Inhabiting the marshes and swamps is the Louisiana water thrush, a slender brown bird shaped much like the brown thrasher, only much smaller, being about six inches in length as compared with the thrasher’s eleven or twelve. A gifted singer, he is very wild and shy, always resenting the intrusion of the lords of creation upon his quiet haunts, flitting quietly on before you in the shadows, evincing his distrust of your motives by an occasional angry “clink.” He well illustrates the principle of compensation: though denied the brilliant yellows and greens of his warbler brethren, he surpasses them all in the quality of his song, as free, as beautiful, as wild as the bird himself. All the individuals of this species that I saw in three years’ observation were either in the water beeches (Carpinus caroliniana) that grew so thickly along the creek or in the sweet gums and cypress along the borders of an immense swamp. As the Louisiana water thrush is the star soloist of the warbler contingent, so the yellow breasted chat is the clown of our woodland troupe. His coloring is vivid but simple, being green with a wash of olive above, lores black, breast bright chrome yellow, other under parts white or whitish. Under most circumstances this bird is shy and difficult to approach, as I learned by personal experience; but when one of his strange moods comes upon him—perhaps it is the approach of the nuptial season that so affects him—he doffs much of his shyness and becomes a veritable clown, making such a profusion and variety of noises that one would fain believe that there is a whole score of birds in the bush or thicket from which the medley proceeds. He darts out of his retreat and flies away over the shrubbery, twisting and turning his body, raising and dropping his tail as if all his joints were of the ball and socket pattern, making as many ridiculous contortions and as many varieties of squeaks and squalls as an old-time elocutionist. Besides numerous individuals of the species of warblers already named, in the two weeks between April 9 and 23 I saw one or more of each of the following: Yellow or summer, bluewinged, worm-eating, magnolia, golden winged, chestnut sided, prairie, and the redstart. As I write these names they call up mornings spent in the land of the ’possum and persimmon while yet the steamy breath of the dew was going up to meet the fervor of an April sun, and all the air was heavy with the perfume of the blooming holly, mornings of music from a thousand throats inspired by “the new wine of the year.” At such times one realizes the force of these two lines from Richard Hovey: Make me over, Mother April, When the sap begins to stir. James Stephen Compton. A PET SQUIRREL. “Grandma, what made those little scars on this finger?” asked Nellie. “Those,” said grandma, reflectively, “were made by a saucy little gray squirrel.” “How?”