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SOUTHWARD BOUND
73

a single scarlet feather. Here and there, too, as we wander about the woods, we meet—once in two or three days, perhaps—a lonesome-acting, silent red-eyed vireo. A great contrast there is between such solitary lingerers and the groups of gossiping chickadees that one falls in with in the same places; so merry-hearted, so bubbling over with high spirits, so ready to be neighborly. When I whistle to them, and they whistle back, I feel myself befriended.

Within a few days we must have the grand September influx of warblers—crowds of blackpolls, myrtles, black-throated greens, and many more. For two months yet the procession will be passing.