A golden-crowned kinglet was there also,
a little tuft of gray feathers, hopping about as restless as a spirit.
Had the old pine-trees food delicate enough for him also? Farther on,
in some low open woods, saw many sparrows,--the fox, white-throated,
white-crowned, the Canada, the song, the swamp,--all herding together
along the warm and sheltered borders. To my surprise, saw a chewink
also, and the yellow-rumped warbler. The purple finch was there
likewise, and the Carolina wren and brown creeper. In the higher,
colder woods not a bird was to be seen. Returning, near sunset, across
the eastern slope of a hill which overlooked the city, was delighted
to see a number of grass finches or vesper sparrows,--birds which
will be forever associated in my mind with my father's sheep pastures.
They ran before me, now flitting a pace or two, now skulking in the
low stubble, just as I had observed them when a boy."
A month later, March 4th, is this note:--
"After the second memorable inaguration of President Lincoln, took my
first trip of the season. The afternoon was very clear and warm,--real
vernal sunshine at last, though the wind roared like a lion over the
woods.
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