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+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

+

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+Project Gutenberg's Spring notes from Tennessee, by Bradford Torrey

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

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+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

+

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+</body>

+</html>

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+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

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