serves, I
was never in the habit of observing the return of the birds in the
spring or their departure in the autumn; except, to be sure, that the
semi-annual flight of the ducks and geese was always a pleasant
excitement, more especially because there were several lakes
(invariably spoken of as ponds) in our vicinity, on the borders of
which the village "gunners" built pine-branch booths in the season.

But now, as I have said, my ignorance was converted all at once into a
kind of blessing; for no sooner had I begun to read bird books, and
consult a cabinet of mounted specimens, than every turn out-of-doors
became full of all manner of delightful surprises. Could it be that what
I now beheld with so much wonder was only the same as had been going on
year after year in these my own familiar lanes and woods? Truly the
human eye is nothing more than a window, of no use unless the man looks
out of it.

Some of the experiences of that period seem ludicrous enough in the
retrospect. Only two or three days after my eyes were first opened I was
out with a friend in search of wild-flowers (I was piloting him to a
favorite station for _Viola pubescens_), when I saw a most elegant
little creature, mainly black and white, but with brilliant orange
markings. He was darting hither and thither among the branches of some
low trees, while I stared at him in amazement, calling on my comrade,
who was as ignorant as myself, but less excited, to behold the prodigy.
Half trembling lest the bird should prove to be some straggler from the
tropics, the like of which would not be found in the cabinet before
mentioned, I went thither that very evening. Alas, my silly fears! there
stood the little beauty's exact counterpart, labeled _Setophaga
ruticilla_, the American redstart,--a bird which the manual assured me
was very common in my neighborhood.

But it was not my eyes only that were opened, my ears also were touched.
It was as if all the birds had heretofore been silent, and now, under
some sudden impulse, had broken out in universal concert. What a
glorious chorus it was; and every voice a stranger! For a week or more I
was puzzled by a song which I heard without fail whenever I went into
the woods, but the author of which I could never set eyes on,--a song so
exceptionally loud and shrill, and marked by such a vehement crescendo,
that, even to my new-found ears, it stood out from the general medley a
thing by itself. Many times I struck