sweet, copious, and varied singer, and that only a fragment of its
melody now remains. The opening rapidly warbled notes are so charming
that the attention is instantly attracted by them. They are composed of
two sounds, both beautiful--the bright pure gushing robin-like note, and
the more tender expressive swallow-like note. And that is all; the song
scarcely begins before it ends, or collapses; for in most cases the pure
sweet opening strain is followed by a curious little farrago of gurgling
and squeaking sounds, and little fragments of varied notes, often so low
as to be audible only at a few yards' distance. It is curious that these
slight fragments of notes at the end vary in different individuals, in
strength and character and in number, from a single faintest squeal to
half a dozen or a dozen distinct sounds. In all cases they are emitted
with apparent effort, as if the bird strained its pipe in the vain
attempt to continue the song.

The statement that the redstart is a mimic is to be met with in many
books about birds. I rather think that in jerking out these various
little broken notes which end its strain, whether he only squeaks or
succeeds in producing a pure sound, he is striving to recover his own
lost song rather than to imitate the songs of other birds.

So much entertainment did I find at that spot, so grateful did it seem
in its openness after long confinement in the lower thickly wooded
country, that I practically spent the day there. At all events the best
time for walking was gone when I quitted it, and then I could think of
no better plan than to climb down into the old long untrodden road, or
channel, again just to see where it would lead me. After all, I said,
my time is my own, and to abandon the old way I have walked in so long
without discovering the end would be a mistake. So I went on in it once
more, and in about twenty minutes it came to an end before a group of
old farm buildings in a hollow in the woods. The space occupied by the
buildings was quite walled round and shut in by a dense growth of trees
and bushes; and there was no soul there and no domestic animal. The
place had apparently been vacant many years, and the buildings were in a
ruinous condition, with the roofs falling in.

Now when I look back on that walk I blame myself for having gone on my
way without trying to find out something of the history of that forsaken
home to which the lonely old road had led me. Those ruinou