dwellers there say,--is its streams and springs; and my morning

-path soon brought me to the usual rocky brook bordered with mountain

-laurel, holly, and hemlock. To my New England eyes it was an odd

-circumstance, the hemlocks growing always along the creeks in the

-valley bottoms. Beyond this point I passed an abandoned cabin,--no

-other house in sight,--and by and by a second one, near which, in the

-garden (better worth preserving than the house, it appeared), a woman

-and two children were at work. Yes, the woman said, I was on the

-right path. I had only to keep a straight course, and I should bring

-up at the "top of the mountain." A little farther, and my spirits

-rose at the sight of a circular, sedgy, woodland pond, such a place

-as I had not seen in all this Chattanooga country. It ought to yield

-something new for my local ornithological list, which up to this

-time included ninety species, and not one of them a water-bird. I did

-my best, beating round the edge and "squeaking," but startled nothing

-rarer than a hooded warbler and a cardinal grosbeak.

-

-Next I traversed a long stretch of unbroken oak woods, with single

-tall pines interspersed; and then all at once the path turned to

-the right, and ran obliquely downhill to a clearing in which stood

-a house,--not a cabin,--with a garden, orchard trees, and beehives.

-This should be the German shoemaker's, I thought, looking at my

-map. If so, I was pretty near the top, though otherwise there was

-no sign of it; and if I had made any considerable ascent, it had

-been as children increase in stature,--and as the good increase in

-goodness,--unconsciously. A woman of some years was in the garden,

-and at my approach came up to the fence,--a round-faced, motherly

-body. Yes, the top of the mountain was just beyond. I could not miss

-it.

-

-"You do not live here?" she asked.

-

-No, I explained; I was a stranger on the Ridge,--a stranger from

-Boston.

-

-"From Washington?"

-

-"No, from Boston."

-

-"Oh! from Boston!--Massachusetts!--Oh-h-h!"

-

-She would go part way with me, she said, lest I should miss the path.

-Perhaps she wished to show some special hospitality to a man from

-Massachusetts; or possibly she thought I must be more in danger of

-getting bewildered, being so far from home. But I could not think of

-troubling her. Was there a spring near by, where I could drink?

-

-"I have water in the house," she answered.

-

-"But isn't there a creek down in the valley ahead?"

-

-Oh yes, there was a creek; but had I anything to drink out of? I

-thanked her. Yes, I had a cup. "My husband will be at home by the

-time you come back," she said, as I started on, and I promised to

-call.

-

-The scene at the brook, halfway between the German's house and the

-top, would of itself have paid me for my morning's jaunt. I stood on

-a boulder in mid-current, in the shadow of overhanging trees, and

-drank it in. Such rhododendrons and laurel, now in the perfection of

-their beauty! One rhododendron bush was at least ten feet high, and

-loaded with blooms. Another lifted its crown of a dozen rose-purple

-clusters amid the dark foliage of a hemlock. A magnolia-tree

-stood near; but though it was much taller than the laurel or the

-rhododendron, and had much larger flowers, it made little show beside

-them. Birds were singing on all hands, and numbers of gay-colored

-butterflies flitted about, sipping here and there at a blossom. I

-remember especially a fine tiger swallow-tail; the only one I saw

-in Tennessee, I believe. I remember, too, how well the rhododendron

-became him. Here, as in many other places, the laurel was nearly

-white; a happy circumstance, as it and the rhododendron went the

-more harmoniously together. Even in this high company, some tufts of

-cinnamon fern were not to be overlooked; the fertile cinnamon-brown

-fronds were now at their loveliest, and showed as bravely here, I

-thought, as in the barest of Massachusetts swamp-lands.

-

-A few rods more, up a moderate slope, and I was at the top of the

-mountain,--a wall of out-cropping rocks, falling off abruptly on the

-further side, and looking almost like an artificial rampart. Beyond

-me, to my surprise, I heard the hum of cicadas,--seventeen-year

-locusts,--a sound of which the lower country had for some time been

-full, but of which, till this moment, I had heard nothing on the

-Ridge.

-

-As for the prospect, it was far reaching, but only in one direction,

-and through openings among the trees. Directly before me, some

-hundreds of feet below, was a piece of road, with a single cabin

-and a barn; and much farther away were other cabins, each with its

-private clearing. Elsewhere the foreground was an unbroken forest.

-For some time I could not distinguish the Ridge itself from the

-outlying world. Mountains and hills crowded the hazy horizon, range

-beyond range. Moving along the rocks, I found a vista through which

-Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain were visible. Another change, and

-a stretch of the Tennessee River came into sight, and, beyond it,

-Missionary Ridge with its settlements and its two observatories.

-Evidently I was considerably above the level of the Brow; but whether

-this was really the top of the mountain--reached, in some mysterious

-way, without going uphill--was more than I could say.[2]

-

-Nor did it matter. I was glad to be there. It was a pleasant place

-and a pleasant hour, with an oak root for a seat, and never an insect

-to trouble me. That, by the way, was true of all those Tennessee

-forests,--when I was there, I mean; from what I heard, the ticks

-and jiggers must be bad enough later in the season. As men do at

-such times,--for human nature is of noble origin, and feels no

-surprise at being well treated,--I took my immunity as a matter of

-course, and only realized how I had been favored when I got back to

-Massachusetts, where, on my first visit to the woods, I was fairly

-driven out by swarms of mosquitoes.

-

-The shoemaker was at home when I reached his house on my return, and

-at the urgent invitation of himself and his wife I joined them on

-the piazza for a bit of neighborly chat. I found him a smallish man,

-not German in appearance, but looking, I thought, like Thoreau,

-only grown a little older. He had been on Walden's Ridge for fifteen

-years. Before that he was in South Carolina, but the yellow fever

-came along and made him feel like getting out. Yes, this was a

-healthy country. He had nothing to complain of; he was sixty-two

-years old and his doctors' bills had never amounted to "five dollar."

-

-"Do _you_ like living here?" I asked his wife.

-

-"No," she answered promptly; "I never did. But then," she added, "we

-can't help it. If you own something, you know, you have to stay."

-

-The author of Walden would have appreciated that remark. There was no

-shoemaking to be done here, the man said, his nearest neighbor being

-half a mile distant through the woods; and there was no clover, so

-that his bees did not do very well; and the frost had just killed

-all his peach-trees; but when I asked if he never felt homesick for

-Germany, the answer came like a pistol shot,--"No."

-

-I inquired about a cave, of which I had heard reports. Yes, it was

-a good cave, they said; I could easily find it. But their directions

-conveyed no very clear idea to my mind, and by and by the woman

-began talking to her husband in German. "She is telling him he ought

-to go with me and show me the way," I said to myself; and the next

-moment she came back to English. "He will go with you," she said. I

-demurred, but he protested that he could do it as well as not. "Take

-up a stick; you might see a snake," his wife called after him, as we

-left the house. He smiled, but did not follow her advice, though I

-fancied he would have done so had she gone along with us. A half-mile

-or so through the pathless woods brought us to the cave, which might

-hold a hundred persons, I thought. The dribbling "creek" fell over it

-in front. Then the man took me to my path, pointed my way homeward,

-and, with a handshake (the silver lining of which was not refused,

-though I had been troubled with a scruple), bade me good-by. First,

-however, he told me that if I found any one in Boston who wanted

-to buy a place on Walden's Ridge, he would sell a part of his or

-the whole of it. I remember him most kindly, and would gladly do

-him a service. If any reader, having a landed investment in view,

-should desire my intervention in the premises, I am freely at his

-command; only let him bear in mind the terms of the deed: "If you own

-something, you know, you have to stay."

-

-

-II.

-

-Fairmount, as has already been said, is but a clearing in the forest.

-Instead of a solitary cabin, as elsewhere, there are perhaps a dozen

-or two of cabins and houses scattered along the road, which emerges

-from the woods at one end of the settlement, and, after a mile or so

-in the sun, drops into them again at the other end. The glory of the

-place, and the reason of its being, as I suppose, is a chalybeate

-spring in a woody hollow before the post-office. There may be a

-shop of some kind, also, but memory retains no such impression. One

-building, rather larger than most of its neighbors, and apparently

-unoccupied, I looked at more than once with a measure of that

-curiosity which is everywhere the stranger's privilege. It sat

-squarely on the road, and boasted a sort of portico or piazza,--it

-puzzled me what to call it,--but there was no vestige of a chimney.

-One day a ragged, bright-faced boy met me at the right moment, and I

-asked, "Did some one use to live in that house?" "That?" said he, in

-a tone I shall never forget. "That's a barn. That over there is the

-dwelling." My ignorance was fittingly rebuked, and I had no spirit to

-inquire about the piazza. Probably it was nothing but a lean-to. Even

-in my humiliation, however, it pleased me to hear what I should have

-called that good literary word "dwelling" on such lips. A Yankee boy

-might have said "dwelling-house," but no Yankee of any age, or none

-that I have ever known, would have said "dwelling," though he might

-have read the word in books a thousand times. I thought of a spruce

-colored waiter in Florida, who, when I asked him at breakfast how the

-day was likely to turn out, answered promptly, "I think it will be

-inclement." It may reasonably be counted among the minor advantages

-of travel that it enriches one's every-day vocabulary.

-

-Another Fairmount building (an unmistakable house, this time) is

-memorable to me because on the doorstep, day after day, an old

-gentleman and a younger antagonist--they might have been grandfather

-and grandson--were playing checkers. "I hope you are beating the

-young fellow," I could not help saying once to the old gentleman.

-He smiled dubiously, and made some halting reply suggestive of

-resignation rather than triumph; and it came to me with a kind of

-pang, as I passed on, that if growing old is a bad business, as most

-of us think, it is perhaps an unfavorable symptom when a man finds

-himself, not out of politeness, but as a simple matter of course,

-taking sides with the aged.

-

-Fairmounters, living in the woods, have no outlook upon the world.

-If they wish to see off, they must go to the Brow, which, by a

-stroller's guess, may be two miles distant. My first visit to it

-was the pleasanter--the more vacational, so to speak--for being an

-accident. I sauntered aimlessly down the road, past the scattered

-houses and orchards (the raising of early apples seemed to be a

-leading industry on the Ridge, though a Chattanooga gentleman had

-assured me that the principal crops were blackberries and rabbits),

-and almost before I knew it, was in the same delightful woods that

-had welcomed me wherever I had gone. And in the same woods the same

-birds were singing. My notes make particular record of hooded and

-Kentucky warblers, these being two of my newer acquaintances, as well

-as two of the commoner Ridge songsters; but I halted for some time,

-and with even a livelier interest, to listen to an old friend (no

-acquaintance, if you please),--a black-throated green warbler. It was

-one of the queerest of songs: a bar of five or six notes, uniform

-in pitch, and then at once, in perfect form and voice,--the voice

-being a main part of the music in the case of this warbler,--the

-familiar _trees_, _trees_, _murmuring trees_. Where could the

-fellow have picked up such a ditty? No doubt there was some story

-connected with it. Nothing is born of itself. A dozen years ago, in

-the Green Mountains,--at Bread-Loaf Inn,--I heard from the forest by

-the roadside a song utterly strange, and hastened in search of its

-author. After much furtive approach and diligent scanning of the

-foliage, I had the bird under my opera-glass,--a black-throated blue

-warbler! With my eye still upon him, he sang again and again, and

-the song bore no faintest resemblance to the _kree_, _kree_, _kree_,

-which all New England bird-lovers know as the work of _Dendroica

-cærulescens_. In what private school he had been educated I have no

-idea; but I believe that every such extreme eccentricity goes back to

-something out of the common in the bird's early training.

-

-I felt in no haste. Life is easy in the Tennessee mountains. A

-pile of lumber, newly unloaded near the road,--in the woods, of

-course,--offered a timely seat, and I took it. Some Chattanooga

-gentleman was planning a summer cottage for himself, I gathered. May

-he enjoy it for twenty years as much as I did for twenty minutes. Not

-far beyond, near a fork in the road, a man of twenty-five or thirty,

-a youth of sixteen or seventeen, and a small boy were playing marbles

-in a cabin yard. I interrupted the sport long enough to inquire

-which road I had better take. I was going nowhere in particular, I

-explained, and wanted simply a pleasant stroll. "Then I would go

-to the Brow, if I were you," said the man. "Keep a straight road.

-It isn't far." I thanked him, and with a cheery "Come on!" to his

-playmates he ran back, literally, to the ring. Yes, life is easy

-in the Tennessee mountains. It is not to be assumed, nevertheless,

-that the man was a do-nothing: probably he had struck work for a

-few minutes only; but, like a sensible player, he was enjoying the

-game while it lasted. Perhaps it is a certain inborn Puritanical

-industriousness, against which I have never found the courage

-effectually to rebel, that makes me look back upon this dooryard

-comedy as one of the brightest incidents of my Tennessee vacation.

-Fancy a Massachusetts farmer playing marbles at nine o'clock in the

-forenoon!

-

-At that moment, it must be owned, a rebuke of idleness would have

-fallen with a poor grace from my Massachusetts lips. If the player of

-marbles had followed his questioner round the first turn, he would

-have seen him standing motionless beside a swamp, holding his head on

-one side as if listening,--though there was nothing to be heard,--or

-evoking ridiculous squeaking noises by sucking idiotically the back

-of his hand. Well, I was trying to find another bird, just as he was

-trying to knock another marble out of the ring.

-

-The spot invited such researches,--a bushy swamp, quite unlike the

-dry woods and rocky woodland brooks which I had found everywhere

-else. I had seen my first cerulean warbler on Lookout Mountain, my

-first Cape May warbler on Cameron Hill, my first Kentucky warbler

-on Missionary Ridge, and my first blue-winged yellow warbler at the

-Chickamauga battlefield. If Walden was to treat me equally well, as

-in all fairness it ought, now was the time. Looking, listening, and

-squeaking were alike unrewarded, however, till I approached the same

-spot on my return. Then some bird sang a new song. I hoped it was a

-prothonotary warbler, a bird I had never seen, and about whose notes

-I knew nothing. More likely it was a Louisiana water-thrush, a bird

-I had seen, but had never heard sing. Whichever it was, alas, it

-speedily fell silent, and no beating of the bush proved of the least

-avail.

-

-Meanwhile I had been to the Brow, where I had sat for an hour or more

-on the edge of the mountain, gazing down upon the world. The sky was

-clouded, but here and there were fugitive patches of sunshine, now

-on Missionary Ridge, now on the river, now glorifying the smoke of

-the city. Southward, just across the valley and over Chattanooga,

-was Lookout Mountain; eastward stretched Missionary Ridge, with

-many higher hills behind it; and more to the north, and far in the

-distance, loomed the Great Smoky Mountains, in all respects true

-to their name. The valley at my feet was beautiful beyond words:

-green forests interspersed with green clearings, lonely cabins,

-and bare fields of red earth. At the north, Walden's Ridge made a

-turn eastward, narrowing the valley, but without ending it. Chimney

-swifts were cackling merrily, and the air was full of the hum of

-seventeen-year locusts,--miles and miles of continuous sound. From

-somewhere far below rose the tinkle of cow-bells. Even on that

-cloudy and smoky day it was a glorious landscape; but it pleased me

-afterward to remember that the eye returned of itself again and again

-to a stretch of freshly green meadow along a slender watercourse,--a

-valley within the valley. Of all the fair picture, that was the most

-like home.

-

-Meanwhile there was no forgetting that undiscovered stranger in the

-swamp. Whoever he was, he must be made to show himself; and the

-next day, when the usual noonday deluge was past, I looked at the

-clouds, and said: "We shall have another, but in the interval I can

-probably reach the Brow. There I will take shelter on the piazza of

-an unoccupied cottage, and, when the rain is over, go back to the

-swamp, see my bird, and thence return home." So it turned out--in

-part. The clouds hurried me, but I reached the Brow just in season,

-climbed the cottage fence, the gate being padlocked, and, thoroughly

-heated as I was, paced briskly to and fro on the piazza in a chilling

-breeze for an hour or more, the flood all the while threatening to

-fall, and the thunder shaking the house. There was plenty to look at,

-for the cottage faced the Great Smokies, and though we were under the

-blackest of clouds, the landscape below was largely in the sun. The

-noise of the locusts was incessant. Nothing but the peals of thunder

-kept it out of my ears.

-

-So far, then, my plans had prospered; but to find the mysterious

-bird,--that was not so easy. The swamp was silent, and I was at once

-so cold and so hot, and so badly under the weather already, that I

-dared not linger.

-

-In the woods, nevertheless, I stopped long enough to enjoy the

-music of a master cardinal,--a bewitching song, and, as I thought,

-original: _birdy_, _birdy_, repeated about ten times in the sweetest

-of whistles, and then a sudden descent in the pitch, and the same

-syllables over again. At that instant, a Carolina wren, as if

-stirred to rivalry, sprang into a bush and began whistling _cherry_,

-_cherry_, _cherry_ at his loudest and prettiest. It was a royal

-duet. The cardinal was in magnificent plumage, and a scarlet tanager

-near by was equally handsome. If the tanager could whistle like the

-cardinal, our New England woods would have a bird to brag of.

-

-Not far beyond these wayside musicians I came upon a boy sitting

-beside a wood-pile, with his saw lying on the ground. "It is easier

-to sit down than to saw wood, isn't it?" said I. Possibly he was

-unused to such aphoristic modes of speech. He took time to consider.

-Then he smiled, and said, "Yes, sir." The answer was all-sufficient.

-We spoke from experience, both of us; and between men who _know_,

-whatever the matter in hand, disagreement is impossible and

-amplification needless.

-

-Three days later--my last day on the Ridge--I had better luck at the

-swamp. The stranger was singing on the nearer edge as I approached,

-and I had simply to draw near and look at him,--a Louisiana

-water-thrush. He sang, and I listened; and farther along, at the

-little bridge where I had first heard the song, another like him was

-in tune. The strain, as warbler songs go ("water-thrushes" being not

-thrushes, but warblers), is rather striking,--clear, pretty loud,

-of about ten notes, the first pair of which are longest and best.

-I speak of what I heard, and give, of course, my own impression.

-Audubon pronounces the notes "as powerful and mellow, and at times

-as varied," as those of the nightingale, and Wilson waxes almost

-equally enthusiastic in his praise of the "exquisitely sweet and

-expressive voice." Here, as in Florida, I was interested to perceive

-how instantly the bird's appearance and carriage distinguished it

-from its Northern relative, although the descriptions of the two

-species, as given in books, sound confusingly alike. It is matter for

-thankfulness, perhaps, that language is not yet so all-expressive as

-to render individual eyesight superfluous.

-

-I kept on to the Brow, and some time afterward was at Mabbitt's

-Spring, quenching my thirst with a draught of liquid iron rust, when

-a third songster of the same kind struck up his tune. The spring,

-spurting out of the rock in a slender jet, is beside the same

-stream--Little Falling Water--that makes through the swamp; and along

-its banks, it appeared, the water-thrushes were at home. I was glad

-to have heard the famous singer, but my satisfaction was not without

-alloy. Walden, after all, had failed to show me a new bird, though it

-had given me a new song.

-

-The most fatiguing, and perhaps the most interesting of my days on

-the Ridge was the one day in which I did not travel on foot. Passing

-through the village, on my return from one of my earlier visits to

-Falling Water, I stopped a nice-looking man (if he will pardon the

-expression, copied from my notes), driving a horse with a pair of

-clothes-line reins. He had an air of being at home, and naturally I

-took him for a native. Would he tell me something about the country,

-especially about the roads, so that I might improve my scanty time

-to the best advantage? Very gladly, he answered. He had walked and

-driven over the mountain a good deal, surveying, and if I would call

-at his house, a short distance down the road,--the house with the big

-barn,--he would make me a rough map, such as would answer my purpose.

-At the same time he mentioned two or three shorter excursions which

-I ought not to miss; and when I had thanked him for his kindness, he

-gathered up the reins and drove on. Intending no disrespect to the

-inhabitants of the Ridge, I may perhaps be allowed to say that I was

-considerably impressed by a certain unexpected propriety, and even

-elegance, of diction, on the part of my new acquaintance. I remember

-in particular his description of a pleasant cold spring as being

-situated not far from the "confluence" of two streams. _Con-fluens_,

-I thought, flowing together. Having always something else to do, I

-omitted to call at his house, and one day, when we met again in the

-road, I apologized for my neglect, and asked another favor. He was

-familiar with the country, and kept a horse. Could he not spare a day

-to take me about? If he thought this proposal a bit presumptuous,

-courtesy restrained him from letting the fact be seen, and, after a

-few minutes of deliberation,--his hands being pretty full just then,

-he explained,--he promised to call for me two mornings later, at

-seven o'clock. We would take a luncheon along, and make a day of it.

-

-He appeared at the gate in due season, and in a few minutes we were

-driving over a road new to me, but through the same spacious oak

-woods to which I had grown accustomed. We went first to Burnt Cabin

-Spring, one of the famous chalybeate springs of the mountain,--a

-place formerly frequented by picnic parties, but now, to all

-appearance, fallen into neglect. We stretched our legs, drank of the

-water, admired the flowers and ferns, talking all the while (it was

-here that my companion told a story of a young theologian from Grant

-University, who, in a solemn discourse, spoke repeatedly of Jacob as

-having "euchred his brother out of his birthright"), and then, while

-a "pheasant" drummed near by, took our places again in the buggy.

-

-Another stage, still through the oak woods, and we were at Signal

-Point, famous--in local tradition, at least--as the station from

-which General Sherman signaled encouragement to the Union army

-beleaguered in Chattanooga, in danger of starvation or surrender.

-I had looked at the bold, jutting crags from Lookout Mountain and

-elsewhere, and rejoiced at last to stand upon them.

-

-It would have been delightful to spend a long day there, lying

-upon the cliffs and enjoying the prospect, which, without being so

-far-reaching as from Point Lookout, or even from the eastern brim

-of Walden, is yet extensive and surpassingly beautiful. The visitor

-is squarely above the river, which here, in the straitened valley

-between the Ridge and Raccoon Mountain, grows narrower and narrower

-till it rushes through the "Suck." Even at that elevation we could

-hear the roar of the rapids. A short distance above the Suck, and

-almost at our feet, lay Williams Island. A farmer's Eden it looked,

-with its broad, newly planted fields, and its house surrounded by

-out-buildings and orchard-trees. The view included Chattanooga,

-Missionary Ridge, and much else; but its special charm was its

-foreground, the part peculiar to itself,--the valley, the river,

-and Raccoon Mountain. Along the river-banks were small clearings,

-each with its one cabin, and generally a figure or two ploughing or

-planting. A man in a strangely long boat--a dugout, probably--was

-making his difficult way upstream with a paddle. The Tennessee, in

-the neighborhood of Chattanooga, at all events, is too swift for

-pleasure-boating. Seen from above, as I commonly saw it, it looked

-tranquil enough; but when I came down to its edge, now and then, the

-speed and energetic sweep of the smooth current laid fast hold upon

-me. From the mountains to the sea is a long, long journey, and no

-wonder the river felt in haste.

-

-I had gone to Signal Point not as an ornithologist, but as a patriot

-and a lover of beauty; but, being there, I added one to my list of

-Tennessee birds,--a red-tailed hawk, one of the very few hawks seen

-in all my trip. Sailing below us, it displayed its rusty, diagnostic

-tail, and put its identity at once beyond question.

-

-Our next start--far too speedy, for the day was short--was for

-Williams Point; but on our way thither we descended into the valley

-of Shoal Creek, down which, with the creek to keep it company, runs

-the old mountain road, now disused and practically impassable. Here

-we hitched the horse, and strolled downwards for perhaps half a mile.

-I was never in a lovelier spot. The mountain brook, laughing over

-the stones, is overhung with laurel and rhododendron, which in turn

-are overhung by precipitous rocks broken into all wild and romantic

-shapes, with here and there a cavern--"rock-house"--to shelter a

-score of travelers. The place was rich in ferns and other plants,

-which, unhappily, I had no time to examine, and all the particulars

-of which have faded out of my memory. We walked far enough to look

-over the edge of the mountain, and up to the Signal Point cliffs. If

-I could have stayed there two or three hours, it would have been a

-memorable season. As it was, the stroll was enlivened by one little

-adventure, at which I have laughed too many times ever to forget it.

-

-I had been growing rapturous over the beauty of things, when my

-companion said, "There are some people whom it is no pleasure to take

-into places like this. They can't keep their eyes off the ground,

-they are so bitten with the fear of snakes." He was a few paces ahead

-of me, as he spoke, and the sentence was barely finished before he

-shouted, "Look at that huge snake!" and sprang forward to snatch up

-a stone. "Get a stick!" he cried. "Get a stick!" From his manner I

-took it for granted that the creature was a rattlesnake, and a glance

-at it, lying motionless among the stones beside the road, did not

-undeceive me. I turned hurriedly, looking for a stick, but somehow

-could not find one, and in a moment more was recalled by shouts of

-"Come and help me! It will get away from us!" It was a question of

-life and death, I thought, and I ran forward and began throwing

-stones. "Look out! Look out! You'll bury it!" cried my companion;

-but just then one of my shots struck the snake squarely in the head.

-"That's a good one!" exclaimed the other man, and, picking up a dead

-stick, he thrust it under the disabled creature and tossed it into

-the road. Then he bent over it, and, with a stone, pounded its head

-to a jelly. Such a fury as possessed him! He might have been bruising

-the head of Satan himself, as no doubt he was--in his mind; for my

-surveyor was also a preacher, as had already transpired.

-

-"It isn't a venomous snake, is it?" I ventured to ask, when the work

-was done.

-

-"Oh, I think not," and he pried open its jaws to look for its fangs.

-

-"I don't generally kill innocent snakes," I ventured again, a little

-inopportunely, it must be confessed.

-

-"Well, _I_ do," said the preacher. "The very sight of a snake stirs

-my hatred to its depths."

-

-After that it was natural to inquire whether he often saw

-rattlesnakes hereabouts. (The driver who brought me up the mountain

-had said that they were not common, but that I "wanted to look out

-sharp for them in the woods.") My companion had never seen one, he

-answered, but his wife had once killed one in their dooryard. Then,

-by way of cooling off, after the fervor of the conflict, he told

-me about a gentleman and his little boy, who, having come to spend

-a vacation on the Ridge, started out in the morning for a stroll.

-They were quickly back again, and the boy, quite out of breath, came

-running into the garden.

-

-"Oh, Mr. M.," he cried, "we saw a rattlesnake, and papa fired off his

-pistol!"

-

-"A rattlesnake! Where is it? What did it look like?"

-

-"Why, we didn't see it, but we heard it."

-

-"What was the noise like?" asked Mr. M., and he took a pencil from

-his pocket and began tapping on a log.

-

-"That's it!" said the boy, "that's it!"

-

-They had heard a woodpecker drilling for grubs,--or drumming for

-love,--whereupon the man had fired his pistol, and for them there was

-no more walking in the woods.

-

-After our ramble along Shoal Creek we rested at the ford, near a

-brilliant show of laurel and rhododendron, and ate our luncheon to

-the music of the stream. I finished first, as my evil habit is, and

-was crossing the brook on natural stepping-stones when a bird--a

-warbler of some unknown kind--saluted me from the thicket. Making my

-companion a signal not to disturb us by driving into the stream, I

-gave myself up to discovering the singer; edging this way and that,

-while the fellow moved about also, always unseen, and sang again and

-again, now a louder song, now, with charming effect, a quieter and

-briefer one, till I was almost as badly beside myself as the preacher

-had been half an hour before. But my warfare was less successful than

-his, for, with all my pains, I saw not so much as a feather. There

-is nothing prettier than a jungle of laurel and rhododendron in full

-bloom, but there are many easier places in which to make out a bird.

-

-Williams Point, which we reached on foot, after driving as near it

-as the roughness of the unfrequented road would comfortably allow,

-is not in itself equal to Signal Point, but affords substantially

-the same magnificent prospect. Near it, in the woods, stood a newly

-built cabin, looking badly out of place with its glaring unweathered

-boards; and beside the cabin stood a man and woman in a condition of

-extreme disgust. The man had come up the mountain to work in some

-coal-mine, if I understood him correctly; but the tools were not

-ready, there was no water, his household goods were stranded down

-in the valley somewhere (the hens were starving to death, the woman

-added), and, all in all, the pair were in a sorry plight.

-

-Here, as at Signal Point, I made an addition to my local ornithology,

-and this time too the bird was a hawk. We were standing on the edge

-of the cliff, when a sparrow hawk, after alighting near us, took wing

-and hung for some time suspended over the abyss, beating against the

-breeze, and so holding itself steady,--a graceful piece of work,

-the better appreciated for being seen from above. Here, also, for

-the first time in my life, I was addressed as a "you-un." "Where

-be you-uns from?" asked the woman at the cabin, after the ordinary

-greetings had been exchanged. I believe, in my innocence, I had

-always looked upon that word as an invention of story-writers.

-

-Somewhere in this neighborhood we traversed a pine wood, in which

-my first Walden pine warbler was trilling. Then, for some miles, we

-drove along the Brow, with the glory of the world--valley, river,

-and mountain--outspread before us, and the Great Smokies looming in

-the background, barely visible through the haze. For seven miles, I

-was told, one could drive along that mountain rim. Surely the city

-of Chattanooga is happy in its suburbs. Here were many cottages, the

-greater number as yet unopened; and not far beyond the one under

-the piazza of which I had weathered the thunderstorm of the day

-before, the road entered the forest again. Then, as the way grew

-more and more difficult, we left the horse behind us, and by and by

-came to a foot-path. This brought us at last to Falling Water Fall,

-where Little Falling Water--after threading the swamp and passing

-Mabbitt's Spring, as before described--tumbles over a precipice

-which my companion, with his surveyor's eye, estimated to be one

-hundred and fifty feet in height. The slender stream, broken into

-jewels as it falls, strikes the bottom at some distance from the

-foot of the cliffs, which here form the arc of a circle, and are

-not perpendicular, but deeply hollowed. After enjoying the prospect

-from this point,--holding to a tree and leaning over the edge of the

-rocks,--we retraced our steps till we came to a steep, zigzag path,

-which took us to the foot of the precipice. Here, as well as above,

-were laurel and rhododendron in profusion. One big rhododendron-tree

-grew on the face of the cliff, thirty feet over our heads, leaning

-outward, and bearing at least fifty clusters of gorgeous rose-purple

-flowers; and a smaller one, in a similar position, was equally full.

-The hanging gardens of Babylon may have been more wonderful, but I

-was well content.

-

-From the point where we stood the ledge makes eastward for a long

-distance, almost at right angles, and the cliffs for a mile--or,

-more likely, for two or three miles--were straight before us, broken

-everywhere into angles, light gray and reddish-brown intermixed, with

-the late afternoon sun shining full upon them, and the green forest

-fringing them above and sweeping away from them below.

-

-It was a breathless clamber up the rocks again, tired and poorly off

-as I was, but I reached the top with one hand full of rhododendrons

-(it seemed a shame to pick them, and a shame to leave them), and in

-half an hour we were driving homeward, our day's work done; while my

-seatmate, who, besides being preacher, lawyer, surveyor, and farmer,

-was also a mystic and a saint,--though he would have refused the

-word,--fell into a strain of reminiscence, appropriate to the hour,

-about the inner life of the soul, its hopes, its struggles, and its

-joys. I listened in reverent silence. The passion for perfection is

-not yet so common as to have become commonplace, and one need not be

-certain of a theory in order to admire a practice. He had already

-told me who his father was, and I had ceased to wonder at his using

-now and then a choice phrase.

-

-My friend (he will allow me that word, I am sure) had given me a day

-of days, and with it a new idea of this mountain world; where the

-visitor finds hills and valleys, creeks and waterfalls, the most

-beautiful of forests, with clearings, isolated cabins, straggling

-settlements, orchards, and gardens, and where he forgets again and

-again that he is on a mountain at all. Even now I had seen but

-a corner of it, as I have seen but a corner of the larger world

-on which, for these few years back, I have had what I call my

-existence. And even of what I saw, much has gone undescribed: stately

-tulip-trees deep in the forest, with humming-birds darting from

-flower to flower among them; the flame-colored azalea; the ground

-flowers of the woods, including some tiny yellow lady's-slippers,

-too dainty for the foot of Cinderella herself; the road to Sawyer's

-Springs; and numbers of birds, whose names, even, I have omitted. It

-was a wonderful world; but if the hobbyist may take the pen for a

-single sentence, it may stand confessed that the greatest wonder of

-all was this,--that in all those miles of oak forest I found not one

-blue jay.

-

-Another surprising circumstance, which I do not remember to have

-noticed, however, till my attention was somewhat rudely called

-to it, was the absence of colored people. With the exception of

-three servants at the hotel, I saw none but whites. Walden's Ridge,

-although stanchly Union in war-time, and largely Republican now, as

-I was told, is a white man's country. I had gone to bed one night,

-and was fast asleep, when I was wakened suddenly by the noise of some

-one hurrying up the stairs and shouting, "Where's the gun? Where's

-the gun? Shorty's been shot!" "Shorty" was the colored waiter, and

-the speaker was a general factotum, an English boy. The colored

-people--Shorty, his wife, and the cook--had been out on the edge of

-the woods behind the house, when three men had fired at them, or

-pretended to do so. It was explained the next morning that this was

-only an attempt (on the part of some irresponsible young men, as the

-older residents said) to "run the niggers off the mountain,"--after

-what I understood to be a somewhat regular custom. "Niggers" did not

-belong there; their place was down below. If a Chattanooga cottager

-brought up a colored servant, he was "respectfully requested" to

-send him back, and save the natives the trouble of attending to the

-matter. In short, the Ridgites appeared to look upon "niggers" as

-Northern laborers look upon non-union men--"scabs."

-

-The hotel-keeper, an Englishman, with an Englishman's notions about

-personal rights, was naturally indignant. He would hire his own

-servants, or he would shut the house. In any event, the presence of

-"Whitecaps," real or imaginary, must affect his summer patronage.

-I fully expected to see the colored trio pack up and go back to

-Chattanooga, without waiting for further hints; but they showed no

-disposition to do anything of the sort, and, I must add, rose in my

-estimation accordingly.

-

-Of the feeling of the community I had a slight but ludicrous

-intimation a day or two after the shooting. I passed a boy whom I had

-noticed in the road, some days before, playing with a pig, lifting

-him by the hind legs and pitching him over forwards. "He can turn a

-somerset good," he had said to me, as I passed. Now, for the sake of

-being neighborly, I asked, "How's the pig to-day?" He smiled, and

-made some reply, as if he appreciated the pleasantry; but a more

-serious-looking playmate took up his parable, and said, "The pig'll

-be all right, if the folks up at the hotel don't shoot him." His tone

-and look were intended to be deeply significant. "Oh, I know you,"

-they implied: "you are up at the hotel, where they threaten to shoot

-white folks."

-

-For my last afternoon--wars and rumors of wars long since

-forgotten--I went to the place that had pleased me first, the valley

-of Falling Water Creek. The cross-vine on the dead hemlock had by

-this time dropped the greater part of its bells, but even yet many

-were hanging from the uppermost branches. The rhododendron was still

-at the height of its splendor. All the gardens were nothing to it,

-I said to myself. Crossing the creek on the log, and the branch on

-stepping-stones, I went to quench my thirst at the Marshall Spring,

-which once had a cabin beside it, and frequent visitors, but now was

-clogged with fallen leaves and seemingly abandoned. It was perhaps

-more beautiful so. Directly behind it rose a steep bank, and in front

-stood an oak and a maple, the latter leaning toward it and forming

-a pointed arch,--a worthy entrance. Mossy stones walled it in, and

-ferns grew luxuriantly about it. Just over them, an azalea still

-held two fresh pink flowers, the last till another May. In such a

-spot it would have been easy to grow sentimental; but there came a

-rumbling of thunder, the sky darkened, and, with a final hasty look

-about me, I picked up my umbrella and started homeward.

-

-My last walk had ended like many others in that showery, fragmentary

-week. But what is bad weather when the time is past? All those black

-clouds have left no shadow on Walden's Ridge, and the best of all my

-strolls beside Falling Water, a stroll not yet finished,

-

-    "The calm sense of seen beauty without sight,"

-

-suffers no harm. As Thoreau says, "It is after we get home that we

-really go over the mountain."

-

-FOOTNOTE:

-

-[2] It was _not_ the top of the mountain; so I am now informed, on

-the best of authority. I followed the map, but misunderstood the man

-who drew it. It was a map of some other route, and I did not see the

-top of the mountain, after all.

-

-

-

-

-SOME TENNESSEE BIRD NOTES.

-

-

-Whoever loves the music of English sparrows should live in

-Chattanooga; there is no place on the planet, it is to be hoped,

-where they are more numerous and pervasive. Mocking-birds are scarce.

-To the best of my recollection, I saw none in the city itself,

-and less than half a dozen in the surrounding country. A young

-gentleman whom I questioned upon the subject told me that they used

-to be common, and attributed their present increasing rarity to the

-persecution of boys, who find a profit in selling the young into

-captivity. Their place, in the city especially, is taken by catbirds;

-interesting, imitative, and in their own measure tuneful, but poor

-substitutes for mocking-birds. In fact, that is a rôle which it is

-impossible to think of any bird as really filling. The brown thrush,

-it is true, sings quite in the mocking-bird's manner, and, to my

-ear, almost or quite as well; but he possesses no gift as a mimic,

-and furthermore, without being exactly a bird of the forest or the

-wilderness, is instinctively and irreclaimably a recluse. It would

-be hard, even among human beings, to find a nature less touched with

-urbanity. In the mocking-bird the elements are more happily mingled.

-Not gregarious, intolerant of rivalry, and, as far as creatures of

-his own kind are concerned, a stickler for elbow-room,--sharing with

-his brown relative in that respect,--he is at the same time a born

-citizen and neighbor; as fond of gardens and dooryard trees as the

-thrasher is of scrublands and barberry bushes. "Man delights me," he

-might say, "and woman also." He likes to be listened to, it is pretty

-certain; and possibly he is dimly aware of the artistic value of

-appreciation, without which no artist ever did his best. Add to this

-endearing social quality the splendor and freedom of the mocker's

-vocal performances, multifarious, sensational, incomparable, by turns

-entrancing and amusing, and it is easy to understand how he has come

-to hold a place by himself in Southern sentiment and literature.

-A city without mocking-birds is only half Southern, though black

-faces be never so thick upon the sidewalks and mules never so common

-in the streets. If the boys have driven the great mimic away from

-Chattanooga, it is time the fathers took the boys in hand. Civic

-pride alone ought to bring this about, to say nothing of the possible

-effect upon real estate values of the abundant and familiar presence

-of this world-renowned, town-loving, town-charming songster.

-

-From my window, on the side of Cameron Hill, I heard daily the

-singing of an orchard oriole--another fine and neighborly bird--and

-a golden warbler, with sometimes the _fidgety_, _fidgety_ of a

-Maryland yellow-throat. What could _he_ be fussing about in so

-unlikely a quarter? An adjoining yard presented the unnatural

-spectacle--unnatural, but, I am sorry to say, not unprecedented--of

-a bird-house occupied in partnership by purple martins and English

-sparrows. They had finished their quarrels, if they had ever had

-any,--which can hardly be open to doubt, both native and foreigner

-being constitutionally belligerent,--and frequently sat side by side

-upon the ridge-pole, like the best of friends. The oftener I saw

-them there, the more indignant I became at the martins' un-American

-behavior. Such a disgraceful surrender of the Monroe Doctrine was too

-much even for a man of peace. I have never called myself a Jingo, but

-for once it would have done me good to see the lion's tail twisted.

-

-With the exception of a few pairs of rough-wings on Missionary

-Ridge, the martins seemed to be the only swallows in the country

-at that time of the year; and though _Progne subis_, in spite of

-an occasional excess of good nature, is a most noble bird, it was

-impossible not to feel that by itself it constituted but a meagre

-representation of an entire family. Swallows are none too numerous in

-Massachusetts, in these days, and are pretty certainly growing fewer

-and fewer, what with the prevalence of the box-monopolizing European

-sparrow, and the passing of the big, old-fashioned, widely ventilated

-barn; for there is no member of the family, not even the sand martin,

-whose distribution does not depend in great degree upon human agency.

-Even yet, however, if a Massachusetts man will make a circuit of a

-few miles, he will usually meet with tree swallows, barn swallows,

-cliff swallows, sand martins, and purple martins. In other words, he

-need not go far to find all the species of eastern North America,

-with the single exception of the least attractive of the six; that

-is to say, the rough-wing. As compared with the people of eastern

-Tennessee, then, we are still pretty well favored. It is worth while

-to travel now and then, if only to find ourselves better off at home.

-

-It might be easy to suggest plausible reasons for the general

-absence of swallows from a country like that about Chattanooga;

-but the extraordinary scarcity of hawks, while many persons--not

-ornithologists--would account it less of a calamity, is more of a

-puzzle. From Walden's Ridge I saw a single sparrow hawk and a single

-red-tail; in addition to which I remember three birds whose identity

-I could not determine. Five hawks in the course of three weeks spent

-entirely out of doors, in the neighborhood of mountains covered

-with old forest! Taken by itself, this unexpected showing might

-have been ascribed to some queer combination of accidents, or to a

-failure of observation. In fact, I was inclined so to explain it

-till I noticed that Mr. Brewster had chronicled a similar state of

-things in what is substantially the same piece of country. Writing

-of western North Carolina, he says:[3] "The general scarcity--one

-may almost say absence--of hawks in this region during the breeding

-season is simply unaccountable. Small birds and mammals, lizards,

-snakes, and other animals upon which the various species subsist are

-everywhere numerous, the country is wild and heavily forested, and,

-in short, all the necessary conditions of environment seem to be

-fulfilled." Certainly, so far as my ingenuity goes, the mystery is

-"unaccountable;" but of course, like every other mystery, it would

-open quickly enough if we could find the key.

-

-Turkey vultures were moderately numerous,--much less abundant than

-in Florida,--and twice I saw a single black vulture, recognizable,

-almost as far as it could be seen (but I do not mean at a first

-glance, nor without due precaution against foreshortened effects),

-by its docked tail. Both are invaluable in their place,--useful,

-graceful, admirable, and disgusting. The vultures, the martins, and

-the swifts were the only common aerial birds. The swifts, happily,

-were everywhere,--jovial souls in a sooty dress,--and had already

-begun nest-building. I saw them continually pulling up against the

-twigs of a partially dead tree near my window. In them nature has

-developed the bird idea to its extreme,--a pair of wings, with just

-body enough for ballast; like a racing-yacht, built for nothing but

-to carry sail and avoid resistance. Their flight is a good visual

-music, as Emerson might have said; but I love also their quick,

-eager notes, like the sounds of children at play. And while it has

-nothing to do with Tennessee, I am prompted to mention here a bird

-of this species that I once saw in northern New Hampshire on the 1st

-of October,--an extraordinarily late date, if my experience counts

-for anything. With a friend I had made an ascent of Mount Lafayette

-(one of the days of a man's life), and as we came near the Profile

-House, on our return to the valley, there passed overhead a single

-chimney swift. What he could be doing there at that season was more

-than either of us could divine. It was impossible to feel any great

-concern about him, however. The afternoon was nearly done, but at the

-rate he was traveling it seemed as if he might be in Mexico before

-sunrise. And easily enough he may have been, if Mr. Gätke is right in

-his contention that birds of very moderate powers of wing are capable

-of flying all night at the rate of four miles a minute!

-

-The comparative scarcity of crows about Chattanooga, and the amazing

-dearth of jays in the oak forest of Walden's Ridge, have been touched

-upon elsewhere. As for the jays, their absence must have been more

-apparent than real, I am bound to believe. It was their silent time,

-probably. Still another thing that I found surprising was the small

-number of woodpeckers. For the first four days I saw not a single

-representative of the family. It would be next to impossible to be

-so much out of doors in Massachusetts at any season of the year

-with a like result. During my three weeks in Tennessee I saw eight

-flickers, seven hairy woodpeckers, two red-heads, and two or three

-red-cockaded woodpeckers, besides which I heard one downy and one

-"logcock." The last-named bird, which is big enough for even the

-careless to notice, seemed to be well known to the inhabitants of

-Walden's Ridge, where I heard it. By what they told me, it should be

-fairly common, but I saw nothing of its "peck-holes." The first of

-my two red-headed woodpeckers was near the base of Missionary Ridge,

-wasting his time in exploring pole after pole along the railway. Did

-he mistake them for so many dead trees still standing on their own

-roots? Dry and seemingly undecayed, they appeared to me to offer

-small encouragement to a grub-seeker; but probably the fellow knew

-his own business best. On questions of economic entomology, I fear

-I should prove but a lame adviser for the most benighted woodpecker

-that ever drummed. And yet, being a man, I could not help feeling

-that this particular red-head was behaving uncommonly like a fool.

-Was there ever a man who did not take it as a matter of course that

-he should be wiser than the "lower animals"?

-

-Humming-birds cut but a small figure in my daily notes till I

-went to Walden's Ridge. There, in the forest, they were noticeably

-abundant,--for humming-birds, that is to say. It seemed to be the

-time of pairing with them; more than once the two sexes were seen

-together,--an unusual occurrence, unless my observation has been

-unfortunate, after the nest is built, or even while it is building.

-One female piqued my curiosity by returning again and again to the

-bole of an oak, hovering before it as before a flower, and more

-than once clinging to its rough upright surface. At first I took it

-for granted that she was picking off bits of lichen with which to

-embellish the outer wall of her nest; but after each browsing she

-alighted here or there on a leafless twig. If she had been gathering

-nest material, she would have flown away with it, I thought.

-

-At another time, in a tangle of shrubbery, I witnessed a most

-lively encounter between two humming-birds; a case of fighting or

-love-making,--two things confusingly alike to an outsider,--in the

-midst of which one of the contestants suddenly displayed so dazzling

-a gorget that for an instant I mistook it for a scarlet flower. I

-did not "wipe my eye," not being a poet, nor even a "rash gazer,"

-but I admired anew the wonderful flashing jewel, now coal-black,

-now flaming red, with which, perhaps, the male ruby-throat blinds

-his long-suffering mate to all his shameful treatment of her in her

-season of watchfulness and motherly anxiety. Does she never remind

-him, I wonder, that there are some things whose price is far above

-rubies? I had never seen the humming-bird so much a forest-dweller as

-here, and gladly confessed that I had never seen him when he looked

-so romantically at home and in place. The tulip-trees, in particular,

-might have been made on purpose for him.

-

-As the Chattanooga neighborhood was poorly supplied with hawks,

-woodpeckers, and swallows, so was it likewise with sparrows, though

-in a less marked degree. The common species--the only resident

-species that I met with, but my explorations were nothing like

-complete--were chippers, field sparrows, and Bachman sparrows; the

-first interesting for their familiarity, the other two for their

-musical gifts. In a comparison between eastern Tennessee--as I

-saw it--and eastern Massachusetts, the Bachman sparrow must be set

-against the song sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and the swamp sparrow.

-It is a brilliant and charming songster, one of the very finest; but

-it would be too costly a bargain to buy its presence with loss of the

-song sparrow's abounding versatility and high spirits, and the vesper

-sparrow's unfailing sweetness, serenity, and charm.

-

-So much for the sparrows, commonly so called. If we come to the

-family as a whole, the goodly family of sparrows and finches, we miss

-in Tennessee the rose-breasted grosbeak and the purple finch, two of

-our best esteemed Massachusetts birds, both for music and for beauty;

-to offset which we have the cardinal grosbeak, whose whistle is

-exquisite, but who can hardly be ranked as a singer above either the

-rose-breast or the linnet, to say nothing of the two combined.

-

-At the season of my visit,--in the latter half of the vernal

-migration,--the preponderance of woodland birds, especially of the

-birds known as wood warblers, was very striking. Of ninety-three

-species observed, twenty-eight belonged to the warbler family. In

-this list it was curious to remark the absence of the Nashville and

-the Tennessee. The circumstance is significant of the comparative

-worthlessness--except from a historical point of view--of locality

-names as they are applied to American birds in general. Here were

-Maryland yellow-throats, Cape May warblers, Canada warblers, Kentucky

-warblers, prairie warblers, palm warblers, Acadian flycatchers,

-but not the two birds (the only two, as well as I remember) that

-bear Tennessee names.[4] The absence of the Nashville was a matter

-of wonderment to me. Dr. Rives, I have since noticed, records it

-as only a rare migrant in Virginia. Yet by some route it reaches

-eastern New England in decidedly handsome numbers. Its congener,

-the blue golden-wing, surprised me in an opposite direction,--by

-its commonness, both in the lower country near the river and on

-Walden's Ridge. This, too, is a rare bird in Virginia; so much so

-that Dr. Rives has never met with it there. In certain places about

-Chattanooga it was as common as it is locally in the towns about

-Boston, where, to satisfy a skeptical friend, I once counted eleven

-males in song in the course of a morning's walk. That the Chattanooga

-birds were on their breeding grounds I had at the time no question,

-although I happened upon no proof of the fact.

-

-In the same way, from the manner in which the oven-birds were

-scattered over Walden's Ridge in the middle of May, I assumed, rather

-hastily, that they were at home for the summer. Months afterward,

-however, happening to notice their southern breeding limits as

-given by the best of authorities,--"breeding from ... Virginia

-northward,"--I saw that I might easily have been in error. I wrote,

-therefore, to a Chattanooga gentleman, who pays attention to birds

-while disclaiming acquaintance with ornithology, and he replied

-that if the oven-bird summered in that country he did not know it.

-The case seemed to be going against me, but I bethought myself

-of Mr. Brewster's "Ornithological Reconnaissance in Western North

-Carolina," and there I read,[5] "The open oak woodlands, so prevalent

-in this region, are in every way adapted to the requirements of

-the oven-bird, and throughout them it is one of the commonest and

-most characteristic summer birds." "Open oak woodlands" is exactly

-descriptive of the Walden's Ridge forest; and eastern Tennessee and

-western North Carolina being practically one, I resume my assured

-belief (personal and of no authority) that the birds I saw and heard

-were, as I first thought, natives of the mountain. Birds which are

-at home have, as a rule, an air of being at home; a certain manner

-hard to define, but felt, nevertheless, as a pretty strong kind of

-evidence--not proof--by a practiced observer.

-

-Several of the more northern species of the warbler family manifested

-an almost exclusive preference for patches of evergreens. I have

-elsewhere detailed my experience in a grove of stunted pines on

-Lookout Mountain. A similar growth is found on Cameron Hill,--in the

-city of Chattanooga,--one side of which is occupied by dwellings,

-while the other drops to the river so precipitously as to be almost

-inaccessible, and is even yet, I was told, an abode of foxes. On

-the day after my arrival I strolled to the top of the hill toward

-evening, and in the pines found a few black-polls and yellow-rumps.

-I was in a listless mood, having already taken a fair day's exercise

-under an intolerable sun, but I waked up with a start when my glass

-fell on a bird which at a second glance showed the red cheeks of a

-Cape May warbler. For a moment I was almost in poor Susan's case,--

-

-    "I looked, and my heart was in heaven."

-

-Then, all too soon, as happened to poor Susan also, the vision faded.

-But I had seen it. Yes, here it was in Tennessee, the rarity for

-which, spring after spring, I had been so many years on the watch. I

-had come South to find it, after all,--a bird that breeds from the

-northern border of New England to Hudson's Bay!

-

-It is of the nature of such excitements that, at the time, the

-subject of them has no thought of analyzing or justifying his

-emotions. He is better employed. Afterward, in some vacant mood,

-with no longer anything actively to enjoy, he may play with the

-past, and from an evil habit, or flattering himself with a show of

-intellectuality, may turn his former delight into a study; tickling

-his present conceit of himself by smiling at the man he used to

-be. How very wise he has grown, to be sure! All such refinements,

-nevertheless, if he did but know it, are only a poorer kind of

-child's play; less spontaneous, infinitely less satisfying, and

-equally irrational. Ecstasy is not to be assayed by any test that

-the reason is competent to apply; nor does it need either defense or

-apology. It is its own end, and so, like beauty, its own excuse for

-being. That is one of the crowning felicities of this present order

-of things,--the world, as we call it. What dog would hunt if there

-were no excitement in overhauling the game? And how would elderly

-people live through long evenings if there were no exhilaration in

-the odd trick?

-

-"What good does it do?" a prudent friend and adviser used to say to

-me, smiling at the fervor of my first ornithological enthusiasm. He

-thought he was asking me a poser; but I answered gayly, "It makes

-me happy;" and taking things as they run, happiness is a pretty

-substantial "good." So was it now with the sight of this long-desired

-warbler. It taught me nothing; it put nothing into my pocket; but it

-made me happy,--happy enough to sing and shout, though I am ashamed

-to say I did neither. And even a sober son of the Puritans may be

-glad to find himself, in some unexpected hour, almost as ineffably

-delighted as he used to be with a new plaything in the time when he

-had not yet tasted of the tree of knowledge, and knew not that the

-relish for playthings could ever be outgrown. I cannot affirm that I

-went quite as wild over my first Cape May warbler as I did over my

-first sled (how well the rapture of that frosty midwinter morning is

-remembered,--a hard crust on the snow, and the sun not yet risen!),

-but I came as near to that state of heavenly felicity--to reënter

-which we must become as little children--as a person of my years is

-ever likely to do, perhaps.

-

-It is one precious advantage of natural history studies that they

-afford endless opportunities for a man to enjoy himself in this

-sweetly childish spirit, while at the same time his occupation is

-dignified by a certain scientific atmosphere and relationship.

-He is a collector of insects, let us say. Whether he goes to the

-Adirondacks for the summer, or to Florida for the winter, he is

-surrounded with nets and cyanide bottles. He travels with them as

-another travels with packs of cards. Every day's catch is part of

-the game; and once in a while, as happened to me on Cameron Hill,

-he gets a "great hand," and in imagination, at least, sweeps the

-board. Commonplace people smile at him, no doubt; but that is only

-amusing, and he smiles in turn. He can tell many good stories under

-that head. He delights to be called a "crank." It is all because

-of people's ignorance. They have no idea that he is Mr. So-and-So,

-the entomologist; that he is in correspondence with learned men the

-country over; that he once discovered a new cockroach, and has had a

-grasshopper named after him; that he has written a book, or is going

-to write one. Happy man! a contributor to the world's knowledge, but

-a pleasure-seeker; a little of a savant, and very much of a child; a

-favorite of Heaven, whose work is play. No wonder it is commonly said

-that natural historians are a cheerful set.

-

-For the supplying of rarities and surprises there are no birds

-like the warblers. Their pursuit is the very spice of American

-ornithology. The multitude of species (Mr. Chapman's "Handbook of the

-Birds of Eastern North America" enumerates forty-five species and

-sub-species) is of itself an incalculable blessing in this respect.

-No single observer is likely ever to come to the end of them. They do

-not warble, it must be owned, and few of them have much distinction

-as singers, the best that I know being the black-throated green and

-the Kentucky; but they are elegant and varied in their plumage, with

-no lack of bright tints, while their extreme activity and their

-largely arboreal habits render their specific determination and their

-individual study a work most agreeably difficult and tantalizing. The

-ornithologist who has seen all the warblers of his own territory, say

-of New England, and knows them all by their notes, and has found all

-their nests,--well, he is himself a pretty rare specimen.

-

-As for my experience with the family in Tennessee, I was glad, of

-course, to scrape acquaintance--or to renew it, as the case might

-be--with the more southern species, the Kentucky, the hooded, the

-cerulean, the blue-wing, and the yellow-throat: that was partly why

-I was here; but perhaps I enjoyed quite as keenly the sight of our

-own New England birds moving homeward; tarrying here and there for

-a day, but not to be tempted by all the allurements of this fine

-country; still pushing on, northward, and still northward, as if for

-them there were no place in the world but the woods where they were

-born. Of the southern species just named, the Kentucky was the most

-abundant, with the hooded not far behind. The prairie warbler seemed

-about as common here as in its favored Massachusetts haunts; but

-unless my ear was at fault its song went somewhat less trippingly:

-it sounded labored,--too much like the scarlet tanager's in the way

-of effort and jerkiness. Unlike the golden warbler, the prairie

-was found not only in the lower country, but--in less numbers--on

-Walden's Ridge. The two warblers that I listed every day, no matter

-where I went, were the chat and the black-and-white creeper.

-

-When all is said, the Kentucky, with its beauty and its song, is

-the star of the family, as far as eastern Tennessee is concerned.

-I can hear it now, while Falling Water goes babbling past in

-the shade of laurel and rhododendron. As for the chat, it was

-omnipresent: in the valley, along the river, on Missionary Ridge,

-on Lookout Mountain, on Walden's Ridge, in the national cemetery,

-at Chickamauga,--everywhere, in short, except within the city

-itself. In this regard it exceeded the white-eyed vireo, and even

-the indigo-bird, I think. Black-polls were seen daily up to May 13,

-after which they were missing altogether. The last Cape May and the

-last yellow-rump were noted on the 8th, the last redstart and the

-last palm warbler on the 11th, the last chestnut-side, magnolia,

-and Canadian warbler on the 12th. On the 12th, also, I saw my only

-Wilson's blackcap. In my last outing, on the 18th, on Walden's Ridge,

-I came upon two Blackburnians in widely separate places. At the

-time, I assumed them to be migrants, in spite of the date. One of

-them was near the hotel, on ground over which I had passed almost

-daily. Why they should be so behindhand was more than I could tell;

-but only the day before I had seen a thrush which was either a

-gray-cheek or an olive-back, and of course a bird of passage. "The

-flight of warblers did not pass entirely until May 19," says Mr.

-Jeffries, writing of what he saw in western North Carolina.[6]

-

-The length of time occupied by some species in accomplishing their

-semi-annual migration is well known to be very considerable, and

-is best observed--in spring, at least--at some southern point.

-It is admirably illustrated in Mr. Chapman's "List of Birds seen

-at Gainesville, Florida."[7] Tree swallows, he tells us, were

-abundant up to May 6, a date at which Massachusetts tree swallows

-have been at home for nearly or quite a month. Song sparrows were

-noted March 31, two or three weeks after the grand irruption of

-song sparrows into Massachusetts usually occurs. Bobolinks, which

-reach Massachusetts by the 10th of May, or earlier, were still very

-abundant--both sexes--May 25! Such dates are not what we should

-have expected, I suppose, especially in the case of a bird like

-the bobolink, which has no very high northern range; but they seem

-not to be exceptional, and are surprising only because we have

-not yet mastered the general subject. Nothing exists by itself,

-and therefore nothing can be understood by itself. One thing the

-most ignorant of us may see,--that the long period covered by the

-migratory journeys is a matter for ornithological thankfulness. In

-Massachusetts, for example, spring migrants begin to appear in late

-February or early March, and some of the most interesting members of

-the procession--notably the mourning warbler and the yellow-bellied

-flycatcher--are to be looked for after the first of June. The

-autumnal movement is equally protracted; so that for at least half

-the year--leaving winter with its arctic possibilities out of

-consideration--we may be on the lookout for strangers.

-

-One of the dearest pleasures of a southern trip in winter or early

-spring is the very thing at which I have just now hinted, the sight

-of one's home birds in strange surroundings. You leave New England in

-early February, for instance, and in two or three days are loitering

-in the sunny pine-lands about St. Augustine, with the trees full of

-robins, bluebirds, and pine warblers, and the savanna patches full of

-meadow larks. Myrtle warblers are everywhere. Phoebes salute you as

-you walk the city streets, and flocks of chippers and vesper sparrows

-enliven the fields along the country roads. In a piece of hammock

-just outside the town you find yourself all at once surrounded by a

-winter colony of summer birds. Here are solitary vireos, Maryland

-yellow-throats, black-and-white creepers, prairie warblers, red-poll

-warblers, hermit thrushes, red-eyed chewinks, thrashers, catbirds,

-cedar-birds, and many more. White-eyed vireos are practicing in the

-smilax thickets,--though they have small need of practice,--and

-white-bellied swallows go flashing and twittering overhead. The world

-is good, you say, and life is a festival.

-

-My vacation in Tennessee afforded less of contrast and surprise, for

-a twofold reason: it was near the end of April, instead of early in

-February, so that migrants had been arriving in Massachusetts for six

-or seven weeks before my departure; and Tennessee has nothing of the

-foreign, half-tropical look which Florida presents to Yankee eyes;

-but even so, it was no small pleasure to step suddenly into a world

-full of summer music. Such multitudes of birds as were singing on

-Missionary Ridge on that first bright forenoon! The number of species

-was not great, when it came to counting them,--morning and afternoon

-together yielded but forty-two; but the whole country seemed alive

-with wings. And of the forty-two species, thirty-two were such as

-summer in Massachusetts or pass through it to their homes beyond.

-Here were already (April 27) the olive-backed thrush, and northern

-warblers like the black-poll, the bay-breast, and the Cape May, none

-of which would be due in Massachusetts for at least a fortnight.

-Here, too, were yellow-rumps and white-throated sparrows, though the

-advance guard of both species had reached New England before I left

-home. The white-throats lingered on Walden's Ridge on the 13th of

-May, a fact which surprised me more at the time than it does in the

-review.

-

-One bird was seen on this first day, and not afterward. I had been

-into the woods north of the city, and was returning, when from the

-bridge over the Tennessee I caught sight of a small flock of black

-birds, which at first, even with the aid of my glass, I could not

-make out, the bridge being so high above the river and its banks.

-While I was watching them, however, they began to sing. They were

-bobolinks. Probably the species is not common in eastern Tennessee,

-as the name is wanting in Dr. Fox's "List of Birds found in Roane

-County, Tennessee, during April, 1884, and March and April, 1885."[8]

-

-I have ventured upon some slight ornithological comparison between

-southeastern Tennessee and eastern Massachusetts, and, writing as a

-patriot (or a partisan), have seen to it that the scale inclined

-northward. To this end I have made as much as possible of the absence

-of robins, song sparrows, and vesper sparrows, and of the comparative

-dearth of swallows; but of course the loyal Tennessean is in no

-want of a ready answer. Robins, song sparrows, vesper sparrows, and

-swallows are _not_ absent, except as breeding birds. He has them

-all in their season,[9] and probably hears them sing. On the whole,

-then, he may fairly retort, he has considerably the advantage of us

-Yankees: he sees our birds on their passage, and drinks his fill

-of their music before we have caught the first spring notes; while

-we, on the other hand, see nothing of his distinctively southern

-birds unless we come South for the purpose. Well, they are worth the

-journey. Bachman's finch alone--yes, the one dingy, shabbily clad

-little genius by the Chickamauga well--might almost have repaid me

-for my thousand miles on the rail.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It was a strange mingling of sensations that possessed me in

-Chattanooga. The city itself was like other cities of its age and

-size, with some appearance of a community that had been in haste to

-grow,--a trifle impatient, shall we say (impatience being one of

-the virtues of youth), to pull down its barns and build greater;

-just now a little checked in its ambition, as things looked; yet

-still enterprising, still fairly well satisfied with itself, with

-no lack of energy and bustle. As it happened, there was a stir in

-local politics at the time of my visit (possibly there always is),

-and at the street corners all patriotic citizens were exhorted to

-do their duty. "Vote for Tom ---- for sheriff," said one placard.

-"Vote for Bob ----," said another, in capitals equally importunate.

-In Tennessee, as everywhere else, the politician knows his trade.

-Familiarity, readiness with the hand, freedom with one's own name

-(Tom, not Thomas, if you please), and a happy knack at remembering

-the names of other people,--these are some of the preëlection tests

-of statesmanship.

-

-All in all, then, between politics and business, the city was "very

-much alive," as the saying goes; but somehow it was not so often the

-people about me that occupied my thoughts as those who had been here

-thirty years before. Precious is the power of a first impression.

-Because I was newly in the country I was constantly under the feeling

-of its past. Hither and thither I went in the region round about,

-listening at every turn, spying into every bush at the stirring of a

-leaf or the chirp of a bird; yet I had always with me the men of '63,

-and felt always that I was on holy ground.

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-[3] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 103.

-

-[4] Both these warblers--the Nashville and the Tennessee--were named

-by Wilson from the places where the original specimens were shot.

-Concerning the Tennessee warbler he sets down the opinion that "it is

-most probably a native of a more southerly climate." It would be a

-pity for men to cease guessing, though the shrewdest are certain to

-be sometimes wrong.

-

-[5] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 175.

-

-[6] _The Auk_, vol. vi. p. 120.

-

-[7] _Ibid._, vol. v. p. 267.

-

-[8] _The Auk_, vol. iii. p. 315. Of sixty-two species seen by me

-during the last four days of April, eleven are not given by Dr.

-Fox, namely, Wilson's thrush, black-poll warbler, bay-breasted

-warbler, Cape May warbler, black-throated blue warbler, palm warbler,

-chestnut-sided warbler, blue golden-winged warbler, bobolink, Acadian

-flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo.

-

-[9] See Dr. Fox's list.

-

-

-

-

-A LIST OF BIRDS

-

-FOUND IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF CHATTANOOGA FROM APRIL 27 TO MAY 18,

-1894.

-

-

-1. Green Heron. _Ardea virescens._--A single individual seen from a

-car window. No other water birds were observed except three or four

-ducks and a single wader, all upon the wing and unidentified.

-

-2. Bob White. Quail. Partridge. _Colinus virginianus._--Common.

-

-3. Ruffed Grouse. "Pheasant." _Bonasa umbettus._--Heard drumming on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-4. Carolina Dove. Mourning Dove. _Zenaidura macroura._--A small

-number seen.

-

-5. Turkey Vulture. Turkey Buzzard. _Cathartes aura._--Common.

-

-6. Black Vulture. Carrion Crow. _Catharista atrata._--Two birds seen.

-

-7. Red-tailed Hawk. _Buteo borealis._--One bird seen from Walden's

-Ridge.

-

-8. Sparrow Hawk. _Falco sparverius._--One bird, on Walden's Ridge.

-

-9. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. _Coccyzus americanus._--Common. First

-noticed April 29.

-

-10. Black-billed Cuckoo. _Coccyzus erythrophthalmus._--Seen twice on

-Lookout Mountain, May 7 and 8, and once on Walden's Ridge, May 12.

-

-11. Belted Kingfisher. _Ceryle alcyon._--A single bird heard on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-12. Hairy Woodpecker. _Dryobates villosus._--My notes record

-seven birds. No attempt was made to determine their specific or

-sub-specific identity, but they are presumed to have been _D.

-villosus_, not _D. villosus audubonii_.

-

-13. Downy Woodpecker. _Dryobates pubescens._--A single bird was heard

-(not seen) on Walden's Ridge,--a noticeable reversal of the usual

-relative commonness of this species and the preceding.

-

-14. Red-cockaded Woodpecker. _Dryobates borealis._--Found only at

-Chickamauga, on Snodgrass Hill, in long-leaved pines--two or three

-birds.

-

-15. Pileated Woodpecker. "Logcock." _Ceophloeus pileatus._--Said to

-be common on Walden's Ridge, where I heard its flicker-like shout.

-

-16. Red-headed Woodpecker. _Melanerpes erythrocephalus._--One seen

-near Missionary Ridge and one at Chickamauga. The scarcity of this

-bird, and the absence of the red-bellied and the yellow-bellied, were

-among the surprises of my visit.

-

-17. Flicker. Golden-winged Woodpecker. _Colaptes auratus._--Not

-common. Three birds were seen at Chickamauga, and it was occasional

-on Walden's Ridge, where I listed it five days of the seven.

-

-18. Whippoorwill. _Antrostomus vociferus._--Undoubtedly common. I

-heard it only on Walden's Ridge, the only place where I went into the

-woods after dark.

-

-19. Nighthawk. _Chordeiles virginianus._--Common.

-

-20. Chimney Swift. _Chætura pelagica._--Abundant.

-

-21. Ruby-throated Humming-bird. _Trochilus colubris._--Common in the

-forests of Walden's Ridge. Seen but twice elsewhere. First seen April

-28.

-

-22. Kingbird. _Tyrannus tyrannus._--Seen but three times--nine

-specimens in all. First seen April 29.

-

-23. Crested Flycatcher. _Myiarchus crinitus._--Noticed daily, with

-two exceptions.

-

-24. Phoebe. _Sayornis phoebe._--Common on Lookout Mountain and

-Walden's Ridge. Not seen elsewhere.

-

-25. Wood Pewee. _Contopus virens._--Very common. Much the most

-numerous member of the family. Present in good force April 27, and

-gathering nest materials April 29.

-

-26. Acadian Flycatcher. Green-crested Flycatcher. _Empidonax

-virescens._--Common.

-

-27. Blue Jay. _Cyanocitta cristata._--Scarce (for the blue jay), and

-not seen on Walden's Ridge!

-

-28. Crow. _Corvus americanus._--Apparently much less common than in

-Eastern Massachusetts.

-

-29. Bobolink. _Dolichonyx oryzivorus._--A small flock seen, and heard

-singing, April 27.

-

-30. Orchard Oriole. _Icterus spurius._--Common, but not found on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-31. Baltimore Oriole. _Icterus galbula._--A single bird, at

-Chickamauga, May 3.

-

-32. Crow Blackbird. _Quiscalus quiscula?_--Seen on sundry occasions

-in the valley country, but specific distinction not made out. Both

-forms--_Q. quiscula_ and _Q. quiscula æneus_--are found in Tennessee.

-See Dr. Fox's List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee. "The

-Auk," vol. iii. p. 315. My own list of the Icteridæ is remarkable for

-its omissions, especially of the cowbird, the red-winged blackbird

-(which, however, I am pretty certain that I saw on the wing) and the

-meadow lark.

-

-33. House Sparrow. English Sparrow. _Passer

-domesticus._--Distressingly superabundant in the city and its suburbs.

-

-34. Goldfinch. _Spinus tristis._--Abundant. Still in flocks.

-

-35. White-crowned Sparrow. _Zonotrichia leucophrys._--Seen but once

-(May 1), two birds, in the national cemetery.

-

-36. White-throated Sparrow. _Zonotrichia albicollis._--Common. Still

-present on Walden's Ridge (in two places) May 13. Sang very little.

-

-37. Chipping Sparrow. Doorstep Sparrow. _Spizella socialis._--Common.

-

-38. Field Sparrow. _Spizella pusilla._--Common.

-

-39. Bachman's Sparrow. _Peucæa æstivalis bachmanii._--Common. One of

-the best of singers.

-

-40. Chewink. Towhee. _Pipilo erythrophthalmus._--Rather common. Much

-less numerous than I should have expected from the nature of the

-country.

-

-41. Cardinal Grosbeak. _Cardinalis cardinalis._--Seen daily, but

-seemingly not very numerous.

-

-42. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. _Habia ludoviciana._--A single female,

-May 11.

-

-43. Indigo-bird. _Passerina cyanea._--Very abundant. For the first

-time I saw this tropical-looking beauty in flocks.

-

-44. Scarlet Tanager. _Piranga erythromelas._--Common on the

-mountains, but seemingly rare in the valley.

-

-45. Summer Tanager. _Piranga rubra._--Common throughout.

-

-46. Purple Martin. _Progne subis._--Common.

-

-47. Rough-winged Swallow. _Stelgidopteryx serripennis._--A few birds

-seen.

-

-48. Red-eyed Vireo. _Vireo olivaceus._--Common. One of the species

-listed every day.

-

-49. Yellow-throated Vireo. _Vireo flavifrons._--Common. Seen or heard

-every day except April 27.

-

-50. White-eyed Vireo. _Vireo noveboracensis._--Abundant. Heard every

-day.

-

-51. Black-and-white Creeper. _Mniotilta varia._--Very common.

-

-52. Blue-winged Warbler. _Helminthophila pinus._--One bird seen at

-Chickamauga, and a pair on Missionary Ridge.

-

-53. Golden-winged Warbler. _Helminthophila chrysoptera._--Common,

-especially in the broken woods north of the city.

-

-54. Panda Warbler. Blue Yellow-backed Warbler. _Compsothlypis

-americana._--Only on Walden's Ridge.

-

-55. Cape May Warbler. _Dendroica tigrina._--One bird seen on Cameron

-Hill, and a small company on Lookout Mountain--April 27, and May 7

-and 8.

-

-56. Yellow Warbler. Golden Warbler. _Dendroica æstiva._--Common, but

-not observed on Walden's Ridge.

-

-57. Black-throated Blue Warbler. _Dendroica cærulescens._--Common,

-April 27 to May 14.

-

-58. Myrtle Warbler. Yellow-rumped Warbler. _Dendroica

-coronata._--Noted April 27 and 28, and May 7 and 8.

-

-59. Magnolia Warbler. _Dendroica maculosa._--Not uncommon, May 1 to

-12.

-

-60. Cerulean Warbler. _Dendroica coerulea._--One bird, a male in

-song, on Lookout Mountain.

-

-61. Chestnut-sided Warbler. _Dendroica pensylvanica._--Listed on six

-dates--April 27 to May 12.

-

-62. Bay-breasted Warbler. _Dendroica castanea._--Seven or eight

-individuals--April 27 to May 10.

-

-63. Black-poll Warbler. _Dendroica striata._--Common to May 13.

-

-64. Blackburnian Warbler. _Dendroica blackburniæ._--Seven birds--May

-1 to 18.

-

-65. Yellow-throated Warbler. _Dendroica dominica._

-(_Albilora?_)--Found only at Chickamauga (Snodgrass Hill), where it

-seemed to be common.

-

-66. Black-throated green Warbler. _Dendroica virens._--Common.

-

-67. Pine Warbler. _Dendroica vigorsii._--Not numerous, but found in

-appropriate places.

-

-68. Palm Warbler. _Dendroica palmarum._--The specific--or

-sub-specific--identity of this bird was not certainly determined, but

-I judged the specimens--seen on four dates, April 29 to May 11--to be

-as above given, rather than _D. palmarum hypochrysea_.

-

-69. Prairie Warbler. _Dendroica discolor._--Very common.

-

-70. Oven-bird. _Seiurus aurocapillus._--Common on Lookout Mountain

-and Walden's Ridge. Seen but once in the lower country.

-

-71. Louisiana Water-thrush. _Seiurus motacilla._--A few birds seen on

-Walden's Ridge.

-

-72. Kentucky Warbler. _Geothlypis formosa._--Very common, and in

-places very unlike.

-

-73. Maryland Yellow-throat. _Geothlypis trichas._--Common.

-

-74. Yellow-breasted Chat. _Icteria virens._--Very common.

-

-75. Hooded Warbler. _Sylvania mitrata._--Common, especially along the

-woodland streams on Walden's Ridge.

-

-76. Wilson's Blackcap. _Sylvania pusilla._--A single bird on Walden's

-Ridge, May 12, in free song.

-

-77. Canadian Warbler. _Sylvania canadensis._--Seen on three

-dates--May 6, 11, and 12.

-

-78. Redstart. _Setophaga ruticilla._--Common. Not seen after May 14.

-

-79. Mocking-bird. _Mimus polyglottos._--Rare. Not found on the

-mountains.

-

-80. Catbird. _Galeoscoptes carolinensis._--Very common, both in the

-city and in the country round about.

-

-81. Brown Thrasher. _Harporhynchus rufus._--Common.

-

-82. Carolina Wren. Mocking Wren. _Thryothorus ludovicianus._--Common.

-

-83. Bewick's Wren. _Thryothorus bewickii._--Not common. Seen only on

-Missionary Ridge.

-

-84. White-breasted Nuthatch. _Sitta carolinensis._--Common at

-Chickamauga and on Walden's Ridge. A single bird noticed on Lookout

-Mountain.

-

-85. Tufted Titmouse. _Parus bicolor._--Common.

-

-86. Carolina Chickadee. _Parus carolinensis._--Common.

-

-87. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. _Polioptila cærulea._--Common.

-

-88. Wood Thrush. _Turdus mustelinus._--Very common. A bird with

-its beak full of nest materials was seen April 29, at the base of

-Missionary Ridge.

-

-89. Wilson's Thrush. Veery. _Turdus fuscescens._--Rare.

-

-90. Gray-cheeked Thrush. _Turdus aliciæ_, or _T. aliciæ

-bicknelli_.--Two birds, May 2 and 13.

-

-91. Swainson's Thrush. Olive-backed Thrush. _Turdus ustulatus

-swainsonii._--In good numbers and free song. Seen on four dates, the

-latest being May 12.

-

-92. Robin. _Merula migratoria._--Five birds in the national cemetery,

-April 29.

-

-93. Bluebird. _Sialia sialis._--Common. Young birds out of the nest,

-April 28.

-

-

-

-

-INDEX.

-

-

-    Arbutus, 137.

-    Azalea:--

-      flame-colored, 178.

-      pink, 182.

-      white, 132.

-

-    Baptisia, blue, 14, 93.

-    Blackbird:--

-      crow, 99.

-      red-winged, 215.

-    Bluebird, 9, 13, 78, 99, 111, 207.

-    Bobolink, 205, 209.

-    Buzzard, turkey, 6, 188.

-

-    Catbird, 6, 17, 25, 43, 47, 78, 99, 111, 183, 207.

-    Catchfly, scarlet, 15, 85, 109.

-    Cedar-bird, 207.

-    Chat, yellow-breasted, 3, 6, 9, 13, 17, 19, 27, 47, 55, 99, 110,

-        121, 135, 204.

-    Chewink, 6, 13, 207.

-    Chickadee, blackcap, 98.

-    Chickadee, Carolina, 13, 25, 71, 88.

-    Cowslip, 85.

-    Cranesbill, 34, 85.

-    Creeper, black-and-white, 6, 12, 33, 42, 117, 204, 207.

-    Cross-vine, 23, 137, 181.

-    Crow, 42, 189.

-    Cuckoo:--

-      black-billed, 31, 42.

-      yellow-billed, 19, 24, 71, 99, 111, 117.

-

-    Dogwood, flowering, 136.

-    Dove, mourning, 24.

-

-    Fern:--

-      cinnamon, 148.

-      maiden-hair, 47.

-    Finch:--

-      Bachman's, 2, 6, 9, 13, 25, 66, 78, 81, 110, 118, 193, 194, 210.

-      purple, 194.

-    Flicker, 66, 78, 190.

-    Flycatcher:--

-      Acadian, 17, 24, 26, 62, 117.

-      crested, 9, 13, 67, 71, 87.

-      yellow-bellied, 206.

-    Fringe-tree, 135.

-

-    Ginger, wild, 137.

-    Gnatcatcher, blue-gray, 6, 13, 18, 55, 99, 110.

-    Goldfinch, 13, 17, 24, 25, 47, 78, 111.

-    Gromwell, 85, 92.

-    Grosbeak:--

-      cardinal, 6, 13, 23, 26, 42, 135, 146, 162.

-      rose-breasted, 119, 194.

-    Grouse, ruffed (pheasant), 167.

-

-    Hawk:--

-      red-tailed, 169, 187.

-      sparrow, 174, 187.

-    Hieracium, 122.

-    Houstonia, 23, 61, 85, 93.

-    Humming-bird, ruby-throated, 109, 178, 191.

-

-    Indigo-bird, 6, 9, 13, 17, 47, 55, 72, 78, 110, 111, 121, 204.

-

-    Jay, blue, 178, 189.

-

-    Kingbird, 13, 87.

-    Kinglet, golden-crowned, 97.

-

-    Lady's-slipper, yellow, 178.

-    Lizard, 43, 55.

-    Locust, seventeen-year, 55, 70, 83, 114, 149.

-

-    Magnolia, 136, 148.

-    Martin, purple, 6, 185.

-    Maryland yellow-throat, 6, 13, 47, 61, 70, 185.

-    Milkweed, 92, 142.

-    Mistletoe, 110.

-    Mocking-bird, 6, 78, 82, 94, 183.

-    Mountain Laurel, 132, 135, 147, 169, 173, 176.

-

-    Nuthatch, white-breasted (Carolina), 58, 61, 82.

-

-    Oriole:--

-      Baltimore, 78.

-      orchard, 13, 78, 99, 111, 185.

-    Oven-bird, 31, 33, 42, 122, 196.

-    Oxalis:--

-      violet, 34, 61, 85.

-      yellow, 85.

-

-    Pentstemon, 61, 122.

-    Pewee, wood, 6, 17, 33, 62, 71, 78, 99, 117, 135.

-    Phlox, 23, 34, 61, 85, 122.

-    Phoebe, 28, 41, 207.

-    Pink, Indian, 15.

-

-    Quail, 6, 71, 122.

-

-    Ragwort (Senecio), 93, 122.

-    Raven, 130.

-    Redstart, 6, 13, 25, 108, 117.

-    Rhododendron, 135-137, 147, 169, 173, 176, 181.

-    Robin, 96, 207, 210.

-    Rue anemone, 62, 85.

-

-    Saxifrage, 34.

-    Sparrow:--

-      Bachman's (see FINCH).

-      chipping, 6, 13, 26, 99, 111, 193, 207.

-      field, 6, 13, 17, 25, 47, 55, 62, 67, 70, 87, 117, 135, 193.

-      house (English) 93, 183, 185.

-      song, 4, 194, 205, 210.

-      vesper, 194, 207, 210.

-      white-crowned, 96.

-      white-throated, 6, 26, 95, 135, 142, 208.

-    Specularia, 122.

-    Spring beauty, 61, 85.

-    Stonecrop, white, 34.

-    Swallow:--

-      rough-winged, 22, 87, 88, 187.

-      tree (white-bellied), 187, 205, 207.

-    Sweet bush, 137.

-    Swift, chimney, 189.

-

-    Tanager:--

-      scarlet, 20, 24, 33, 41, 118, 131, 135, 162.

-      summer, 3, 6, 13, 17, 20, 47, 70, 78, 120, 131.

-    Thrasher (brown thrush), 6, 7, 13, 17, 33, 82, 99, 111, 183, 207.

-    Thrush:--

-      gray-cheeked, 141.

-      hermit, 207.

-      Louisiana water, 163.

-      olive-backed (Swainson's), 7, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 24, 133, 208.

-      Wilson's (veery), 13, 14, 25, 111.

-      wood, 6, 13, 14, 17, 33, 47, 87, 99, 117, 120, 135.

-    Titmouse, tufted, 13, 14, 61, 70.

-    Tulip-tree, 178, 193.

-    Tupelo, 23.

-    Turkey, wild, 81, 130, 140.

-

-    Viburnum, maple-leaved, 34.

-    Violet, bird-foot, 34, 85.

-    Vireo:--

-      red-eyed, 6, 13, 33, 42, 47, 55, 70.

-      solitary, 207.

-      white-eyed, 6, 9, 13, 17, 47, 110, 121, 204, 207.

-      yellow-throated, 9, 13, 33, 70, 99, 117.

-    Vulture:--

-      black (carrion crow), 111, 188.

-      turkey, 6, 188.

-

-    Warbler:--

-      bay-breasted, 6, 28, 32, 38, 49, 208.

-      Blackburnian, 30, 31, 38, 204.

-      black-poll, 6, 12, 19, 28, 32, 38, 42, 49, 61, 81, 96, 117, 198,

-          204, 208.

-      black-throated blue, 12, 31, 32, 37, 135, 157.

-      black-throated green, 28, 31, 135, 156, 202.

-      blue-winged, 20, 22, 71, 79, 80.

-      blue yellow-backed, 21, 134, 135.

-      Canadian, 21, 22, 23, 117, 135, 204.

-      Cape May, 32, 37, 39, 198, 200, 204, 208.

-      cerulean, 53.

-      chestnut-sided, 12, 25, 117, 204.

-      Connecticut, 14.

-      golden-winged, 13, 110, 120, 195.

-      hooded, 7, 48, 135, 146, 156, 203.

-      Kentucky, 9, 13, 14, 19, 24, 35, 47, 49, 109, 110, 116, 122, 132,

-          135, 156, 202-204.

-      magnolia, 19, 30, 32, 37, 117, 204.

-      mourning, 206.

-      myrtle (yellow-rumped), 6, 12, 32, 39, 198, 204, 207, 208.

-      Nashville, 195.

-      palm (red-poll), 32, 38, 117, 204, 207.

-      pine, 25, 175, 207.

-      prairie, 6, 21, 25, 110, 121, 203, 207.

-      Tennessee, 195.

-      Wilson's blackcap, 136, 204.

-      yellow (golden), 12, 99, 108, 185, 203,

-      yellow-throated, 72, 73, 75, 80.

-    Water-thrush, Louisiana, 163.

-    Whippoorwill, 143.

-    Wintergreen, striped, 34.

-    Woodpecker:--

-      downy, 191.

-      golden-winged, 66, 190.

-      hairy, 30, 190.

-      pileated, 191.

-      red-cockaded, 67, 73, 80, 191.

-      red-headed, 80, 190, 191.

-    Wren:--

-      Bewick's, 4.

-      Carolina (mocking), 6, 13, 17, 25, 26, 28, 42, 47, 55, 71, 109,

-          162.

-

-

-

-

-

-End of Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey

-

-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE ***

-

-***** This file should be named 45708-8.txt or 45708-8.zip *****

-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:

-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/7/0/45708/

-

-Produced by JoAnn Greenwood, and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

-

-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions

-will be renamed.

-

-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no

-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation

-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without

-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,

-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to

-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to

-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project

-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you

-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you

-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the

-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose

-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and

-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do

-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is

-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial

-redistribution.

-

-

-

-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

-

-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

-

-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free

-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work

-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project

-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project

-Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at

-  www.gutenberg.org/license.

-

-

-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic works

-

-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to

-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property

-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all

-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy

-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.

-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the

-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or

-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

-

-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be

-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who

-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few

-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works

-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See

-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement

-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

-

-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"

-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the

-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an

-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are

-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from

-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative

-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg

-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project

-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by

-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of

-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with

-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by

-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project

-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

-

-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern

-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in

-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check

-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement

-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or

-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project

-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning

-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United

-States.

-

-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

-

-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate

-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently

-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the

-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project

-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,

-copied or distributed:

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

-

-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived

-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is

-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied

-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees

-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work

-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the

-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1

-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the

-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or

-1.E.9.

-

-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted

-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution

-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional

-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked

-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the

-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

-

-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this

-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

-

-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without

-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project

-Gutenberg-tm License.

-

-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,

-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any

-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or

-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than

-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version

-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),

-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a

-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon

-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other

-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

-

-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works

-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-

-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided

-that

-

-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from

-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method

-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is

-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he

-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the

-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments

-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you

-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax

-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and

-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the

-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to

-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

-

-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies

-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he

-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm

-     License.  You must require such a user to return or

-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium

-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of

-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

-

-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any

-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the

-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days

-     of receipt of the work.

-

-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free

-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

-

-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm

-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set

-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from

-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael

-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the

-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

-

-1.F.

-

-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread

-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm

-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain

-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or

-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual

-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a

-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by

-your equipment.

-

-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right

-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project

-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project

-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all

-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal

-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

-DAMAGE.

-

-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can

-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a

-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you

-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with

-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with

-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a

-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity

-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to

-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy

-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further

-opportunities to fix the problem.

-

-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth

-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER

-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO

-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

-

-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.

-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the

-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be

-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by

-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any

-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

-

-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone

-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance

-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,

-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,

-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,

-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do

-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm

-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any

-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

-

-

-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of

-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers

-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists

-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from

-people in all walks of life.

-

-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's

-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will

-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure

-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.

-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4

-and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org

-

-

-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

-Foundation

-

-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit

-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the

-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal

-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification

-number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg

-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent

-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

-

-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.

-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered

-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809

-North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email

-contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the

-Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

-

-For additional contact information:

-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby

-     Chief Executive and Director

-     gbnewby@pglaf.org

-

-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg

-Literary Archive Foundation

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide

-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of

-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be

-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest

-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations

-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt

-status with the IRS.

-

-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United

-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a

-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up

-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations

-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To

-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any

-particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

-

-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition

-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who

-approach us with offers to donate.

-

-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from

-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

-

-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation

-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other

-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.

-To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate

-

-

-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

-works.

-

-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm

-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared

-with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project

-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

-

-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed

-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.

-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily

-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

-

-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

-

-     www.gutenberg.org

-

-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,

-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to

-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

diff --git a/45708/45708-8.zip b/45708/45708-8.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index 144f9ea..0000000
--- a/45708/45708-8.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/45708/45708-h.zip b/45708/45708-h.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index 6843490..0000000
--- a/45708/45708-h.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/45708/45708.zip b/45708/45708.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index f44ac7b..0000000
--- a/45708/45708.zip
+++ /dev/null