r a long time eluded my eye. I
passed to and fro several times, and it seemed to break out afresh as
I approached a certain little bend in the creek, and to cease after I
had got beyond it; no doubt its nest was somewhere in the vicinity.
After some delay the bird was sighted and brought down. It proved to
be the small, or northern, water-thrush, (called also the New York
water-thrush),--a new bird to me. In size it was noticeably smaller
than the large, or Louisiana, water-thrush, as described by Audubon,
but in other respects its general appearance was the same. It was a
great treat to me, and again I felt myself in luck.

This bird was unknown to the older ornithologists, and is but poorly
described by the new. It builds a mossy nest on the ground, or under
the edge of a decayed log. A correspondent writes me that he has found
it breeding on the mountains in Pennsylvania. The large-billed
water-thrush is much the superior songster, but the present species
has a very bright and cheerful strain. The specimen I saw, contrary to
the habits of the family, kept in the treetops like a warbler, and
seemed to be engaged in catching insects.

The birds were unusually plentiful and noisy about the head of this
lake; robins, blue jays, and woodpeckers greeted me with their
familiar notes. The blue jays found an owl or some wild animal a short
distance above me, and, as is their custom on such occasions,
proclaimed it at the top of their voices, and kept on till the
darkness began to gather in the woods.

I also heard, as I had at two or three other points in the course of
the day, the peculiar, resonant hammering of some species of
woodpecker upon the hard, dry limbs. It was unlike any sound of the
kind I had ever heard, and, repeated at intervals through the silent
wood, was a very marked and characteristic feature. Its peculiarity
was the ordered succession of the raps, which gave it the character of
a premeditated performance. There were first three strokes following
each other rapidly, then two much louder ones with longer intervals
between them. I heard the drumming here, and the next day at sunset at
Furlow Lake, the source of Dry Brook, and in no instance was the order
varied. There was a melody in it, such as a woodpecker knows how to
evoke from a smooth, dry branch. It suggested something quite as
pleasing as the liveliest bird-song, and was if anything more woodsy
and wild. As the yellow-bellied woodpecker was the m