In visiting vast primitive, far-off woods one naturally expects to
find something rare and precious, or something entirely new, but it
commonly happens that one is disappointed. Thoreau made three
excursions into the Maine woods, and, though he started the moose and
the caribou, had nothing more novel to report by way of bird notes
than the songs of the wood thrush and the pewee. This was about my own
experience in the Adirondacks. The birds for the most part prefer the
vicinity of settlements and clearings, and it was at such places that
I saw the greatest number and variety.
At the clearing of an old hunter and pioneer by the name of Hewett,
where we paused a couple of days on first entering the woods, I saw
many old friends and made some new acquaintances. The snowbird was
very abundant here, as it had been at various points along the route
after leaving Lake George. As I went out to the spring in the morning
to wash myself, a purple finch flew up before me, having already
performed its ablutions. I had first observed this bird the winter
before in the Highlands of the Hudson, where, during several clear but
cold February mornings, a troop of them sang most charmingly in a tree
in front of my house.
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