ay-cheeks, were in song. Their music was
repeated a good many times, but unhappily it ceased whenever I tried to
get near the birds. Then, as always, it put me in mind of the veery's
effort, notwithstanding a certain part of the strain was quite out of
the veery's manner, and the whole was pitched in decidedly too high a
key. It seemed, also, as if what I heard could not be the complete song;
but I had been troubled with the same feeling on previous occasions, and
a friend whose opportunities have been better than mine reports a
similiar experience; so that it is perhaps not uncharitable to conclude
that the song, even at its best, is more or less broken and amorphous.

In their Northern homes these gray-cheeks are excessively wild and
unapproachable; but while traveling they are little if at all worse than
their congeners in this respect,--taking short flights when disturbed,
and often doing nothing more than to hop upon some low perch to
reconnoitre the intruder.

At the risk of being thought to reflect upon the acuteness of more
competent observers, I am free to express my hope of hearing the music
of both these noble visitors again another season. For it is noticeable
how common such things tend to become when once they are discovered. An
enthusiastic botanical collector told me that for years he searched far
and near for the adder's-tongue fern, till one day he stumbled upon it
in a place over which he had long been in the habit of passing. Marking
the peculiarities of the spot he straightway wrote to a kindred spirit,
whom he knew to have been engaged in the same hunt, suggesting that he
would probably find the coveted plants in a particular section of the
meadow back of his own house (in Concord); and sure enough, the next
day's mail brought an envelope from his friend, inclosing specimens of
_Ophioglossum vulgatum_, with the laconic but sufficient message,
_Eureka!_ There are few naturalists, I suspect, who could not narrate
adventures of a like sort.

One such befell me during this same month, in connection with the wood
wagtail, or golden-crowned thrush. Not many birds are more abundant than
he in my neighborhood, and I fancied myself pretty well acquainted with
his habits and manners. Above all, I had paid attention to his
celebrated love-song, listening to it almost daily for several summers.
Thus far it had invariably been given out in the afternoon, and on the
wing. To my mind, indeed, this was by far it