quite putting into the shade our New England bird's _hear, hear me_,
sweet and welcome as that always is.

The Southern chickadee, it should be said, is not to be distinguished
from its Northern relative--in the bush, I mean--except by its notes. It
is slightly smaller, like Southern birds in general, but is practically
identical in plumage. Apart from its song, what most impressed me was
its scarcity. It was found, sooner or later, wherever I went, I believe,
but always in surprisingly small numbers, and I saw only one nest. That
was built in a roadside china-tree in Tallahassee, and contained young
ones (April 17), as was clear from the conduct of its owners.

It must not be supposed that I left St. Augustine without another search
for my unknown "warbler." The very next morning found me again at the
swamp, where for at least an hour I sat and listened. I heard no
_tee-koi, tee-koo_, but was rewarded twice over for my walk. In the
first place, before reaching the swamp, I found the third of my
flat-wood novelties, the red-cockaded woodpecker. As had happened with
the nuthatch and the sparrow, I heard him before seeing him: first some
notes, which by themselves would hardly have suggested a woodpecker
origin, and then a noise of hammering. Taken together, the two sounds,
left little doubt as to their author; and presently I saw him,--or
rather them, for there were two birds. I learned nothing about them,
either then or afterwards (I saw perhaps eight individuals during my ten
weeks' visit), but it was worth something barely to see and hear them.
Henceforth _Dryobates borealis_ is a bird, and not merely a name. This,
as I have said, was among the pines, before reaching the swamp. In the
swamp itself, there suddenly appeared from somewhere, as if by magic (a
dramatic entrance is not without its value, even out-of-doors), a less
novel but far more impressive figure, a pileated woodpecker; a truly