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At that time they were in a bit of swamp, among some tall birches, and as I caught the familiar and characteristic notes a brief ascending spiral I was almost ready to believe myself in some primeval New Hampshire forest; an illusion not a little aided by the frequent lisping of black-poll warblers, who chanced just then to be remarkably abundant.
Rare warblers, as the black-poll, the yellow-poll, and the bay-breasted, pausing in May on their northward journey, pursue their insect game in the very heart of the town. I have heard the veery thrush in the trees near the White House; and one rainy April morning, about six o'clock, he came and blew his soft, mellow flute in a pear-tree in my garden.
The thrush repeated his strain once or twice, and then flew to another tree, the little fellow after him with all speed. Again the olive-back perched and sang, and again the black-poll waited. Three times these manoeuvres were repeated, before the birds passed out of my range. Some wrong-doing, real or fancied, on the part of the larger bird, had excited the ire of the warbler.
This way my thoughts were running when all at once two birds dashed by me a black-poll warbler in hot pursuit of an olive-backed thrush. The thrush alighted in a tree and commenced singing, and the warbler sat by and waited, following the universal rule that a larger bird is never to be attacked except when on the wing.
Wilson called the kinglets wrens, but they have little to justify the name, except that the ruby-crown's song is of the same gushing, lyrical character as that referred to above. Dr. Brewer was entranced with the song of one of these tiny minstrels in the woods of New Brunswick, and thought he had found the author of the strain in the black-poll warbler.
No other thrush was seen, though a few times during our stay I caught a mere echo of the hermit's song far down the mountain-side. A bird I was not prepared to see or to hear was the black-poll warbler, a bird usually found much farther north, but here it was, amid the balsam firs, uttering its simple, lisping song.
The little fists lashed out. "Bah! Who could ev-er dream that he'd turn out such a 'chuff', as the boys say an un-civ-il chuff?... Una! it's never it isn't, it can't be Camp Fire Girls?" "It is! It is! I told you I heard singing." The answer was shrill with delight as the wiry note of the little black-poll warbler, nesting near. "Why! Why! Goodness!
This yellow-rump, or myrtle bird, is one of the thrifty members of his great family, and next to the black-poll is the most numerous representative of his tribe in Massachusetts during the spring and fall migrations; a beautiful little creature, with a characteristic flight and call, and for a song a pretty trill suggestive of the snow-bird's.
Black-poll and Nashville warblers were especially numerous, as they are also upon Mount Washington, and, as far as I have seen, upon the White Mountains generally. The feeble, sharp song of the black-poll is a singular affair; short and slight as it is, it embraces a perfect crescendo and a perfect decrescendo.
I have noted the golden-crowned thrush, the small-billed water-thrush, the black-and-white creeper, the Maryland yellow-throat, the blue yellow-back, the black-throated green, the black-throated blue, the yellow-rump, the summer yellow-bird, the black-poll, the Canada flycatcher, and the redstart.
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