For the walk homeward I took a course of my own down the open face of the hill, climbing a fence or two (I could tell far in advance the safest places at which to get over--the soundest spots--by seeing the lumps of dry red clay left on the rails by the boots of previous travelers across lots), past prairie warblers and my first Natural Bridge bluebird, to the bottom of the valley. Then, finding myself ahead of time, I turned aside to see what might be in the woods of Buck Hill. There was little to mention: a blossom of the exquisite vernal fleur-de-lis, not before noticed here, and at the top two cerulean warblers in full song. I had begun by this time to believe that this rare Virginia species would turn out to be pretty common hereabout in appropriate places. Partly to test the truth of this opinion I planned an afternoon trip to a more distant eminence, which, like Buck Hill and Lincoln Heights, was covered with a deciduous forest. In the valley woods a grouse was drumming--a pretty frequent sound here--and Swainson thrushes were singing. These “New Hampshire thrushes,” by the bye, are singers of the most generous sort, not only at home, but on their travels, all statements to the contrary notwithstanding. From May 5 to May 12--including the latter half of my stay at Natural Bridge, two days at Afton, and one day in the cemetery woods at Arlington--I have them marked as singing daily, and one day at the Bridge they were heard in four widely separate places. The hill for which I had set out lay on the left of the road, and between me and it stood a row of negro cabins. As I came opposite them I suddenly caught from the hillsides the notes of a Nashville warbler,--or so I believed. This was a bird not yet included in my Virginia list. I had puzzled over its absence--the country seeming in all respects adapted to it--till I consulted Dr. Rives, by whom it is set down as “rare.” Even then, emboldened by more than one happy experience, I told myself that I ought to find it. It is common enough in New England; why should it skip Virginia? And here it was; only I must go through the formality of a visual inspection, especially as just now the song came from rather far away. I entered one of the house-yards,--nobody objecting except a dog,--climbed the rear fence, and posted up the steep, rocky hill, past a humming-bird sipping at a violet, and by and by lifted my glass upon the singer, which had been in voice all the while. By this time I was practically sure of its identity. In imagination I could already see its bright yellow breast. The name was as good as down in my book,--_Helminthophila ruficapilla_. But the glass, having no imagination, showed me a white breast with a dark line across it,--a cerulean warbler! Verily, an ear is a vain thing for safety. See your bird, I say, and take a second look; and then go back and look again. In another tree a parula warbler was singing. About him, by good luck, I made no mistake. As for the