From  the  bottom  of  the  valley  came  a
sound  of  running  water,  and  between  me
and  the  invisible  stream  a  chorus  of  olive-
backed  thrushes  were  singing,  —  the  same
simple  and  hearty  strains  that,  in  June  and
July,  echo  all  day  long  through  the  woods
of  the  Crawford  Notch.  The  birds  were  on
their  way  from  the  far  South,  and  were
happy  to  find  themselves  in  so  homelike  a
place.  Then,  suddenly,  amid  the  golden
voices  of  the  thrushes,  I  caught  the  wiry
notes  of  a  warbler.  They  came  from  the
treetops  in  the  valley,  and  —  so  I  prided
myself  upon  guessing  —  belonged  to  a  ceru-
lean warbler,  a  bird  of  which  I  had  seen  my
first  and  only  specimen  a  week  before,  on
Lookout  Mountain.  Down  the  steep  hill-
side I  scrambled,  —  New  Hampshire  clean


134     A   WEEK  ON   WALDEN'S  EIDGE.
forgotten,  —  and  was  just  bringing  my  glass
into  play  when  the  fellow  took  wing,  and
began  singing  at  the  very  point  I  had  just
left.  I  hastened  back ;  he  flew  again,  far-
ther up  the  hill,  and  again  I  put  myself  out
of  breath  with  pursuing  him.  Again  and
again  he  sang,  now  in  this  tree,  now  in  that,
but  there  was  no  getting  sight  of  him.  The
trees  should  have  been  shorter,  or  the  bird
larger.  Straight  upward  I  gazed,  till  the
muscles  of  my  neck  cried  for  mercy.  At
last  I  saw  him,  flitting  amid  the  dense  foli-
age, but  so  far  above  me,  and  so  exactly
between  me  and  the  sun,  that  I  might  as
well  not  have  seen  him.  at  all.
