Many another warbler will lead the May visitor to Chocorua through these lakeside woodlands which Bolles loved. Some toll him cheerfully from one low thicket to another, where he may see the bird and the wood violet in the same glance or pluck painted and purple trilliums and not lose sight of his quest. Of these is the black-masked Maryland yellow-throat, whose song of “witchery, witchery, witchery,” always speaks for itself alone. No bird seems necessary for the production of this. It buds from the air as young leaves do from the twigs, impelled by a magic power within itself, nor, when you finally find the bird, demurely winding his masked way through the low growth, does the voice by any chance proceed from his throat. All warblers are ventriloquists, but I always think the Maryland yellow-throat of the Chocorua thickets the most demure magician of them all. Perhaps the black mask has something to do with it, lending to the eye the same thought which the puzzled ear conveys. The yellow-throats are building now, weaving their grass nests in tussocks of swamp grass down by the water’s edge, hiding them not so uniquely indeed as the parulas, but almost as well. The spikes of swamp grass grow tall about each nest, and its deep cup if seen at all from the outside is to the eye but a tangle of the last year’s grasses, matted down under this year’s growth. If I find these nests it is only by looking directly down into the heart of each tussock until I reach the right one. Yet this is not particularly difficult. It means only a little patience in inspection, after the probable neighborhood has been defined by the presence of the birds themselves. The yellow-throats are shy about their nests. If you inspect them too often they will leave them and begin all over again in a new locality. But, away from the nest, they are an easy bird to see much of. A man in their neighborhood is an object of insatiable curiosity to them, and you do not need to discover them if they are near. Instead they will come, creeping and peering through the bushes, to inspect you if you will but sit quietly in the region in which that “witchery” song is born out of the circumambient air.