One of my recollections of the railway woods at St.
Augustine is of a cricket, or locust, or something else,--I never saw
it,--that amused me often with a formless rattling or drumming sound. I
could think of nothing but a boy's first lesson upon the bones, the
rhythm of the beats was so comically mistimed and bungled.
One fine morning,--it was the 18th of February,--I had gone down the
railroad a little farther than usual, attracted by the encouraging
appearance of a swampy patch of rather large deciduous trees. Some of
them, I remember, were red maples, already full of handsome,
high-colored fruit. As I drew near, I heard indistinctly from among them
what might have been the song of a black-throated green warbler, a bird
that would have made a valued addition to my Florida list, especially at
that early date.[1] No sooner was the song repeated, however, than I saw
that I had been deceived; it was something I had never heard before. But
it certainly had much of the black-throated green's quality, and without
question was the note of a warbler of some kind. What a shame if the
bird should give me the slip! Meanwhile, it kept on singing at brief
intervals, and was not so far away but that, with my glass, I should be
well able to make it out, if only I could once get my eyes on it. That
was the difficulty. Something stirred among the branches. Yes, a
yellow-throated warbler (_Dendroica dominica_), a bird of which I had
seen my first specimens, all of them silent, during the last eight days.
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