except within the city itself. In this regard it exceeded the white-eyed vireo, and even the indigo-bird, I think. Blackpolls were seen daily up to May 13, after which they were missing altogether. The last Cape May and the last yellowrump were noted on the 8th, the last redstart and the last palm warbler on the 11th, the last chestnut-side, magnolia, and Canadian warbler on the 12th. On the 12th, also, I saw my only Wilson's black-cap. In my last outing, on the 18th, on Walden's Ridge, I came upon two Blackburnians in widely separate places. At the time I assumed them to be migrants, in spite of the date. One of them was near the hotel, on ground over which I had passed almost daily. Why they should be so behindhand was more than I could tell; but only the day before I had seen a thrush which was either a gray - cheek or an olive-back, and of course a bird of passage. "The flight of warblers did not pass entirely until May 19," says Mr. Jeffries, writing of what he saw in west ern North Carolina.1

The length of time occupied by some species in accomplishing their semi-annual migration is well known to be very considerable, and is best observed in spring, at least · at some southern point. It is admirably illustrated in Mr. Chapman's List of Birds seen at Gainesville, Florida. Tree swallows, he tells us, were abundant up to May 6, a date at which Massachusetts tree swallows have been at home for nearly or quite a month. Song sparrows were noted March 31, two or three weeks after the grand irruption of song sparrows into Massachusetts usually occurs. Bobolinks, which reach Massachusetts by the 10th of May, or earlier, were still very abundant- both sexes May 25! Such dates are not what we should have expected, I suppose, especially in the case of a bird like the bobolink, which has no very high northern range; but they 1 The Auk, vol. vi. p. 120.

seem not to be exceptional, and are surprising only because we have not yet mastered the general subject. Nothing exists by itself, and therefore nothing can be understood by itself. One thing the most ignorant of us may see, that the long period covered by the migratory journeys is a matter for ornithological thankfulness. In Massachusetts, for example, spring migrants begin to appear in late February or early March, and some of the most interesting members of the procession notably the mourning warbler and the yellow-bellied flycatcher are to be looked for after the first of June. The autumnal movement is equally protracted; so that for at least half the year- leaving winter with its arctic possibilities out of consideration — we may be on the lookout for strangers.

One of the dearest pleasures of a southern trip in winter or early spring is the very thing at which I have just now hinted, the sight of one's home birds in strange surroundings. You leave New England in early February, for instance, and in two or three days are loitering in the sunny pine-lands about St. Augustine, with the trees full of robins, bluebirds, and pine warblers, and the savanna patches full of meadow larks. Myrtle warblers are everywhere. Phœbes salute you as you walk the city streets, and flocks of chippers and vesper sparrows enliven the fields along the country roads. In a piece of hammock just outside the town you find yourself all at once surrounded by a winter colony of summer birds. Here are solitary vireos, Maryland yellow-throats, black-andwhite creepers, prairie warblers, red-poll warblers, hermit thrushes, red-eyed chewinks, thrashers, catbirds, cedar-birds, and many more. White-eyed vireos are practicing in the smilax thickets, though they have small need of practice, and white-bellied swallows go flashing and twittering overhead. The world is good, you say, and life is a festival. 2 The Auk, vol. v. p. 267.

My vacation in Tennessee afforded less of contrast and surprise, for a twofold reason: it was near the end of April, instead of early in February, so that migrants had been arriving in Massachusetts for six or seven weeks before my departure; and Tennessee has nothing of the foreign, half-tropical look which Florida presents to Yankee eyes; but even so, it was no small pleasure to step suddenly into a world full of summer music. Such multitudes of birds as were singing on Missionary Ridge on that first bright forenoon! The number of species was not great when it came to counting them, morning and afternoon together yielded but forty-two; but the whole country seemed alive with wings. And of the forty-two species, thirty-two were such as summer in Massachusetts or pass through it to their homes beyond. Here were already (April 27) the olive-backed thrush, and northern warblers like the black-poll, the baybreast, and the Cape May, none of which would be due in Massachusetts for at least a fortnight. Here, too, were yellow-rumps and white-throated sparrows, though the advance guard of both species had reached New England before I left home. The white - throats lingered on Walden's Ridge on the 13th of May, a fact which surprised me more at the time than it does in the review.

One bird was seen on this first day, and not afterward. I had been into the woods north of the city, and was returning, when from the bridge over the Tennessee I caught sight of a small flock of black birds, which at first, even with the aid of my glass, I could not make out, the bridge being so high above the river and its banks. While I was watching them, however, they began to sing. They were bobolinks. Probably the species

1 The Auk, vol. iii. p. 315. Of sixty-two species seen by me during the last four days of April, eleven are not given by Dr. Fox, namely, Wilson's thrush, black-poll warbler, baybreasted warbler, Cape May warbler, black

is not common in eastern Tennessee, as the name is wanting in Dr. Fox's List of Birds found in Roane County, Tennessee, during April, 1884, and March and April, 1885.1

I have ventured upon some slight ornithological comparison between southeastern Tennessee and Massachusetts, and, writing as a patriot (or a partisan), have seen to it that the scale inclined northward. To this end I have made as much as possible of the absence of robins, song sparrows, and vesper sparrows, and of the comparative dearth of swallows; but of course the loyal Tennessean is in no want of a ready answer. Robins, song sparrows, vesper sparrows, and swallows are not absent, except as breeding birds. He has them all in their season, and probably hears them sing. On the whole, then, he may fairly retort, he has considerably the advantage of us Yankees: he sees our birds on their passage, and drinks his fill of their music before we have caught the first spring notes; while we, on the other hand, see nothing of his distinctively southern birds unless we come South for the purpose. they are worth the journey. Bachman's finch alone yes, the one dingy, shabbily clad little genius by the Chickamauga well-might almost have repaid me for my thousand miles on the rail.

Well,

It was a strange mingling of sensations that possessed me in Chattanooga. The city itself was like other cities of its age and size, with some appearance of a community that had been in haste to grow, - a trifle impatient, shall we say (impatience being one of the virtues of youth), to pull down its barns and build greater; just now a little checked in its ambition, as things looked; yet still enterprising, still fairly well satisfied with

throated blue warbler, palm warbler, chestnutsided warbler, blue golden-winged warbler, bobolink, Acadian flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo.

2 See Dr. Fox's list.

itself, with no lack of energy and bustle. As it happened, there was a stir in local politics at the time of my visit (possibly there always is), and at the street corners all patriotic citizens were exhorted to do their duty. "Vote for Tom for sheriff," said one placard. "Vote for Bob," said another, in capitals equally importunate. In Tennessee, as everywhere else, the politician knows his trade. Familiarity, readiness with the hand, freedom with one's own name (Tom, not Thomas, if you please), and a happy knack at remembering the names of other people, these are some of the preëlection tests of statesmanship.

--

All in all, then, between politics and business, the city was "very much alive,” as the saying goes; but somehow it was not so often the people about me that occupied my thoughts as those who had been here thirty years before. Precious is the power of a first impression. Because I was newly in the country I was constantly under the feeling of its past. Hither and thither I went in the region round about, listening at every turn, spying into every bush at the stirring of a leaf or the chirp of a bird; yet I had always with me the men of '63, and felt always that I was on holy ground. Bradford Torrey.

A POPULAR and fairly orthodox opinion concerning book-collectors is that their vices are many, their virtues of a negative sort, and their ways altogether past finding out. Yet the most hostile critic is bound to admit that the fraternity of bibliophiles is eminently picturesque. If their doings are inscrutable, they are also romantic; if their vices are numerous, the heinousness of those vices is mitigated by the fact that it is possible to sin humorously. Regard him how you will, the sayings and doings of the collector give life and color to the pages of those books which treat of books. He is amusing when he is purely an imaginary creature. For example, there was one Thomas Blinton. Every one who has ever read the volume called Books and Bookmen knows about Thomas Blinton. He was a man who wickedly adorned his volumes with morocco bindings, while his wife "sighed in vain for some old point d'Alençon lace." He was a man who was capable of bidding fifteen pounds

for a Foppens edition of the essays of Montaigne, though fifteen pounds happened to be "exactly the amount which he owed his plumber and gas-fitter, a worthy man with a large family." From this fictitious Thomas Blinton all the way back to Richard Heber, who was very real, and who piled up books as other men heap together vulgar riches, bookcollectors have been a picturesque folk.

The name of Heber suggests the thought that all men who buy books are not bibliophiles. He alone is worthy the title who acquires his volumes with something like passion. One may buy books like a gentleman, and that is very well. One may buy books like a gentleman and a scholar, which counts for something more. But to be truly of the elect one must resemble Richard Heber, and buy books like a gentleman, a scholar, and a madman.

You may find an account of Heber in an old file of The Gentleman's Magazine. He began in his youth by mak

ing a library of the classics. Then he became interested in rare English books, and collected them con amore for thirty years. He was very rich, and he had never given hostages to fortune; it was therefore possible for him to indulge his fine passion without stint. He bought only the best books, and he bought them by thousands and by tens of thousands. He would have held as foolishness that saying from the Greek which exhorts one to do nothing too much. According to Heber's theory, it is impossible to have too many good books. Usually one library is supposed to be enough for one man. Heber was satisfied only with eight libraries, and then he was hardly satisfied. He had a library in his house at Hodnet. "His residence in Pimlico, where he died, was filled, like Magliabechi's at Florence, with books from the top to the bottom; every chair, every table, every passage containing piles of erudition." He had a house in York Street which was crowded with books. He had a library in Oxford, one at Paris, one at Antwerp, one at Brussels, and one at Ghent. The most accurate estimate of his collections places the number at 146,827 volumes. Heber is believed to have spent half a million dollars for books. After his death the collections were dispersed. The catalogue was published in twelve parts, and the sales lasted over three years.

Heber had a witty way of explaining why he possessed so many copies of the same book. When taxed with the sin of buying duplicates he replied in this manner: Why, you see, sir, no man can comfortably do without three copies of a book.

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One he must have for his show copy, and he will probably keep it at his country house; another he will require for his own use and reference; and unless he is inclined to part with this, which is very inconvenient, or risk the injury of his best copy, he must needs have a third at the service of his friends."

In the pursuit of a coveted volume

Heber was indefatigable. He was not of those Sybaritic buyers who sit in their offices while agents and dealers do the work. "On hearing of a curious book he has been known to put himself into the mail-coach, and travel three, four, or five hundred miles to obtain it, fearful to trust his commission to a letter." He knew the solid comfort to be had in reading a book catalogue. Dealers were in the habit of sending him the advance sheets of their lists. He ordered books from his death-bed, and for anything we know to the contrary died with a catalogue in his fingers.

ness,

A life devoted to such a passion is a stumbling-block to the practical man, and to the Philistine foolishness. Yet you may hear men praised because up to the day of death they were diligent in busi- business which added to life nothing more significant than that useful thing called money. Thoreau used to say that if a man spent half his time in the woods for the love of the woods he was in danger of being looked upon as a loafer; but if he spent all his time as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making Earth bald before her time, he was regarded as an upright and industrious citizen.

Heber had a genius for friendship as well as for gathering together choice books. Sir Walter Scott addressed verses to him. Professor Porson wrote emendations for him in his favorite copy of Athenæus. To him was inscribed Dr. Ferrier's poetical epistle on Bibliomania. His virtues were celebrated by Dibdin and by Burton. In brief, the sketch of Heber in The Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1834, contains a list of fortysix names, all men of distinction by birth, learning, or genius, and all men who were proud to call Richard Heber friend. He was a mighty hunter of books. He was genial, scholarly, genOut-of-door men will be pleased to know that he was active physically. He was a tremendous walker, and en

erous.

joyed tiring out his bailiff by an all-day tramp.

Of many good things said of him this is one of the best: "The learned and curious, whether rich or poor, have always free access to his library." Thus was it possible for Scott very truthfully to say to Heber, "Thy volumes open as thy heart."

No life of this Prince of Book-Hunters has been written, I believe. Some one with access to the material, and a sympathy with the love of books as books, should write a memoir of Heber the Magnificent. It ought not to be a large volume, but it might well be about the size of Henry Stevens's Recollections of James Lenox. And if it were equally readable it were a readable book indeed.

Dibdin thought that Heber's tastes were so catholic as to make it difficult to classify him among hunters of books. The implication is that most men can be classified. They have their specialties. What pleases one collector much pleases another but little or not at all. Collectors differ radically in the attitude they take with respect to their volumes. One man buys books to read, another buys them to gloat over, a third that he may fortify them behind glass doors and keep the key in his pocket. Therefore have learned words been devised to make apparent the varieties of motive and taste. These words begin with biblio; you may have a biblio almost anything.

Two interesting types of maniac are known respectively as the bibliotaph and the biblioclast. A biblioclast is one who indulges himself in the questionable pleasure of mutilating books in order more sumptuously to fit out a particular volume. The disease is English in origin, though some of the worst cases have been observed in America. Clergymen and presidents of colleges have been known to be seized with it. The victim becomes more or less irresponsible, and presently runs mad. Such an one was John BagVOL. LXXVII. NO. 460.

14

ford, of diabolical memory, who mutilat

ed not less than ten thousand volumes to form his vast collection of title - pages. John Bagford died an unrepentant sinner, lamenting with one of his later breaths that he could not live long enough to get hold of a genuine Caxton and rip the initial page out of that.

The bibliotaph buries books; not literally, but sometimes with as much effect as if he had put his books underground. There are several varieties of him. The dog-in-the-manger bibliotaph is the worst; he uses his books but little himself, and allows others to use them not at all. On the other hand, a man may be a bibliotaph simply from inability to get at his books. He may be homeless, a bachelor, a denizen of boarding-houses, a wanderer upon the face of the earth. He may keep his books in storage or accumulate them in the country, against the day when he shall have a town house with proper library.

The most genial lover of books who has walked city streets for many a day was a bibliotaph. He accumulated books for years in the huge garret of a farmhouse standing upon the outskirts of a Westchester County village. A good relative "mothered" the books for him in his absence. When the collection outgrew the garret it was moved into a big village store. It was the wonder of the place. The country folk flattened their noses against the panes and tried to peer into the gloom beyond the half-drawn shades. The neighboring stores were in comparison miracles of business activity. On one side was a harness-shop; on the other a nondescript establishment at which one might buy anything, from sunbonnets and corsets to canned salmon and fresh eggs. Between these centres of village life stood the silent tomb for books. The stranger within the gates had this curiosity pointed out to him along with the new High School and the Soldiers' Monument.

By shading one's eyes to keep away