ther than to undue haste on the part of us their
reporters, is a matter about which I am perhaps not sufficiently
disinterested to judge. In this instance, however, it was reasonably
certain that the singer did not show himself intentionally; for unless
the whole tenor of his life belies him, the winter wren's motto is,
Little birds should be heard, and not seen.

Two days afterward I was favored again in like manner. But not by the
same bird, I think; unless my hearing was at fault (the singer was
further off than before), this one's tune was in places somewhat broken
and hesitating,--as if he were practicing a lesson not yet fully
learned.

I felt under a double obligation to these two specimens of _Anorthura
troglodytes hiemalis_: first for their music itself; and then for the
support which it gave to a pet theory of mine, that all our singing
birds will yet be found to sing more or less regularly in the course of
the vernal migration.

Within another forty-eight hours this same theory received additional
confirmation. I was standing under an apple-tree, watching a pair of
titmice who were hollowing out a stub for a nest, when my ear caught a
novel song not far away. Of course I made towards it; but the bird flew
off, across the road and into the woods. My hour was up, and I
reluctantly started homeward, but had gone only a few rods before the
song was repeated. This was more than human nature could bear, and,
turning back upon the run, I got into the woods just in time to see two
birds chasing each other round a tree, both uttering the very notes
which had so roused my curiosity. Then away they went; but as I was
again bewailing my evil luck, one of them returned, and flew into the
oak, directly over my head, and as he did so fell to calling anew, _Sue,
suky, suky_. A single glance upward revealed that this was another of
the silent migrants,--a brown creeper! Only once before had I heard from
him anything beside his customary lisping _zee_, _zee_; and even on
that occasion (in June and in New Hampshire) the song bore no
resemblance to his present effort. I have written it down as it sounded
at the moment, _Sue_, _suky_, _suky_, five notes, the first longer than
the others, and all of them brusque, loud, and musical, though with
something of a warbler quality.[24]

It surprised me to find how the migratory movement lagged for the first
half of the month. A pair of white-breasted swallows flew over my head
while