nd some with their breasts
toward me, but every head turned squarely in my direction. Their
eyes are closed to a mere black line; through this crack they are
watching me, evidently thinking themselves unobserved. The spectacle
is weird and grotesque, and suggests something impish and uncanny.
It is a new effect, the night side of the woods by daylight. After
observing them a moment I take a single step toward them, when,
quick as thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitude is
changed, they bend, some this way, some that, and, instinct with
life and motion, stare wildly around them. Another step, and they
all take flight but one, which stoops low on the branch, and with
the look of a frightened cat regards me for a few seconds over its
shoulder. They fly swiftly and softly, and disperse through the
trees. I shoot one, which is of a tawny red tint, like that figured
by Wilson. It is a singular fact that the plumage of these owls
presents two totally distinct phases, which "have no relation to
sex, age, or season," one being an ashen gray, the other a bright
rufous.

Coming to a drier and less mossy place in the woods, I am amused
with the golden-crowned thrush,--which, however, is no thrush at
all, but a warbler. He walks on the ground ahead of me with such an
easy, gliding motion, and with such an unconscious, preoccupied air,
jerking his head like a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, now
slackening his pace, that I pause to observe him. I sit down, he
pauses to observe me, and extends his pretty ramblings on all sides,
apparently very much engrossed with his own affairs, but never
losing sight of me. But few of the birds are walkers, most being
hoppers, like the robin.

Satisfied that I have no hostile intentions, the pretty pedestrian
mounts a limb a few feet from the ground, and gives me the benefit
of one of his musical performances, a sort of accelerating chant.
Commencing in a very low key, which makes him seem at a very
uncertain distance, he grows louder and louder till his body quakes
and his chant runs into a shriek, ringing in my ear with a peculiar
sharpness. This lay may be represented thus: "Teacher, _teacher_,
TEACHER, *TEACHER*, _*TEACHER!*_"--the accent on the first
syllable and each word uttered with increased force and shrillness.
No writer with whom I am acquainted gives him credit for more
musical ability than is displayed in this strain. Yet in this the
half is not told. He has a far rarer