. faker. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Biology 
 
 BEQUEST OF 
 
 Theodore S. Palmer 
 
BIRDS IN THE BUSH 
 
 BY 
 
 BRADFORD \TORREY 
 
 BOSTON 
 HOUGHTON/ MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 New York : 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 1885 
 
Copyright, 1885, 
 Br BRADFORD TORRE Y 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
 filectrotyped *md Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
TJ 
 
 WHEREFORE, let me intreat you to read it with favour and 
 attention, and to pardon us, wherein we may seem to come 
 short of some words, which we have laboured to interpret. 
 
 The Prologue of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son qfSirach. 
 
 581 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ON BOSTON COMMON 1 
 
 BIRD-SONGS 31 
 
 CHARACTER IN' FEATHERS 53 
 
 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 75 
 
 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON 103 
 
 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE 129 
 
 MINOR SONGSTERS 155 
 
 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON . . . . 185 
 
 A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL 211 
 
 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY 243 
 
 A MONTH'S Music , 277 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room; 
 And hermits are contented with their cells ; 
 And students with their pensive citadels : 
 Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, 
 Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, 
 High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells, 
 Will murmu" by the hour in foxglove bells : 
 In truth, the prison unto which we doom 
 Ourselves, no prison is : and hence for me, 
 In sundry moods 't was pastime to be bound 
 Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; 
 Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) 
 Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, 
 Should find brief solace there, as I have found. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 OUR Common and Garden are not an ideal 
 field of operations for the student of birds. No 
 doubt they are rather straitened and public. 
 Other things being equal, a modest ornitholo- 
 gist would prefer a place where he could stand 
 still and look up without becoming himself a 
 gazing-stock. But " it is not in man that walk- 
 eth to direct his steps ; " and if we are ap- 
 pointed to take our daily exercise in a city park, 
 we shall very likely find its narrow limits not 
 destitute of some partial compensations. This, 
 at least, may be depended upon, our disap- 
 pointments will be on the right side of the ac- 
 count ; we shall see more than we have antici- 
 pated rather than less, and so our pleasures will, 
 as it were, come to us double. I recall, for ex- 
 ample, the heightened interest with which I be- 
 held my first Boston cat-bird ; standing on the 
 back of one of the seats in the Garden, steady- 
 ing himself with oscillations of his tail, a con- 
 veniently long balance-pole, while he peeped 
 
4 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 curiously down into a geranium bed, within the 
 leafy seclusion of which he presently disap- 
 peared. He was nothing but a cat-bird ; if I 
 had seen him in the country I should have 
 passed him by without a second glance; but 
 here, at the base of the Everett statue, he 
 looked, somehow, like a bird of another feather. 
 Since then, it is true, I have learned that his oc- 
 casional presence with us in the season of the 
 semi-annual migration is not a matter for aston- 
 ishment. At that time, however, I was happily 
 more ignorant; and therefore, as I say, my 
 pleasure was twofold, the pleasure, that is, of 
 the bird's society and of the surprise. 
 
 There are plenty of people, I am aware, who 
 assert that there are no longer any native birds 
 in our city grounds, or, at the most, only a 
 few robins. Formerly things were different, 
 they have heard, but now the abominable Eng- 
 lish sparrows monopolize every nook and corner. 
 These wise persons speak with an air of posi- 
 tiveness, and doubtless ought to know whereof 
 they affirm. Hath not a Bos toman eyes ? And 
 doth he not cross the Common every day ? But 
 it is proverbially hard to prove a negative ; and 
 some of us, with no thought of being cynical, 
 have ceased to put unqualified trust in other 
 people's eyesight, especially since we have 
 found our own to fall a little short of absolute 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 5 
 
 infallibility. My own vision, by the way, is 
 reasonably good, if I may say so ; at any rate I 
 am not stone-blind. Yet here have I been per- 
 ambulating the Public Garden for an indefinite 
 period, without seeing the first trace of a field- 
 mouse or a shrew. I should have been in ex- 
 cellent company had I begun long ago to main- 
 tain that no such animals exist within our pre- 
 cincts. But the other day a butcher-bird made 
 us a flying call, and almost the first thing he did 
 was to catch one of these same furry dainties 
 and spit it upon a thorn, where anon I found 
 him devouring it. I would not appear to 
 boast ; but really, when I saw what Collurio 
 had done, it did not so much as occur to me to 
 quarrel with him because he had discovered in 
 half an hour what I had overlooked for ten 
 years. On the contrary I hastened to pay him 
 a heart-felt compliment upon his indisputable 
 sagacity and keenness as a natural historian ; 
 a measure of magnanimity easily enough af- 
 forded, since however the shrike might excel me 
 at one point, there could be no question on the 
 whole of my immeasurable superiority. And I 
 cherish the hope that my fellow townsmen, who, 
 as they insist, never themselves see any birds 
 whatever in the Garden and Common (their at- 
 tention being taken up with matters more im- 
 portant), may be disposed to exercise a similar 
 
6 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 forbearance toward me, when I modestly profess 
 that within the last seven or eight years I have 
 watched there some thousands of specimens, 
 representing not far from seventy species. 
 
 Of course the principal part of all the birds to 
 be found in such a place are transient visitors 
 merely. In the long spring and autumn jour- 
 neys it will all the time be happening that 
 more or less of the travelers alight here for rest 
 and refreshment. Now it is only a straggler 
 or two ; now a considerable flock of some one 
 species ; and now a miscellaneous collection of 
 perhaps a dozen sorts. 
 
 One of the first things to strike the observer 
 is the uniformity with which such pilgrims arrive 
 during the night. He goes his rounds late in 
 the afternoon, and there is no sign of anything 
 unusual ; but the next morning the grounds are 
 populous, thrushes, finches, warblers, and 
 what not. And as they come in the dark, so 
 also do they go away again. With rare excep- 
 tions you may follow them up never so closely, 
 and they will do nothing more than fly from 
 tree to tree, or out of one clump of shrubbery 
 into another. Once in a great while, under 
 some special provocation, they threaten a 'longer 
 flight ; but on getting high enough to see the 
 unbroken array of roofs on every side they 
 speedily grow confused, and after a few shift- 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 7 
 
 ings of their course dive hurriedly into the near- 
 est tree. It was a mistake their stopping here 
 in the first place ; but once here, there is noth- 
 ing for it save to put up with the discomforts of 
 the situation till after sunset. Then, please 
 heaven, they will be off, praying never to find 
 themselves again in such a Babel. 
 
 That most of our smaller birds migrate by 
 night is by this time too well established to 
 need corroboration ; but if the student wishes 
 to assure himself of the fact at first hand, he 
 may easily do it by one or two seasons' observa- 
 tions in our Common, or, I suppose, in any 
 like inclosure. And if he be blest with an or- 
 nithologically educated ear, he may still further 
 confirm his faith by standing on Beacon Hill in 
 the evening as I myself have often done 
 and listening to the chips of warblers, or the 
 tseeps of sparrows, as these little wanderers, 
 hour after hour, pass through the darkness over 
 the city. Why the birds follow this plan, what 
 advantages they gain or what perils they avoid 
 by making their flight nocturnal, is a question 
 with which our inquisitive friend will perhaps 
 find greater difficulty. I should be glad, for 
 one, to hear his explanation. 
 
 As a rule, our visitors tarry with us for two or 
 three days ; at least I have noticed that to be 
 true in many cases where their numbers, or size, 
 
8 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 or rarity made it posssible to be reasonably cer- 
 tain when the arrival and departure took place ; 
 and in so very limited a field it is of course 
 comparatively easy to keep track of the same in- 
 dividual during his stay, and, so to speak, be- 
 come acquainted with him. I remember with 
 interest several such acquaintanceships. 
 
 One of these was with a yellow-bellied wood- 
 pecker, the first I had ever seen. He made his 
 appearance one morning in October, along with 
 a company of chickadees and other birds, and 
 at once took up his quarters on a maple-tree 
 near the Ether monument. I watched his 
 movements for some time, and at noon, hap- 
 pening to be in the same place again, found 
 him still there. And there he remained four 
 days. I went to look at him several times 
 daily, and almost always found him either on 
 the maple or on a tulip tree a few yards dis- 
 tant. Without question the sweetness of maple 
 sap was known to SpTiyropicus varius long be- 
 fore our human ancestors discovered it, and this 
 particular bird, to judge from his actions, must 
 have been a genuine connoisseur ; at all events 
 he seemed to recognize our Boston tree as of a 
 sort not to be met with every day, although 
 to my less critical sense it was nothing but an 
 ordinary specimen of the common Acer dasy- 
 carpum. He was extremely industrious, as is 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 9 
 
 the custom of his family, and paid no attention 
 to the children playing about, or to the men 
 who sat under his tree, with the back of their 
 seat resting against the trunk. As for the 
 children's noise, he likely enough enjoyed it ; 
 for he is a noisy fellow himself and famous as 
 a drummer. An aged clergyman in Washing- 
 ton told me in accents half pathetic, half re- 
 vengeful that at a certain time of the year 
 he could scarcely read his Bible on Sunday 
 mornings, because of the racket which this 
 woodpecker made hammering on the tin roof 
 overhead. 
 
 Another of my acquaintances was of a very 
 different type, a female Maryland yellow-throat. 
 This lovely creature, a most exquisite, dainty 
 bit of bird flesh, was in the Garden all by her- 
 self on the 6th of October, when the great ma- 
 jority of her relatives must have been already 
 well on their way toward the sunny South. 
 She appeared to be perfectly contented, and 
 allowed me to watch her closely, only scolding 
 mildly now and then when I became too in- 
 quisitive. How I did admire her bravery and 
 peace of mind; feeding so quietly, with that 
 long, lonesome journey before her, and the cold 
 weather coming on ! No wonder the Great 
 Teacher pointed his lesson of trust with the 
 injunction, " Behold the fowls of the air." 
 
10 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 A passenger even worse belated than this 
 warbler was a chipping sparrow that I found 
 hopping about the edge of the Beacon Street 
 Mall on the 6th of December, seven or eight 
 weeks after all chippers were supposed to be 
 south of Mason and Dixon's line. Some ac- 
 cident had detained him doubtless ; but he 
 showed no signs of worry or haste, as I walked 
 round him, scrutinizing every feather, lest he 
 should be some tree sparrow traveling in dis- 
 guise. 
 
 There is not much to attract birds to the 
 Common in the winter, since we offer them 
 neither evergreens for shelter nor weed patches 
 for a granary. I said to one of the gardeners 
 that I thought it a pity, on this account, that 
 some of the plants, especially the zinnias and 
 marigolds, were not left to go to seed. A lit- 
 tle untidiness, in so good a cause, could hardly 
 be taken amiss by even the most fastidious tax- 
 payer. He replied that it would be of no use ; 
 we had n't any birds now, and we should n't 
 have any so long as the English sparrows were 
 here to drive them away. But it would be of 
 use, notwithstanding ; and certainly it would 
 afford a pleasure to many people to see' flocks 
 of goldfinches, red-poll linnets, tree sparrows, 
 and possibly of the beautiful snow buntings, 
 feeding in the Garden in midwinter. 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 11 
 
 Even as things are, however, the cold season 
 is sure to bring us a few butcher-birds. These 
 come on business, and are now welcomed as 
 public benefactors, though formerly our spar- 
 row-loving municipal authorities thought it 
 their duty to shoot them. They travel singly, 
 as a rule, and sometimes the same bird will be 
 here for several weeks together. Then you will 
 have no trouble about finding here and there 
 in the hawthorn trees pleasing evidences of his 
 activity and address. Collurio is brought up 
 to be in love with his work. In his Mother 
 Goose it is written, 
 
 Fe, fi, fo, farrow! 
 
 I smell the blood of an English sparrow; 
 
 and however long he may live, he never for- 
 gets his early training. His days, as the poet 
 says, are " bound each to each by natural 
 piety." Happy lot ! wherein duty and con- 
 science go ever hand in hand ; for whose pos- 
 sessor 
 
 " Love is an unerring light, 
 And joy its own security." 
 
 In appearance the shrike resembles the mock- 
 ing-bird. Indeed, a policeman whom I found 
 staring at one would have it that he was a 
 mocking-bird. " Don't you see he is ? And 
 he 's been singing, too." I had nothing to say 
 against the singing, since the shrike will often 
 
12 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 twitter by the half hour in the very coldest 
 weather. But further discussion concerning 
 the bird's identity was soon rendered needless ; 
 for, while we were talking, along came a spar- 
 row, and dropped carelessly into a hawthorn 
 bush, right under the shrike's perch. The lat- 
 ter was all attention instantly, and, after wait- 
 ing till the sparrow had moved a little out of 
 the thick of the branches, down he pounced. 
 He missed his aim, or the sparrow was too 
 quick for him, and although he made a second 
 swoop, and followed that by a hot chase, he 
 speedily came back without his prey. This lit- 
 tle exertion, however, seemed to have provoked 
 his appetite ; for, instead of resuming his cof- 
 fee-tree perch, he went into the hawthorn, and 
 began to feed upon the carcass of a bird which, 
 it seemed, he had previously laid up in store. 
 He was soon frightened off for a few moments 
 by the approach of a third man, and the police- 
 man improved the opportunity to visit the bush 
 and bring away his breakfast. When the fel- 
 low returned and found his table empty, he did 
 not manifest the slightest disappointment (the 
 shrike never does ; he is a fatalist, I think) ; 
 but in order to see what he would do, the po- 
 liceman tossed the body to him. It lodged on 
 one of the outer twigs, and immediately the 
 shrike came for it; at the same time spread- 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 13 
 
 ing his beautifully bordered tail and screaming 
 loudly. Whether these demonstrations were in- 
 tended to express delight, or anger, or contempt, 
 I could not judge ; but he seized the body, car- 
 ried it back to its old place, drove it again upon 
 the thorn, and proceeded to devour it more 
 voraciously than ever, scattering the feathers 
 about in a lively way as he tore it to pieces. 
 The third man, who had never before seen such 
 a thing, stepped up within reach of the bush, 
 and eyed the performance at his leisure, the 
 shrike not deigning to mind him in the least. 
 A few mornings later the same bird gave me 
 another and more amusing exhibition of his 
 nonchalance. He was singing from the top of 
 our one small larch-tree, and I had stopped 
 near the bridge to look and listen, when a milk- 
 man entered at the Commonwealth Avenue 
 gate, both hands full of cans, and, without no- 
 ticing the shrike, walked straight under the 
 tree. Just then, however, he heard the notes 
 overhead, and, looking up, saw the bird. As 
 if not knowing what to make of the creature's 
 assurance, he stared at him for a moment, and 
 then, putting down his load, he seized the trunk 
 with both hands, and gave it a good shake. 
 But the bird only took a fresh hold ; and when 
 the man let go, and stepped back to look up, 
 there he sat, to all appearance as unconcerned 
 
14 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 as if nothing had happened. Not to be so 
 easily beaten, the man grasped the trunk again, 
 and shook it harder than before ; and this time 
 Collurio seemed to think the joke had been 
 carried far enough, for he took wing, and flew 
 to another part of the Garden. The bravado 
 of the butcher-bird is great, but it is not un- 
 limited. I saw him, one day, shuffling along a 
 branch in a very nervous, unshrikely fashion, 
 and was at a loss to account for his unusual de- 
 meanor till I caught sight of a low-flying hawk 
 sweeping over the tree. Every creature, no 
 matter how brave, has some other creature to 
 be afraid of ; otherwise, how would the world 
 get on ? 
 
 The advent of spring is usually announced 
 during the first week of March, sometimes by 
 the robins, sometimes by the bluebirds. The 
 latter, it should be remarked, are an exception 
 to the rule that our spring and autumn callers 
 arrive and depart in the night. My impression 
 is that their migrations are ordinarily accom- 
 plished by daylight. At all events I have often 
 seen them enter the Common, alight for a few 
 minutes, and then start off again ; while I have 
 never known them to settle down for a visit of 
 two or three days, in the manner of most other 
 species. This last peculiarity may be owing to 
 the fact that the European sparrows treat them 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 15 
 
 with even more than their customary measure 
 of incivility, till the poor wayfarers have liter- 
 ally no rest for the soles of their feet. They 
 breed by choice in just such miniature meet- 
 ing-houses as our city fathers have provided so 
 plentifully for their foreign proteges ; and prob- 
 ably the latter, being aware of this, feel it nec- 
 essary to discourage at the outset any idea 
 which these blue-coated American interlopers 
 may have begun to entertain of settling in Bos- 
 ton for the summer. 
 
 The robins may be said to be abundant with 
 us for more than half the year ; but they are 
 especially numerous for a month or two early 
 in the season. I have counted more than thirty 
 feeding at once in the lower half of the parade 
 ground, and at nightfall have seen forty at 
 roost in one tree, with half as many more in 
 the tree adjoining. They grow extremely noisy 
 about sunset, filling the air with songs, cackles, 
 and screams, till even the most stolid citizen 
 pauses a moment to look up at the authors of so 
 much clamor. 
 
 By the middle of March the song sparrows 
 begin to appear, and for a month after this they 
 furnish delightful music daily. I have heard 
 them caroling with all cheerfulness in the midst 
 of a driving snow-storm. The dear little opti- 
 mists ! They never doubt that the sun is on 
 
16 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 their side. Of necessity they go elsewhere to 
 find nests for themselves, where they may lay 
 their young ; for they build on the ground, and 
 a lawn which is mowed every two or three days 
 would be quite out of the question. 
 
 At the best, a public park is not a favorable 
 spot in which to study bird music. Species 
 that spend the summer here, like the robin, 
 the warbling vireo, the red -eyed vireo, the 
 chipper, the goldfinch, and the Baltimore ori- 
 ole, of course sing freely ; but the much larger 
 number which merely drop in upon us by the 
 way are busy feeding during their brief sojourn, 
 and besides are kept in a state of greater or 
 less excitement by the frequent approach of 
 passers-by. Nevertheless, I once heard a bob- 
 olink sing in our Garden (the only^ne I ever 
 saw there), and once a brown thrush, although 
 neither was sufficiently at home to do himself 
 justice. The " Peabody " song of the white- 
 throated sparrows is to be heard occasionally 
 during both migrations. It is the more wel- 
 come in such a place, because, to my ears at 
 least, it is one of the wildest of all bird notes ; 
 it is among the last to be heard at night in the 
 White Mountain woods, as well as one of the 
 last to die away beneath you as you climb the 
 higher peaks. On the Crawford bridle path, 
 for instance, I remember that the song of this 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 17 
 
 bird and that of the gray-cheeked thrush 1 were 
 heard all along the ridge from Mount Clinton 
 to Mount Washington. The finest bird con- 
 cert I ever attended in Boston was given on 
 Monument Hill by a great chorus of fox-col- 
 ored sparrows, one morning in April. A high 
 wind had been blowing during the night, and 
 the moment I entered the Common I discovered 
 that there had been an extraordinary arrival of 
 birds, of various species. The parade ground 
 was full of snow-birds, while the hill was cov- 
 ered with fox-sparrows, hundreds of them, I 
 thought, and many of them in full song. It 
 was a royal concert, but the audience, I am 
 sorry to say, was small. It is unfortunate, in 
 some aspects of the case, that birds have never 
 learned that a matinee ought to begin at two 
 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 These sparrows please me by their lordly 
 treatment of their European cousins. One in 
 particular, who was holding his ground against 
 three of the Britishers, moved me almost to the 
 point of giving him three cheers. 
 
 Of late a few crow blackbirds have taken to 
 
 1 My identification of Turdus Alicice was based entirely upon 
 the song, and so, of course, had no final scientific value. It was 
 confirmed a few weeks later, however, by Mr. William Brewster, 
 who took specimens. (See Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological 
 Club, January, 1883, p. 12.) Prior to this the species was not 
 known to breed in New England. 
 2 
 
18 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 building their nests in one corner of our do- 
 main ; and they attract at least their full share 
 of attention, as they strut about the lawns in 
 their glossy clerical suits. One of the garden- 
 ers tells me that they sometimes kill the spar- 
 rows. I hope they do. The crow blackbird's 
 attempts at song are ludicrous in the extreme, 
 as every note is cracked, and is accompanied by 
 a ridiculous caudal gesture. But he is ranked 
 among the oscines, and seems to know it ; and, 
 after all, it is only the common fault of singers 
 not to be able to detect their own want of tune- 
 fulness. 
 
 I was once crossing the Common, in the mid- 
 dle of the day, when I was suddenly arrested 
 by the call of a cuckoo. At the same instant 
 two men passed me, and I heard one say to the 
 other, " Hear that cuckoo ! Do you know what 
 it means ? No? Well, /know what it means: 
 it means that it 's going to rain." It did rain, 
 although not for a number of days, I believe. 
 But probably the cuckoo has adopted the mod- 
 ern method of predicting the weather some time 
 in advance. Not very long afterwards I again 
 heard this same note on the Common ; but it 
 was several years before I was able to put the 
 cuckoo into my Boston list, as a bird actually 
 seen. Indeed it is not so very easy to see him 
 anywhere ; for he makes a practice of robbing 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 19 
 
 the nests of smaller birds, and is always skulk- 
 ing about from one tree to another, as though 
 he were afraid of being discovered, as no doubt 
 he is. What Wordsworth wrote of the Euro- 
 pean species (allowance being made for a 
 proper degree of poetic license) is equally ap- 
 plicable to ours : 
 
 " No bird, but an invisible thing, 
 A voice, a mystery." 
 
 When I did finally get a sight of the fellow it 
 was on this wise. As I entered the Garden, 
 one morning in September, a goldfinch was 
 calling so persistently and with such anxious 
 emphasis from the large sophora tree that I 
 turned my steps that way to ascertain what 
 could be the trouble. I took the voice for a 
 young bird's, but found instead a male adult, 
 who was twitching his tail nervously and scold- 
 ing phee-phee, phee-phee, at a black-billed 
 cuckoo perched near at hand, in his usual 
 sneaking attitude. The goldfinch called and 
 called, till my patience was nearly spent. 
 (Small birds know better than to attack a big 
 one so long as the latter is at rest.) Then, at 
 last, the cuckoo started off, the finch after him, 
 and a few minutes later I saw the same flight 
 and chase repeated. Several other goldfinches 
 were flying about in the neighborhood, but 
 only this one was in the least excited. Doubt- 
 
20 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 less he had special reasons of his own for dread- 
 ing the presence of this cowardly foe. 
 
 One of our regular visitors twice a year is the 
 brown creeper. He is so small and silent, and 
 withal his color is so like that of the bark to 
 which he clings, that I suspect he is seldom no- 
 ticed even by persons who pass within a few 
 feet of him. But he is not too small to be hec- 
 tored by the sparrows, and I have before now 
 been amused at the encounter. The sparrow 
 catches sight of the creeper, and at once bears 
 down upon him, when the creeper darts to the 
 other side of the tree, and alights again a little 
 further up. The sparrow is after him ; but, as 
 he comes dashing round the trunk, he always 
 seems to expect to find the creeper perched upon 
 some twig, as any other bird would be, and it 
 is only after a little reconnoitring that he again 
 discovers him clinging to the vertical bole. 
 Then he makes another onset with a similar re- 
 sult ; and these manoeuvres are repeated, till the 
 creeper becomes disgusted, and takes to another 
 tree. 
 
 The olive-backed thrushes and the hermits 
 may be looked for every spring and autumn, 
 and I have known forty or fifty of the fo'rmer to 
 be present at once. The hermits most often 
 travel singly or in pairs, though a small flock is 
 not so very uncommon. Both species preserve 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 21 
 
 absolute silence while here; I have watched 
 hundreds of them, without hearing so much as 
 an alarm note. They are far from being pug- 
 nacious, but their sense of personal dignity is 
 large, and once in a while, when the sparrows 
 pester them beyond endurance, they assume the 
 offensive with much spirit. There are none of 
 our feathered guests whom I am gladder to see ; 
 the sight of them inevitably fills me with re- 
 membrances of happy vacation seasons among 
 the hills of New Hampshire. If only they 
 would sing on the Common as they do in those 
 northern woods ! The whole city would come 
 out to hear them. 
 
 During every migration large numbers of 
 warblers visit us. I have noted the golden- 
 crowned thrush, the small-billed water-thrush, 
 the black-and-white creeper, the Maryland yel- 
 low-throat, the blue yellow-back, the black- 
 throated green, the black-throated blue, the yel- 
 low-rump, the summer yellow-bird, the black- 
 poll, the Canada flycatcher, and the redstart. 
 No doubt the list is far from complete, as, of 
 course, I have not used either glass or gun ; and 
 without one or other of these aids the observer 
 must be content to let many of these small, tree- 
 top-haunting birds pass unidentified. The two 
 kinglets give us a call occasionally, and in the 
 late summer and early autumn the humming- 
 
22 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 birds spend several weeks about our flower- 
 beds. 
 
 It would be iiard for the latter to find a more 
 agreeable stopping-place in the whole course of 
 their southward journey. What could they ask 
 better than beds of tuberoses, Japanese lilies, 
 Nicotiana (against the use of which they mani- 
 fest not the slightest scruple), petunias, and the 
 like ? Having in mind the Duke of Argyll's 
 assertion that " no bird can ever fly backwards," 1 
 I have more than once watched these humming- 
 birds at their work on purpose to see whether 
 they would respect the noble Scotchman's dic- 
 tum. I am compelled to report that they ap- 
 peared never to have heard of his theory. At 
 any rate they very plainly did fly tail foremost ; 
 and that not only in dropping from a blossom, 
 in which case the seeming flight might have 
 been, as the duke maintains, an optical illusion 
 merely, but even while backing out of the 
 flower-tube in an upward direction. They are 
 commendably catholic in their tastes. I saw 
 one exploring the disk of a sun-flower, in com- 
 pany with a splendid monarch butterfly. Pos- 
 sibly he knew that the sunflower was just then 
 in fashion. Only a few minutes earlier the same 
 bird or another like him had chased an 
 English sparrow out of the Garden, across Ar- 
 
 i The Reign of Law, p. 140. 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 23 
 
 lington Street, and up to the very roof of a 
 house, to the great delight of at least one patri- 
 otic Yankee. At another time I saw one of 
 these tiny beauties making his morning toilet 
 in a very pretty fashion, leaning forward, and 
 brushing first one cheek and then the other 
 against the wet rose leaf on which he was 
 perched. 
 
 The only swallows on my list are the barn 
 swallows and the white-breasted. The former, 
 as they go hawking about the crowded streets, 
 must often send the thoughts of rich city mer- 
 chants back to the big barns of their grandfa- 
 thers, far off in out-of-the-way country places. 
 Of course we have the chimney swifts, also 
 (near relatives of the humming-birds !), but 
 they are not swallows. 
 
 Speaking of the swallows, I am reminded of a 
 hawk that came to Boston, one morning, fully 
 determined not to go away without a taste of 
 the famous imported sparrows. It is nothing 
 unusual for hawks to be seen flying over the 
 city, but I had never before known one actually 
 to make the Public Garden his hunting-ground. 
 This bird perched for a while on the Arlington 
 Street fence, within a few feet of a passing car- 
 riage ; next he was on the ground, peering into 
 a bed of rhododendrons ; then for a long time 
 he sat still in a tree, while numbers of men 
 
24 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 walked back and forth underneath; between 
 whiles he sailed about, on the watch for his 
 prey. On one of these last occasions a little 
 company of swallows came along, and one of 
 them immediately went out of his way to swoop 
 down upon the hawk, and deal him a dab. 
 Then, as he rejoined his companions, I heard 
 him give a little chuckle^ as though he said, 
 " There ! did you see me peck at him ? You 
 don't think I am afraid of such a fellow as that, 
 do you ? " To speak in Thoreau's manner, I 
 rejoiced in the incident as a fresh illustration of 
 the ascendency of spirit over matter. 
 
 One is always glad to find a familiar bird 
 playing a new rdle, and especially in such a 
 spot as the Common, where, at the best, one 
 can hope to see so very little. It may be as- 
 sumed, therefore, that I felt peculiarly grateful 
 to a white-bellied nuthatch, when I discovered 
 him hopping about on the ground on Monu- 
 ment Hill ; a piece of humility such as I had 
 never before detected any nuthatch in the prac- 
 tice of. Indeed, this fellow looked so unlike 
 himself, moving briskly through the grass with 
 long, awkward leaps, that at first sight I failed 
 to recognize him. He was occupied 'with turn- 
 ing over the dry leaves, one after another, 
 hunting for cocoons, or things of that sort, I 
 suppose. Twice he found what he was in search 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 25 
 
 of; but instead of handling the leaf on the 
 ground, he flew with it to the trunk of an elm, 
 wedged it into a crevice of the bark, and pro- 
 ceeded to hammer it sharply with his beak. 
 Great is the power of habit ! Strange is it 
 not? that any bird should find it easiest to 
 do such work while clinging to a perpendicular 
 surface ! Yes ; but how does it look to a dog, 
 I wonder, that men can walk better on their hind 
 legs than on all fours ? Everything is a mira- 
 cle from somebody's point of view. The spar- 
 rows were inclined to make game of my oblig- 
 ing little performer ; but he would have none 
 of their insolence, and repelled every approach 
 in dashing style. In exactly three weeks from 
 this time, and on the same hillside, I came upon 
 another nuthatch similarly employed ; but be- 
 fore this one had turned up a leaf to his mind, 
 the sparrows became literally too many for him, 
 and he took flight, to my no small disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 It would be unfair not to name others of my 
 city guests, even though I have nothing in par- 
 ticular to record concerning them. The Wilson 
 thrush and the red-bellied nuthatch I have seen 
 once or twice each. The chewink is more con- 
 stant in his visits, as is also the golden-winged 
 woodpecker. Our familiar little downy wood- 
 pecker, on the other hand, has thus far kept 
 
26 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 out of my catalogue. No other bird's absence 
 has surprised me so much ; and it is the more 
 remarkable because the comparatively rare yel- 
 low-bellied species is to be met with nearly 
 every season. Cedar-birds show themselves ir- 
 regularly. One March morning, when the 
 ground was covered with snow, a flock of per- 
 haps a hundred collected in one of the taller 
 maples in the Garden, till the tree looked from 
 a distance like an autumn hickory, its leafless 
 branches still thickly dotted with nuts. Four 
 days afterward, what seemed to be the same 
 company made their appearance in the Com- 
 mon. Of the flycatchers, I have noted the 
 kingbird, the least flycatcher, and the phoebe. 
 The two former stay to breed. Twice in the 
 fall I have found a kingfisher about the Frog 
 Pond. Once the fellow sprung his watchman's 
 rattle. He was perhaps my most unexpected 
 caller, and for a minute or so I was not en- 
 tirely sure whether indeed I was in Boston or 
 not. The blue jay and the crow know too 
 much to be caught in such a place, although 
 one may often enough see the latter passing 
 overhead. Every now and then, in the travel- 
 ing season, a stray sandpiper or two will be ob- 
 served teetering round the edge of the Common 
 and Garden ponds ; and one day, when the lat- 
 ter was drained, I saw quite a flock of some 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 27 
 
 one of the smaller species feeding over its bot- 
 tom. Very picturesque they were, feeding and 
 flying in close order. Besides these must be 
 mentioned the yellow-throated vireo, the bay- 
 winged bunting, the swamp sparrow, the field 
 sparrow, the purple finch, the red-poll linnet, 
 the savanna sparrow, the tree sparrow, the 
 night-hawk (whose celebrated tumbling trick 
 may often be witnessed by evening strollers in 
 the Garden), the woodcock (I found the body 
 of one which had evidently met its death against 
 the electric wire), and among the best of all, 
 the chickadees, who sometimes make the whole 
 autumn cheerful with their presence, but about 
 whom I say nothing here because I have said so 
 much elsewhere. 
 
 Of fugitive cage-birds, I recall only five all 
 in the Garden. One of these, feeding tamely 
 in the path, I suspected for an English robin ; 
 but he was not in full plumage, and my conjec- 
 ture may have been incorrect. Another was a 
 diminutive finch, dressed in a suit of red, blue, 
 and green. He sat in a bush, saying JV0, no ! 
 to a feline admirer who was making love to him 
 earnestly. The others were a mocking-bird, a 
 cardinal grosbeak, and a paroquet. The mock- 
 ing-bird and the grosbeak might possibly have 
 been wild, had the question been one of lati- 
 tude simply, but their demeanor satisfied me to 
 
28 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 the contrary. The former's awkward attempt 
 at alighting on the tip of a fence-picket seemed 
 evidence enough that he had not been long at 
 large. The paroquet was a splendid creature, 
 with a brilliant orange throat darkly spotted. 
 He flew from tree to tree, chattering gayly, and 
 had a really pretty song. Evidently he was in 
 the best of spirits, notwithstanding the rather 
 obtrusive attentions of a crowd of house spar- 
 rows, who appeared to look upon such a wearer 
 of the green as badly out of place in this new 
 England of theirs. But for all his vivacity, I 
 feared he would not be long in coming to grief. 
 If he escaped other perils, the cold weather 
 must soon overtake him, for it was now the 
 middle of September, and his last state would 
 be worse than his first. He had better have 
 kept his cage; unless, indeed, he was one of 
 the nobler spirits that prefer death to slavery. 
 
 Of all the birds thus far named, very few 
 seemed to attract the attention of anybody 
 except myself. But there remains one other, 
 whom I have reserved for the last, not because 
 he was in himself the noblest or the most in- 
 teresting (though he was perhaps the biggest), 
 but because, unlike the rest, he did succeed in 
 winning the notice of the multitude. In fact, 
 my one owl, to speak theatrically, made a de- 
 cided hit ; for a single afternoon he may be 
 
ON BOSTON COMMON. 29 
 
 said to have been famous, or at all events 
 notorious, if any old-fashioned reader be dis- 
 posed to insist upon this all but obsolete dis- 
 tinction. His triumph, such as it was, had al- 
 ready begun when I first discovered him, for he 
 was then perched well up in an elm, while a 
 mob of perhaps forty men and boys were pelt- 
 ing him with sticks and stones. Even in the 
 dim light of a cloudy November afternoon he 
 seemed quite bewildered and helpless, making 
 no attempt to escape, although the missiles were 
 flying past him on all sides. The most he did 
 was to shift his perch when he was hit, which, 
 to be sure, happened pretty often. Once he 
 was struck so hard that he came tumbling to- 
 ward the ground, and I began to think it was 
 all over with him ; but when about half-way 
 down he recovered himself, and by dint of pain- 
 ful flappings succeeded in alighting just out of 
 the reach of the crowd. At once there were 
 loud cries : " Don't kill him ! Don't kill him ! " 
 and while the scamps were debating what to do 
 next, he regained his breath, and flew up into 
 the tree again, as high as before. Then the 
 stoning began anew. For my part I pitied the 
 fellow sincerely, and wished him well out of 
 the hands of his tormentors ; but I found my- 
 self laughing with the rest to see him turn his 
 head and stare, with his big, vacant eyes, after 
 
30 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
 
 a stone which had just whizzed by his ear. 
 Everybody that came along stopped for a few 
 minutes to witness the sport, and Beacon Street 
 filled up with carriages till it looked as if some 
 holiday procession were halted in front of the 
 State House. I left the crowd still at their 
 work, and must do them the justice to say that 
 some of them were excellent marksmen. An 
 old negro, who stood near me, was bewailing 
 the law against shooting ; else, he said, he 
 would go home and get his gun. He described, 
 with appropriate gestures, how very easily he 
 could fetch the bird down. Perhaps he after- 
 wards plucked up courage to violate the stat- 
 ute. At any rate the next morning's newspa- 
 pers reported that an owl had been shot, the 
 day before, on the Common. Poor bird of wis- 
 dom ! His sudden popularity proved to be the 
 death of him. Like many of loftier name he 
 found it true, 
 
 '* The path of glory leads but to the grave." 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 Canst thou imagine where those spirits lire 
 Which make such delicate music in the woods ? 
 
 SHELLEY. 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 WHY do birds sing ? Has their music a mean- 
 ing, or is it all a matter of blind impulse ? Some 
 bright morning in March, as you go out-of-doors, 
 you are greeted by the notes of the first robin. 
 Perched in a leafless tree, there he sits, facing 
 the sun like a genuine fire-worshiper, and sing- 
 ing as though he would pour out his very soul. 
 What is he thinking about ? What spirit pos- 
 sesses him ? 
 
 It is easy to ask questions until the simplest 
 matter comes to seem, what at bottom it really 
 is, a thing altogether mysterious ; but if our robin 
 could understand us, he would, likely enough, 
 reply : 
 
 " Why do you talk in this way, as if it were 
 something requiring explanation that a bird 
 should sing ? You seem to have forgotten that 
 everybody sings, or almost everybody. Think 
 of the insects, the bees and the crickets and 
 the locusts, to say nothing of your intimate 
 friends, the mosquitoes ! Think, too, of the frogs 
 
 3 
 
34 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 and the hylas ! If these cold-blooded, low-lived 
 creatures, after sleeping all winter in the mud, 1 
 are free to make so much use of their voices, 
 surely a bird of the air may sing his unobtrusive 
 song without being cross-examined concerning 
 the purpose of it. Why do the mice sing, and 
 the monkeys, and the woodchucks? Indeed, 
 sir, if one may be so bold, why do you sing, 
 yourself ? " 
 
 This matter - of - fact Darwinism need not 
 frighten us. It will do us no harm to remember, 
 now and then, " the hole of the pit whence we 
 were digged ; " and besides, as far as any rela- 
 tionship between us and the birds is concerned, 
 it is doubtful whether we are the party to com- 
 plain. 
 
 But avoiding " genealogies and contentions," 
 and taking up the question with which we be- 
 gan, we may safely say that birds sing, some- 
 times to gratify an innate love for sweet sounds ; 
 sometimes to win a mate, or to tell their love 
 to a mate already won ; sometimes as practice, 
 with a view to self-improvement ; and some- 
 times for no better reason than the poet's, "I 
 do but sing because I must." In general, they 
 
 1 There is no Historic-Genealogical Society among the birds, 
 and the robin is not aware that his own remote ancestors were rep- 
 tiles. If he were, he would hardly speak so disrespectfully o<f 
 these batrachians. 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 35 
 
 sing for joy ; and their joy, of course, has vari- 
 ous causes. 
 
 For one thing, they are very sensitive to the 
 weather. With them, as with us, sunlight and 
 a genial warmth go to produce serenity. A 
 bright summer-like day, late in October, or even 
 in November, will set the smaller birds to sing- 
 ing, and the grouse to drumming. I heard a 
 robin venturing a little song on the 25th of last 
 December ; but that, for aught I know, was a 
 Christmas carol. No matter what the season, 
 you will not hear a great deal of bird music dur- 
 ing a high wind ; and if you are caught in the 
 woods by a sudden shower in May or June, and 
 are not too much taken up with thoughts of 
 your own condition, you will hardly fail to no- 
 tice the instant silence which falls upon the 
 woods with the rain. Birds, however, are more 
 or less inconsistent (that is a part of their like- 
 ness to us), and sometimes sing most freely 
 when the sky is overcast. 
 
 But their highest joys are by no means de- 
 pendent upon the moods of the weather. A 
 comfortable state of mind is not to be contemned, 
 but beings who are capable of deep and passion- 
 ate affection recognize a difference between com- 
 fort and ecstasy. And the peculiar glory of 
 birds is just here, in the all-consuming fervor 
 of their love. It would be commonplace to call 
 
36 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 them models of conjugal and parental faithful- 
 ness. With a few exceptions (and these, it is a 
 pleasure to add, not singers), the very least of 
 them is literally faithful unto death. Here and 
 there, in the notes of some collector, we are told 
 of a difficulty he has had in securing a coveted 
 specimen : the tiny creature, whose mate had 
 been already "collected," would persist in hov- 
 ering so closely about the invader's head that it 
 was impossible to shoot him without spoiling 
 him. for the cabinet by blowing him to pieces ! 
 
 Need there be any mystery about the singing 
 of such a lover? Is it surprising if at times 
 he is so enraptured that he can no longer sit 
 tamely on the branch, but must dart into the 
 air, and go circling round and round, caroling 
 as he flies ? 
 
 So far as song is the voice of emotion, it will 
 of necessity vary with the emotion ; and every 
 one who has ears must have heard once in a 
 while bird music of quite unusual fervor. For 
 example, I have often seen the least flycatcher 
 (a very unroman tic-looking body, surely) when 
 he was almost beside himself ; flying in a circle, 
 and repeating breathlessly his emphatic chebec. 
 And once I found a wood pewee in a somewhat 
 similar mood. He was more quiet than the 
 least flycatcher ; but he too sang on the wing, 
 and I have never heard notes which seemed 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 37 
 
 more expressive of happiness. Many of them 
 were entirely new and strange, although the 
 familiar pewee was introduced among the rest. 
 As I listened, I felfc it to be an occasion for 
 thankfulness that the delighted creature had 
 never studied anatomy, and did not know that 
 the structure of his throat made it improper for 
 him to sing. In this connection, also, I recall 
 a cardinal grosbeak, whom I heard several 
 years ago, on the bank of the Potomac River. 
 An old soldier had taken me to visit the Great 
 Falls, and as we were clambering over the rocks 
 this grosbeak began to sing ; arid soon, without 
 any hint from me, and without knowing who 
 the invisible musician was, my companion re- 
 marked upon the uncommon beauty of the song. 
 The cardinal is always a great singer, having a 
 voice which, as European writers say, is almost 
 equal to the nightingale's ; but in this case the 
 more stirring, martial quality of the strain had 
 given place to an exquisite mellowness, as if it 
 were, what I have no doubt it was, a song of 
 love. 
 
 Every kind of bird has notes of its own, so that 
 a thoroughly practiced ear would be able to dis- 
 criminate the different species with nearly as 
 much certainty as Professor Baird would feel 
 after an examination of the anatomy and plum- 
 age. Still this strong specific resemblance is 
 
38 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 far from being a dead uniformity. Aside from 
 the fact, already mentioned, that the character- 
 istic strain is sometimes given with extraordi- 
 nary sweetness and emphasis, there are often to 
 be detected variations of a more formal charac- 
 ter. This is noticeably true of robins. It may 
 almost be said that no two of them sing alike ; 
 while now and then their vagaries are conspic- 
 uous enough to attract general attention. One 
 who was my neighbor last year interjected into 
 his song a series of four or five most exact imi- 
 tations of the peep of a chicken. When I first 
 heard this performance, I was in company with 
 two friends, both of whom noticed and laughed 
 at it ; and some days afterwards I visited the 
 spot again, and found the bird still rehearsing 
 the same ridiculous medley. I conjectured that 
 he had been brought up near a hen-coop, and, 
 moreover, had been so unfortunate as to lose 
 his father before his notes had become thor- 
 oughly fixed ; and then, being compelled to 
 finish his musical education by himself, had 
 taken a fancy to practice these chicken calls. 
 This guess may not have been correct. All I 
 can affirm is that he sang exactly as he might 
 have been expected to do, on that supposition ; 
 but certainly the resemblance seemed too close 
 to be accidental. 
 
 The variations of the wood thrush are fully 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 89 
 
 as striking as those of the robin, and sometimes 
 it is impossible not to feel that the artist is 
 making a deliberate effort to do something out 
 of the ordinary course, something better than 
 he has ever done before. Now and then he 
 prefaces his proper song with many discon- 
 nected, extremely staccato notes, following each 
 other at very distant and unexpected intervals 
 of pitch. It is this, I conclude, which is meant 
 by some writer (who it is I cannot now remem- 
 ber) when he criticises the wood thrush for 
 spending too much time in tuning his instru- 
 ment. But the fault is the critic's, I think ; to 
 my ear these preliminaries sound rather like 
 the recitative which goes before the grand aria. 
 
 Still another musician who delights to take 
 liberties with his score is the towhee bunting, 
 or chewink. Indeed, he carries the matter so 
 far that sometimes it seems almost as if he 
 suspected the proximity of some self-conceited 
 ornithologist, and were determined, if possible, 
 to make a fool of him. And for my part, being 
 neither self-conceited nor an ornithologist, I am 
 willing to confess that I have once or twice 
 been so badly deceived that now the mere sight 
 of this Pipilo is, so to speak, a means of grace 
 to me. 
 
 One more of these innovators (these heretics, 
 as they are most likely called by their more 
 
40 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 conservative brethren) is the field sparrow, bet- 
 ter known as Spizella pusilla. His usual song 
 consists of a simple line of notes, beginning lei- 
 surely, but growing shorter and more rapid to 
 the close. The voice is so smooth and sweet, 
 and the acceleration so well managed, that, al- 
 though the whole is commonly a strict mono- 
 tone, the effect is not in the least monotonous. 
 This song I once heard rendered in reverse or- 
 der, with a result so strange that I did not sus- 
 pect the identity of the author till I had crept 
 up within sight of him. Another of these spar- 
 rows, who has passed the last two seasons in 
 my neighborhood, habitually doubles the meas- 
 ure ; going through it in the usual way, and 
 then, just as you expect him to conclude, catch- 
 ing it up again, Da capo. 
 
 But birds like these are quite outdone by 
 such species as the song sparrow, the white- 
 eyed vireo, and the Western meadow-lark, 
 species of which we may say that each individ- 
 ual bird has a whole repertory of songs at his 
 command. The song sparrow, who is the best 
 known of the three, will repeat one melody 
 perhaps a dozen times, then change it for a 
 second, and in turn leave that for a third ; as if 
 he were singing hymns of twelve or fifteen 
 stanzas each, and set each hymn to its appro- 
 priate tune. It is something well worth listen- 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 41 
 
 ing to, common though it is, and may easily 
 suggest a number of questions about the origin 
 and meaning of bird music. 
 
 The white-eyed vireo is a singer of astonish- 
 ing spirit, and his sudden changes from one 
 theme to another are sometimes almost start- 
 ling. He is a skillful ventriloquist, also, and I 
 remember one in particular who outwitted me 
 completely. He was rehearsing a well-known 
 strain, but at the end there came up from the 
 bushes underneath a querulous call. At first I 
 took it for granted that some other bird was in 
 the underbrush ; but the note was repeated too 
 many times, and came in too exactly on the beat. 
 
 I have no personal acquaintance with the 
 Western meadow-lark, but no less than twenty- 
 six of his songs have been printed in musical 
 notation, arid these are said to be by no means 
 all. 1 
 
 Others of our birds have similar gifts, though 
 no others, so far as I know, are quite so versa- 
 tile as these three. Several of the warblers, 
 for example, have attained to more than one 
 set song, notwithstanding the deservedly small 
 reputation of this misnamed family. I have 
 myself heard the golden-crowned thrush, the 
 black-throated green warbler, the black-throated 
 
 i Mr. C. N. Allen, in Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological 
 Club, July, 1881. 
 
42 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 blue, the yellow-r limped, and the chestnut-sided, 
 sing two melodies each, while the blue golden- 
 winged has at least three ; and this, of course, 
 without making anything of slight variations 
 such as all birds are more or less accustomed to 
 indulge in. The best of the three songs of the 
 blue golden-wing I have never heard except on 
 one occasion, but then it was repeated for half 
 an hour under my very eyes. It bore no re- 
 semblance to the common dsee, dsee, dsee, of 
 the species, and would appear to be seldom 
 used ; for not only have I never heard it since, 
 but none of the writers seem ever to have 
 heard it at all. However, I still keep a careful 
 description of it, which I took down on the 
 spot, and which I expect some future golden- 
 wing to verify. 
 
 But the most celebrated of the warblers in 
 this regard is the golden-crowned thrush, other- 
 wise called the oven-bird and the wood wagtail. 
 His ordinary effort is one of the noisiest, least 
 melodious, and most incessant sounds to be 
 heard in our woods. His song is another mat- 
 ter. For that he takes to the air (usually start- 
 ing from a tree-top, although I have seen him 
 rise from the ground), whence, after a prelim- 
 inary chip, chip, he lets falls a hurried flood of 
 notes, in the midst of which can usually be dis- 
 tinguished his familiar weechee, weechee, wee- 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 43 
 
 chee. It is nothing wonderful that he should 
 sing on the wing, many other birds do the 
 same, and very much better than he ; but he is 
 singular in that he strictly reserves his aerial 
 music for late in the afternoon. I have heard 
 it as early as three o'clock, but never before 
 that, and it is most common about sunset. 
 Writers speak of it as limited to the season of 
 courtship ; but I have heard it almost daily till 
 near the end of July, and once, for my special 
 benefit, perhaps, it was given in full and re- 
 peated on the first day of September. But 
 who taught the little creature to do this, to 
 sing one song in the forenoon, perched upon a 
 twig, and to keep another for afternoon, sing- 
 ing that invariably on the wing ? and what dif- 
 ference is there between the two in the mind 
 of the singer ? l 
 
 It is an indiscretion ever to say of a bird 
 that he has only such and such notes. You 
 may have been his friend for years, but the 
 next time you go into the woods he will likely 
 enough put you to shame by singing something 
 not so much as hinted at in your description. 
 I thought I knew the song of the yellow-rumped 
 warbler, having listened to it many times, a 
 
 1 Since this paper was written I have three times heard the wood 
 wagtail's true song in the morning, but in neither case was the 
 bird in the air. See p, 284. 
 
44 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 slight and rather characterless thing, nowise 
 remarkable. But coming down Mount Willard 
 one day in June, I heard a warbler's song which 
 brought me to a sudden halt. It was new and 
 beautiful, more beautiful, it seemed at the 
 moment, than any warbler's song I had ever 
 heard. What could it be ? A little patient 
 waiting (while the black-flies and mosquitoes 
 " came upon me to eat up my flesh"), and the 
 wonderful stranger appeared in full view, my 
 old acquaintance, the yellow-rumped warbler. 
 
 With all this strong tendency on the part of 
 birds to vary their music, how is it that there 
 is still such a degree of uniformity, so that, as 
 we have said, every species may be recognized 
 by its notes ? Why does every red-eyed vireo 
 sing in one way, and every white-eyed vireo in 
 another ? Who teaches the young chipper to 
 trill, and the young linnet to warble ? In short, 
 how do birds come by their music ? Is it all a 
 matter of instinct, inherited habit, or do they 
 learn it ? The answer appears to be that birds 
 sing as children talk, by simple imitation. No- 
 body imagines that the infant is born with a 
 language printed upon his brain. The father 
 and mother may never have known a word of 
 any tongue except the English, but if the child 
 is brought up to hear only Chinese, he will 
 infallibly speak that, and nothing else. And 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 45 
 
 careful experiments have shown the same to be 
 true of birds. 1 Taken from the nest just after 
 they leave the shell, they invariably sing, not 
 their own so-called natural song, but the song 
 of their foster-parents; provided, of course, 
 that this is not anything beyond their physi- 
 cal capacity. The notorious house sparrow (our 
 " English " sparrow), in his wild or semi-domes- 
 ticated state, never makes a musical sound ; but 
 if he is taken in hand early enough, he may be 
 taught to sing, so it is said, nearly as well as 
 the canary. Bechstein relates that a Paris 
 clergyman had two of these sparrows whom he 
 had trained to speak, and, among other things, 
 to recite several of the shorter commandments ; 
 and the narrative goes on to say that it was 
 sometimes very comical, when the pair were 
 disputing over their food, to hear one gravely 
 admonish the other, " Thou shalt not steal ! " 
 It would be interesting to know why creatures 
 thus gifted do not sing of their own motion. 
 With their amiability and sweet peaceable- 
 ness they ought to be caroling the whole year 
 round. 
 
 This question of the transmission of songs 
 from one generation to another is, of course, a 
 
 1 See the paper of Daines Barrington in Philosophical Transac- 
 tions for 1773; also, Darwin's Descent of Man, and Wallace's 
 Natural Selection. 
 
46 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 part of the general subject of animal intelli- 
 gence, a subject much discussed in these days 
 on account of its bearing upon the modern doc- 
 trine concerning the relation of man to the in- 
 ferior orders. 
 
 We have nothing to do with such a theme, 
 but it may not be out of place to suggest to 
 preachers and moralists that here is a striking 
 and unhackneyed illustration of the force of 
 early training. Birds sing by imitation, it is 
 true, but as a rule they imitate only the notes 
 which they hear during the first few weeks 
 after they are hatched. One of Mr. Barring- 
 ton's linnets, for example, after being educated 
 under a titlark, was put into a room with two 
 birds of his own species, where he heard them 
 sing freely every day for three months. He 
 made no attempt to learn anything from them, 
 however, but kept on practicing what the tit- 
 lark had taught him, quite unconscious of any- 
 thing singular or unpatriotic in such a course. 
 This law, that impressions received during the 
 immaturity of the powers become the unalter- 
 able habit of the after life, is perhaps the most 
 momentous of all the laws in whose power we 
 find ourselves. Sometimes we are tempted to 
 call it cruel. But if it were annulled, this 
 would be a strange world. What a hurly- 
 hurly we should have among the birds ! There 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 47 
 
 would be no more telling them by their notes. 
 Thrushes and jays, wrens and chickadees, 
 finches and warblers, all would be singing one 
 grand medley. 
 
 Between these two opposing tendencies, one 
 urging to variation, the other to permanence 
 (for Nature herself is half radical, half con- 
 servative), the language of birds has grown 
 from rude beginnings to its present beautiful 
 diversity ; and whoever lives a century of mil- 
 lenniums hence will listen to music such as we 
 in this day can only dream of. Inappreciably 
 but ceaselessly the work goes on. Here and 
 there is born a master-singer, a feathered gen- 
 ius, and every generation makes its own addi- 
 tion to the glorious inheritance. 
 
 It may be doubted whether there is any real 
 connection between moral character and the 
 possession of wings. Nevertheless there has 
 long been a popular feeling that some such con- 
 gruity does exist ; and certainly it seems unrea- 
 sonable to suppose that creatures who are able 
 to soar at will into the heavens should be with- 
 out other equally angelic attributes. But, be 
 that as it may, our friends, the birds, do un- 
 deniably set us a good example in several re- 
 spects. To mention only one, how becoming is 
 their observance of morning and evening song ! 
 In spite of their industrious spirit (and few of 
 
48 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 us labor more hours daily), neither their first 
 nor their last thoughts are given to the ques- 
 tion, What shall we eat, and what shall we 
 drink? Possibly their habit of saluting the 
 rising and setting sun may be thought to favor 
 the theory that the worship of the god of day 
 was the original religion. I know nothing 
 about that. But it would be a sad change if 
 the birds, declining from their present beauti- 
 ful custom, were to sleep and work, work and 
 sleep, with no holy hour between, as is too 
 much the case with the being who, according 
 to his own pharisaic notion, is the only religious 
 animal. 
 
 In the season, however, the woods are by no 
 means silent, even at noonday. Many species 
 (such as the vireos and warblers, who get their 
 living amid the foliage of trees) sing as they 
 work ; while the thrushes and others, who keep 
 business and pleasure more distinct, are often 
 too happy to go many hours together without a 
 hymn. I have even seen robins singing without 
 quitting the turf ; but that is rather unusual, for 
 somehow birds have come to feel that they must 
 get away from the ground when the lyrical mood 
 is upon them. This may be a thing of sentiment 
 (for is not language full of uncomplimentary 
 allusions to earth and earthliness ?), but more 
 likely it is prudential. The gift of song is no 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 49 
 
 doubt a dangerous blessing to creatures who 
 have so many enemies, and we can readily be- 
 lieve that they have found it safer to be up 
 where they can look about them while thus 
 publishing their whereabouts. 
 
 A very interesting exception to this rule is 
 the savanna sparrow, who sings habitually from 
 the ground. But even he shares the common 
 feeling, and stretches himself to his full height 
 with an earnestness which is almost laugh- 
 able, in view of the result ; for his notes are 
 hardly louder than a cricket's chirp. Probably 
 he has fallen into this lowly habit from living 
 in meadows and salt marshes, where bushes 
 and trees are not readily to be come at ; and 
 it is worth noticing that, in the case of the 
 skylark and the white-winged blackbird, the 
 same conditions have led to a result precisely 
 opposite. The sparrow, we may presume, was 
 originally of a humble disposition, and when 
 nothing better offered itself for a singing-perch 
 easily grew accustomed to standing upon a 
 stone or a little lump of earth ; and this prac- 
 tice, long persisted in, naturally had the effect 
 to lessen the loudness of his voice. The sky- 
 lark, on the other hand, when he did not read- 
 ily find a tree-top, said to himself, " Never 
 mind ! I have a pair of wings." And so the 
 lark is famous, while the sparrow remains un- 
 
 4 
 
50 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 heard-of, and is even mistaken for a grasshop* 
 per. 
 
 How true it is that the very things which 
 dishearten one nature and break it down, only 
 help another to find out what it was made for ! 
 If you would foretell the development, either 
 of a bird or of a man, it is not enough to know 
 his environment, you must know also what 
 there is in him. 
 
 We have possibly made too much of the sa- 
 vanna sparrow's innocent eccentricity. He fills 
 his place, and fills it well ; and who knows but 
 that he may yet outshine the skylark ? There 
 is a promise, I believe, for those who humble 
 themselves. But what shall be said of species 
 which do not even try to sing, and that, not- 
 withstanding they have all the structural pecul- 
 iarities of singing birds, and must, almost cer- 
 tainly, have come from ancestors who were 
 singers? We have already mentioned the 
 house sparrow, whose defect is the more mys- 
 terious on account of his belonging to so highly 
 musical a family. But Tie was never accused of 
 not being noisy enough, while we have one 
 bird who, though be is classed with the oscines, 
 passes his life in almost unbroken silence. Of 
 course I refer to the waxwing, or cedar-bird, 
 whose faint, sibilant whisper can scarcely be 
 thought to contradict the foregoing description. 
 
BIRD-SONGS. 51 
 
 By what strange freak lie has lapsed into this 
 ghostly habit, nobody knows. I make no ac- 
 count of the insinuation that he gave up music 
 because it hindered his success in cherry-steal- 
 ing. He likes cherries, it is true ; and who can 
 blame him ? But he would need to work hard 
 to steal more than does that indefatigable song- 
 ster, the robin. I feel sure he has some better 
 reason than this for his Quakerish conduct. 
 But, however he came by his stillness, it is 
 likely that by this time he plumes himself upon 
 it. Silence is golden, he thinks, the supreme 
 result of the highest aesthetic culture. Those 
 loud creatures, the thrushes and finches ! What 
 a vulgar set they are, to be sure, the more 'a 
 the pity ! Certainly if he does not reason in 
 some such way, bird nature is not so human as 
 we have given it credit for being. Besides, 
 the waxwing has an uncommon appreciation 
 of the decorous ; at least, we must think so 
 if we are able to credit a story of Nuttall'a. 
 He declares that a Boston gentleman, whose 
 name he gives, saw one of a company of these 
 birds capture an insect, and offer it to his neigh- 
 bor ; he, however, delicately declined the dainty 
 bit, and it was offered to the next, who, in 
 turn, was equally polite ; and the morsel actu- 
 ally passed back and forth along the line, till, 
 finally, one of the flock was persuaded to eat it. 
 
52 BIRD-SONGS. 
 
 I have never seen anything equal to this ; but 
 one day, happening to stop under a low cedar, 
 I discovered right over my bead a waxwing's 
 nest with the mother-bird sitting upon it, while 
 her mate was perched beside her on the branch. 
 He was barely out of my reach, but he did not 
 move a muscle ; and although he uttered no 
 sound, his behavior said as plainly as possible, 
 "What do you expect to do here? Don't you 
 see Jam standing guard over this nest?" I 
 should be ashamed not to be able to add that I 
 respected his dignity and courage, and left him 
 and his castle unmolested. 
 
 Observations so discursive as these can hardly 
 be finished ; they must break off abruptly, or 
 else go on forever. Let us make an end, there- 
 fore, with expressing our hope that the cedar- 
 bird, already so handsome and chivalrous, will 
 yet take to himself a song ; one sweet and orig- 
 inal, worthy to go with his soft satin coat, his 
 ornaments of sealing-wax, and his magnificent 
 top-knot. Let him do that, and he shall al- 
 ways be made welcome ; yes, even though he 
 come in force and in cherry-time. 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 THE finger of God hath left an inscription upon all his works, 
 not graphical or composed of letters, but of their several forms, 
 constitutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly joined together, 
 do make one word that doth express their natures. By these let- 
 ters God calls the stars by their names ; and by this alphabet 
 Adam assigned to every creature a name peculiar to its nature. 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 IN this economically governed world the same 
 thing serves many uses. Who will take upon 
 himself to enumerate the offices of sunlight, or 
 water, or indeed of any object whatever ? Be- 
 cause we know it to be good for this or that, it 
 by no means follows that we have discovered 
 what it was made for. What we have found 
 out is perhaps only something by the way ; as 
 if a man should think the sun were created for 
 his own private convenience. In some moods 
 it seems doubtful whether we are yet acquainted 
 with the real value of anything. But, be that 
 as it may, we need not scruple to admire so 
 much as our ignorance permits us to see of the 
 workings of this divine frugality. The piece of 
 woodland, for instance, which skirts the village, 
 how various are its ministries to the inhab- 
 itants, each of whom, without forethought or 
 question, takes the benefit proper to himself ! 
 The poet saunters there as in a true Holy Land, 
 to have his heart cooled and stilled. Mr. A. 
 
56 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 and Mr. B., who hold the deeds of the " prop- 
 erty," walk through it to look at the timber, 
 with an eye to dollars and cents. The botanist 
 has his errand there, the zoologist his, and the 
 child his. Oftenest of all, perhaps (for barba- 
 rism dies hard, and even yet the ministers of 
 Christ find it a capital sport to murder small 
 fishes), oftenest of all comes the man, poor 
 soul, who thinks of the forest as of a place to 
 which he may go when he wishes to amuse him- 
 self by killing something. Meanwhile, the rab- 
 bits and the squirrels, the hawks and the owls, 
 look upon all such persons as no better than in- 
 truders (do not the woods belong to those who 
 live in them ?) ; while nobody remembers the 
 meteorologist, who nevertheless smiles in his 
 sleeve at all these one-sided notions, and says to 
 himself that he knows the truth of the matter. 
 
 So is it with everything; and with all the 
 rest, so is it with the birds. The interest they 
 excite is of all grades, from that which looks 
 upon them as items of millinery, up to that of 
 the makers of ornithological systems, who ran- 
 sack the world for specimens, and who have no 
 doubt that the chief end of a bird is to be named 
 and catalogued, the more synonyms the bet- 
 ter. Somewhere between these two extremes 
 comes the person whose interest in birds is 
 friendly rather than scientific ; who has little 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 57 
 
 taste for shooting, and an aversion from dissect- 
 ing; who delights in the living creatures them- 
 selves, and counts a bird in the bush worth two 
 in the hand. Such a person, if he is intelligent, 
 makes good use of the best works on ornithol- 
 ogy ; he would not know how to get along with- 
 out them ; but he studies most the birds them- 
 selves, and after a while he begins to associate 
 them on a plan of his own. Not that he dis- 
 trusts the approximate correctness of the re- 
 ceived classification, or ceases to find it of daily 
 service ; but though it were as accurate as the 
 multiplication table, it is based (and rightly, no 
 doubt) on anatomical structure alone ; it rates 
 birds as bodies, and nothing else : while to the 
 person of whom we are speaking birds are, first 
 of all, souls ; his interest in them is, as we say, 
 personal ; and we are none of us in the habit of 
 grouping our friends according to height, or 
 complexion, or any other physical peculiarity. 
 
 But it is not proposed in this paper to attempt 
 a new classification of any sort, even the most 
 unscientific and fanciful. All I am to do is to 
 set down at random a few studies in such a 
 method as I have indicated ; in short, a few 
 studies in the temperaments of birds. Nor, in 
 making this attempt, am I unmindful how elu- 
 sive of analysis traits of character are, and how 
 diverse is the impression which the same per- 
 
58 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 sonality produces upon different observers. In 
 matters of this kind every judgment is largely 
 a question of emphasis and proportion ; and, 
 moreover, what we find in our friends depends 
 in great part on what we have in ourselves. 
 This I do not forget ; and therefore I foresee 
 that others will discover in the birds of whom I 
 write many things that I miss, and perhaps will 
 miss some things which I have treated as patent 
 or even conspicuous. It remains only for each 
 to testify what he has seen, and at the end to 
 confess that a soul, even the soul of a bird, is 
 after all a mystery. 
 
 Let our first example, then, be the common 
 black-capped titmouse, or chickadee. He is, par 
 excellence, the bird of the merry heart. There 
 is a notion current, to be sure, that all birds are 
 merry ; but that is one of those second-hand 
 opinions which a man who begins to observe for 
 himself soon finds it necessary to give up. 
 With many birds life is a hard struggle. Ene- 
 mies are numerous, and the food supply is too 
 often scanty. Of some species it is probable 
 that very few die in their beds. But the chick- 
 adee seems to be exempt from all forebodings. 
 His coat is thick, his heart is brave, anil, what- 
 ever may happen, something will be found to 
 eat. " Take no thought for the morrow " is his 
 creed, which he accepts, not " for substance of 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 59 
 
 doctrine," but literally. No matter how bitter 
 the wind or how deep the snow, you will never 
 find the chickadee, as the saying is, under the 
 weather. It is this perennial good humor, I sup- 
 pose, which makes other birds so fond of his 
 companionship ; and their example might well 
 be heeded by persons who suffer from fits of de- 
 pression. Such unfortunates could hardly do 
 better than to court the society of the joyous tit. 
 His whistles and chirps, his graceful feats of 
 climbing and hanging, and withal his engaging 
 familiarity (for, of course, such good-nature as 
 his could not consist with suspiciousness) would 
 most likely send them home in a more Christian 
 mood. The time will come, we may hope, 
 when doctors will prescribe bird-gazing instead 
 of blue-pill. 
 
 To illustrate the chickadee's trustfulness, I 
 may mention that a friend of mine captured one 
 in a butterfly-net, and, carrying him into the 
 house, let him loose in the sitting-room. The 
 little stranger was at home immediately, and 
 seeing the window full of plants, proceeded to 
 go over them carefully, picking off the lice with 
 which such window-gardens are always more or 
 less infested. A little later he was taken into 
 my friend's lap, and soon he climbed up to his 
 shoulder ; where, after hopping about for a few 
 minutes on his coat-collar, he selected a com- 
 
60 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 fortable roosting place, tucked his head under 
 his wing, and went to sleep, and slept on un- 
 disturbed while carried from one room to an- 
 other. Probably the chickadee's nature is not 
 of the deepest. I have never seen him when 
 his joy rose to ecstasy. Still his feelings are not 
 shallow, and the faithfulness of the pair to each 
 other and to their offspring is of the highest 
 order. The female has sometimes to be taken 
 off the nest, and even to be held in the hand, 
 before the eggs can be examined. 
 
 Our American goldfinch is one of the loveliest 
 of birds. With his elegant plumage, his rhyth- 
 mical, undulatory flight, his beautiful song, and 
 his more beautiful soul, he ought to be one of 
 the best beloved, if not one of the most famous ; 
 but he has never yet had half his deserts. He 
 is like the chickadee, and yet different. He is 
 not so extremely confiding, nor should I call him 
 merry. But he is always cheerful, in spite of 
 his so-called plaintive note, from which he gets 
 one of his names, and always amiable. So far 
 as I know, he never utters a harsh sound ; even 
 the young ones, asking for food, use only smooth, 
 musical tones. During the pairing season his 
 delight often becomes rapturous. To see him 
 then, hovering and singing, or, better still, to 
 see the devoted pair hovering together, billing 
 and singing, is enough to do even a cynic good. 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 61 
 
 The happy lovers ! They have never read it in 
 a book, but it is written on their hearts, 
 
 " The gentle law, that each should be 
 The other's heaven and harmony." 
 
 The goldfinch has the advantage of the titmouse 
 in several respects, but he lacks that spright- 
 liness, that exceeding light-heartedness, which 
 is the chickadee's most endearing characteristic. 
 For the sake of a strong contrast, we may 
 look next at the brown thrush, known to farm- 
 ers as the planting-bird and to ornithologists 
 as HarporTiynchus rufus ; a staid and solemn 
 Puritan, whose creed is the Preacher's, " Van- 
 ity of vanities, all is vanity." No frivolity and 
 merry-making for him ! After his brief annual 
 period of intensely passionate song, he does pen- 
 ance for the remainder of the year, skulking 
 about, on the ground or near it, silent and 
 gloomy. He seems ever on the watch against 
 an enemy, and, unfortunately for his comfort, he 
 has nothing of the reckless, bandit spirit, such 
 as the jay possesses, which goes to make a mod- 
 erate degree of danger almost a pastime. Not 
 that he is without courage ; when his nest is in 
 question he will take great risks ; but in general 
 his manner is dispirited, " sicklied o'er with the 
 pale cast of thought." Evidently he feels 
 
 " The heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world; " 
 
62 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 and it would not be surprising if he sometimes 
 raised the question, " Is life worth living? " It 
 is the worst feature of his case that his melan- 
 choly is not of the sort which softens and re- 
 fines the nature. There is no suggestion of 
 saintliness about it. In fact, I am convinced 
 that this long-tailed thrush has a constitutional 
 taint of vulgarity. His stealthy, underhand 
 manner is one mark of this, and the same thing 
 comes out again in his music. Full of passion 
 as his singing is (and we have hardly anything 
 to compare with it in this regard), yet the lis- 
 tener cannot help smiling now and then ; the 
 very finest passage is followed so suddenly by 
 some uncouth guttural note, or by some whim- 
 sical drop from the top to the bottom of the 
 scale. 
 
 In neighborly association with the brown 
 thrush is the towhee bunting, or chewink. The 
 two choose the same places for their summer 
 homes, and, unless I am deceived, they often 
 migrate in company. But though they are so 
 much together, and in certain of their ways 
 very much alike, their habits of mind are widely 
 dissimilar. The towhee is of a peculiarly even 
 disposition. I have seldom heard him scold, or 
 use any note less good-natured and musical than 
 his pleasant cherawink. I have never detected 
 him in a quarrel such as nearly all birds are 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 63 
 
 once in a while guilty of, ungracious as it may 
 seem to mention the fact ; nor have I ever seen 
 him hopping nervously about and twitching his 
 tail, as is the manner of most species, when, for 
 instance, their nests are approached. Nothing 
 seems to annoy him. At the same time, he is 
 not full of continual merriment like the chicka- 
 dee, nor occasionally in a rapture like the gold- 
 finch. Life with him is pitched in a low key ; 
 comfortable rather than cheerful, and never 
 jubilant. And yet, for all the towhee's careless 
 demeanor, you soon begin to suspect him of 
 being deep. He appears not to mind you ; he 
 keeps on scratching among the dry leaves as if 
 he had no thought of being driven away by 
 your presence ; but in a minute or two you look 
 that way again, and he is not there. If you 
 pass near his nest, he makes not a tenth part of 
 the ado which a brown thrush would make in 
 the same circumstances, but (partly for this 
 reason) you will find half a dozen nests of the 
 thrush sooner than one of his. With all his 
 simplicity and frankness, which puts him in 
 happy contrast with the thrush, lie knows as 
 well as anybody how to keep his own counsel. 
 I have seen him with his mate for two or three 
 days together about the flower-beds in the Bos- 
 ton Public Garden, and so far as appeared they 
 were feeding as unconcernedly as though they 
 
64 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 had been on their own native heath, amid the 
 scrub-oaks and huckleberry bushes ; but after 
 their departure it was remembered that they 
 had not once been heard to utter a sound. If 
 self-possession be four fifths of good manners, 
 our red-eyed Pipilo may certainly pass for a 
 gentleman. 
 
 We have now named four birds, the chickadee, 
 the goldfinch, the brown thrush, and the to- 
 whee, birds so diverse in plumage that no 
 eye could fail to discriminate them at a glance. 
 But the four differ no more truly in bodily shape 
 and dress than they do in that inscrutable some- 
 thing which we call temperament, disposition. 
 If the soul of each were separated from the body 
 and made to stand out in sight, those of us who 
 have really known the birds in the flesh would 
 have no difficulty in saying, This is the titmouse, 
 and this the towhee. It would be with them as 
 we hope it will be with our friends in the next 
 world, whom we shall recognize there because 
 we knew them here ; that is, we knew them, 
 and not merely the bodies they lived in. This 
 kind of familiarity with birds has no necessary 
 connection with ornithology. Personal inti- 
 macy and a knowledge of anatomy are still two 
 different things. As we have all heard, ours 
 is an age of science ; but, thank fortune, mat- 
 ters have not yet gone so far that a man must 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 65 
 
 take a course in anthropology before he can 
 love his neighbor. 
 
 It is a truth only too patent that taste and 
 conscience are sometimes at odds. One man 
 wears his faults so gracefully that we can hardly 
 help falling in love with them, while another, 
 alas, makes even virtue itself repulsive. I am 
 moved to this commonplace reflection by think- 
 ing of. the blue jay, a bird of doubtful character, 
 but one for whom, nevertheless, it is impossible 
 not to feel a sort of affection and even of re- 
 spect. He is quite as suspicious as the brown 
 thrush, and his instinct for an invisible perch is 
 perhaps as unerring as the cuckoo's ; and yet, 
 even when he takes to hiding, his manner is 
 not without a dash of boldness. He has a most 
 irascible temper, also, but, unlike the thrasher, 
 he does not allow his ill-humor to degenerate 
 into chronic sulkiness. Instead, he flies into a 
 furious passion, and is done with it. Some say 
 that on such occasions he swears, and I have 
 myself seen him when it was plain that nothing 
 except a natural impossibility kept him from 
 tearing his hair. His larynx would make him 
 a singer, and his mental capacity is far above 
 the average ; but he has perverted his gifts, till 
 his music is nothing but noise and his talent 
 nothing but smartness. A like process of dep- 
 ravation the world has before now witnessed in 
 
 5 
 
66 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 political life, when a man of brilliant natural 
 endowments has yielded to low ambitions and 
 stooped to unworthy means, till what was 
 meant to be a statesman turns out to be a dem- 
 agogue. But perhaps we wrong our handsome 
 friend, fallen angel though he be, to speak thus 
 of him. Most likely he would resent the com- 
 parison, and I do not press it. We must admit 
 that juvenile sportsmen have persecuted him 
 unduly ; and when a creature cannot show him- 
 self without being shot at, he may be pardoned 
 for a little misanthropy. Christians as we are, 
 how many of us could stand such a test ? In 
 these circumstances, it is a point in the jay's 
 favor that he still has, what is rare with birds, 
 a sense of humor, albeit it is humor of a rather 
 grim sort, the sort which expends itself in 
 practical jokes and uncivil epithets. He has 
 discovered the school-boy's secret : that for the 
 expression of unadulterated derision there is 
 nothing like the short sound of a, prolonged 
 into a drawl. Yah, yah, he cries ; and some- 
 times, as you enter the woods, you may hear 
 him shouting so as to be heard for half a mile, 
 " Here comes a fool with a gun ; look out for 
 him I " 
 
 It is natural to think of the shrike in connec- 
 tion with the jay, but the two have points of 
 unlikeness no less than of resemblance. The 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 67 
 
 shrike is a taciturn bird. If he were a politi- 
 cian, he would rely chiefly on what is known 
 as the " still hunt," although he too can scream 
 loudly enough on occasion. His most salient 
 trait is his impudence, but even that is of a 
 negative type. " Who are you," he says, 
 " that I should be at the trouble to insult 
 you ? " He has made a study of the value of 
 silence as an indication of contempt, and is al- 
 most human in his ability to stare straight by 
 a person whose presence it suits him to ignore. 
 His imperturbability is wonderful. Watch 
 him as closely as you please, you will never 
 discover what he is thinking about. Under- 
 take, for instance, now that the fellow is sing- 
 ing from the top of a small tree only a few rods 
 from where you are standing, undertake to 
 settle the long dispute whether his notes are 
 designed to decoy small birds within his reach. 
 Those whistles and twitters, hear them ! So 
 miscellaneous ! so different from anything which 
 would be expected from a bird of his size and 
 general disposition ! so very like the notes of 
 sparrows ! They must be imitative. You be- 
 gin to feel quite sure of it. But just at this 
 point the sounds cease, and you look up to dis- 
 cover that Collurio has fallen to preening his 
 feathers in the most listless manner imaginable. 
 " Look at me," he says ; " do I act like one on 
 
68 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 the watch for his prey ? Indeed, sir, I wish 
 the innocent sparrows no harm ; and besides, 
 if you must know it, I ate an excellent game- 
 breakfast two hours ago, while laggards like 
 you were still abed." In the winter, which is 
 the only season when I have been able to ob- 
 serve him, the shrike is to the last degree un- 
 social, and I have known him to stay for a 
 month in one spot all by himself, spending a 
 good part of every day perched upon a tele- 
 graph wire. He ought not to be very happy, 
 with such a disposition, one would think ; but 
 he seems to be well contented, and sometimes 
 his spirits are fairly exuberant. Perhaps, as 
 the phrase is, he enjoys himself; in which case 
 he certainly has the advantage of most of us, 
 unless, indeed, we are easily pleased. At 
 any rate, he is philosopher enough to appreci- 
 ate the value of having few wants ; and I am 
 not sure but that he anticipated the vaunted 
 discovery of Teufelsdrockh, that the fraction of 
 life may be increased by lessening the denomi- 
 nator. But even the stoical shrike is not with- 
 out his epicurean weakness. When he has 
 killed a sparrow, he eats the brains first ; after 
 that, if he is still hungry, he devours the coarser 
 and less savory parts. In this, however, he 
 only shares the well-nigh universal inconsis- 
 tency. There are never many thorough-going 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 69 
 
 stoics in the world. Epictetus declared with an 
 oath that he should be glad to see one. 1 To 
 take everything as equally good, to know no 
 difference between bitter and sweet, penury and 
 plenty, slander and praise, this is a great 
 attainment, a Nirvana to which few can hope 
 to arrive. Some wise man has said (and the 
 remark has more meaning than may at once 
 appear) that dying is usually one of the last 
 things which men do in this world. 
 
 Against the foil of the butcher-bird's stolid- 
 ity we may set the inquisitive, garrulous tem- 
 perament of the white-eyed vireo and the yel- 
 low-breasted chat. The vireo is hardly larger 
 than the goldfinch, but let him be in one of his 
 conversational moods, and he will fill a smilax 
 thicket with noise enough for two or three cat- 
 birds. Meanwhile he keeps his eye upon you, 
 and seems to be inviting your attention to his 
 loquacious abilities. The chat is perhaps even 
 more voluble. Staccato whistles and snarls 
 follow each other at most extraordinary inter- 
 vals of pitch, and the attempt at showing off is 
 sometimes unmistakable. Occasionally he takes 
 to the air, and flies from one tree to another; 
 teetering his body and jerking his tail, in an 
 
 l This does not harmonize exactly with a statement which Em- 
 erson makes somewhere, to the effect that all the stoics were stoics 
 indeed. But Epictetus had never lived in Concord. 
 
70 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 indescribable fashion, and chattering all the 
 while. His " inner consciousness " at such a 
 moment would be worth perusing. Possibly 
 he has some feeling for the grotesque. But I 
 suspect not ; probably what we laugh at as the 
 antics of a clown is all sober earnest to him. 
 
 At best, it is very little we can know about 
 what is passing in a bird's mind. We label 
 him with two or three sesguipedalia verba, give 
 his territorial range, describe his notes and his 
 habits of nidification, and fancy we have ren- 
 dered an account of the bird. But how should 
 we like to be inventoried in such a style ? 
 " His name was John Smith ; he lived in Bos- 
 ton, in a three-story brick house ; he had a bar- 
 itone voice, but was not a good singer." All 
 true enough ; but do you call that a man's bi- 
 ography ? 
 
 The four birds last spoken of are all wanting 
 in refinement. The jay and the shrike are 
 wild and rough, not to say barbarous, while the 
 white-eyed vireo and the chat have the charac- 
 ter which commonly goes by the name of od- 
 dity. All four are interesting for their strong 
 individuality and their picturesqueness, but it 
 is a pleasure to turn from them to creatures 
 like our four common New England Hylocich- 
 Ice, or small thrushes. These are the real pa- 
 tricians. With their modest but rich dress, 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 71 
 
 and their dignified, quiet demeanor, they stand 
 for the true aristocratic spirit. Like all genu- 
 ine aristocrats, they carry an air of distinction, 
 of which no one who approaches them can long 
 remain unconscious. When you go into their 
 haunts they do not appear so much frightened 
 as offended. "Why do you intrude?" they 
 seem to say ; " these are our woods ; " and they 
 bow you out with all ceremony. Their songs 
 are in keeping with this character; leisurely, 
 unambitious, and brief, but in beauty of voice 
 and in high musical quality excelling all other 
 music of the woods. However, I would not 
 exaggerate, and I have not found even these 
 thrushes perfect. The hermit, who is my fa- 
 vorite of the four, has a habit of slowly raising 
 and depressing his tail when his mind is dis- 
 turbed a trick of which it is likely he is un- 
 conscious, but which, to say the least, is not a 
 mark of good breeding ; and the Wilson, while 
 every note of his song breathes of spirituality, 
 has nevertheless a most vulgar alarm call, a 
 petulant, nasal, one-syllabled yeork. I do not 
 know anything so grave against the wood 
 thrush or the Swainson ; although when I have 
 fooled the former with decoy whistles, I have 
 found him more inquisitive than seemed alto- 
 gether becoming to a bird of his quality. But 
 character without flaw is hardly to be insisted 
 
72 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 on by sons of Adam, and, after all deductions 
 are made, the claim of the HylocicTilce to noble 
 blood can never be seriously disputed. I have 
 spoken of the four together, but each is clearly 
 distinguished from all the others ; and this I 
 believe to be as true of mental traits as it is of 
 details of plumage and song. No doubt, in 
 general, they are much alike ; we may say that 
 they have the same qualities ; but a close ac- 
 quaintance will reveal that the qualities have 
 been mixed in different proportions, so that the 
 total result in each case is a personality strictly 
 unique. 
 
 And what is true of the Hylocichlce is true 
 of every bird that flies. Anatomy and dress 
 and even voice aside, who does not feel the dis- 
 similarity between the cat-bird and the robin, 
 and still more the difference, amounting to con- 
 trast, between the cat-bird and the bluebird ? 
 Distinctions of color and form are what first 
 strike the eye, but on better acquaintance these 
 are felt to be superficial and comparatively un- 
 important ; the difference is not one of outside 
 appearance. It is his gentle, high-bred manner 
 and not his azure coat, which makes the blue- 
 bird ; and the cat-bird would be a cat-bird in 
 no matter what garb, so long as he retained his 
 obtrusive self-consciousness and his prying, 
 busy-body spirit ; all of which, being inter- 
 
CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 73 
 
 preted, comes, it may be, to no more than this, 
 " Fine feathers don't make fine birds." 
 
 Even in families containing many closely 
 allied species, I believe that every species has 
 its own proper character, which sufficient inter- 
 course would enable us to make a due report 
 of. Nobody ever saw a song-sparrow manifest- 
 ing the spirit of a chipper, and I trust it will not 
 be in my day that any of our American spar- 
 rows are found emulating the virtues of their 
 obstreperous immigrant cousin. Of course it is 
 true of birds, as of men, that some have much 
 more individuality than others. But know any 
 bird or any man well enough, and he will prove 
 to be himself, and nobody else. To know the 
 ten thousand birds of the world well enough to 
 see how, in bodily structure, habit of life, and 
 mental characteristics, every one is different 
 from every other is the long and delightful task 
 which is set before the ornithologist. 
 
 But this is not all. The ornithology of the 
 future must be ready to give an answer to the 
 further question how these divergences of anat- 
 omy and temperament originated. How came 
 the chickadee by his endless fund of happy 
 spirits ? Whence did the towhee derive his 
 equanimity, and the brown thrush his saturnine 
 temper ? The waxwing and the vireo have the 
 same vocal organs ; why should the first do 
 
74 CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 
 
 nothing but whisper, while the second is so 
 loud and voluble ? Why is one bird belligerent 
 and another peaceable ; one barbarous and an- 
 other civilized ; one grave and another gay ? 
 Who can tell ? We can make here and there a 
 plausible conjecture. We know that the be- 
 havior of the blue jay varies greatly in different 
 parts of the country, in consequence of the dif- 
 ferent treatment which he receives. We judge 
 that the chickadee, from the peculiarity of his 
 feeding habits, is more certain than most birds 
 are of finding a meal whenever he is hungry ; 
 and that, we are assured from experience, goes 
 a long way toward making a body contented. 
 We think it likely that the brown thrush is at 
 some special disadvantage in this respect, or has 
 some peculiar enemies warring upon him ; in 
 which case it is no more than we might expect 
 that he should be a pessimist. And, with all 
 our ignorance, we are yet sure that everything 
 has a cause, and we would fain hold by the 
 brave word of Emerson, " Undoubtedly we 
 have no questions to ask which are unanswer- 
 able." 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Our music 's in the hills. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 IT was early in June when I set out for my 
 third visit to the White Mountains, and the 
 ticket-seller and the baggage-master in turn as- 
 sured me that the Crawford House, which I 
 named as my destination, was not yet open. 
 They spoke, too, in the tone which men use 
 when they mention something which, but for 
 uncommon stupidity, you would have known 
 beforehand. The kindly sarcasm missed its 
 mark, however. I was aware that the hotel 
 was not yet ready for the "general public." 
 But I said to myself that, for once at least, I 
 was not to be included in that unfashionably 
 promiscuous company. The vulgar crowd must 
 wait, of course. For the present the mountains, 
 in reporters' language, were " on private view ; " 
 and despite the ignorance of railway officials, I 
 was one of the elect. In plainer phrase, I had 
 in my pocket a letter from the manager of the 
 famous inn before mentioned, in which he prom- 
 ised to do what he could for my entertainment, 
 
78 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 even though he was not yet, as he said, keeping 
 a hotel. 
 
 Possibly I made too much of a small matter ; 
 but it pleased me to feel that this visit of mine 
 was to be of a peculiarly intimate character, 
 almost, indeed, as if Mount Washington him- 
 self had bidden me to private audience. 
 
 Compelled to wait three or four hours in 
 North Conway, I improved the opportunity to 
 stroll once more down into the lovely Saco 
 meadows, whose " green felicity " was just now 
 at its height. Here, perched upon a fence-rail, 
 in the shadow of an elm, I gazed at the snow- 
 crowned Mount Washington range, while the 
 bobolinks and savanna sparrows made music on 
 every side. The song of the bobolinks dropped 
 from above, and the microphonic tune of the 
 sparrows came up from the grass, sky and 
 earth keeping holiday together. Almost I 
 could have believed myself in Eden. But, 
 alas, even the birds themselves were long since 
 shut out of that garden of innocence, and as I 
 started back toward the village a crow went 
 hurrying past me, with a kingbird in hot pur- 
 suit. The latter was more fortunate than us- 
 ual, or more plucky ; actually alighting on the 
 crow's back and riding for some distance. I 
 could not distinguish his motions, he was too 
 far away for that, but I wished him joy of 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 79 
 
 his victory, and grace to improve it to the full. 
 For it is scandalous that a bird of the crow's 
 cloth should be a thief ; and so, although I 
 reckon him among my friends, in truth, be- 
 cause I do so, I am always able to take it 
 patiently when I see him chastised for his fault. 
 Imperfect as we all know each other to be, it is 
 a comfort to feel that few of us are so alto- 
 gether bad as not to take more or less pleasure 
 in seeing a neighbor's character improved un- 
 der a course of moderately painful discipline. 
 
 At Bartlett word came that the passenger 
 car would go no further, but that a freight 
 train would soon start, on which, if I chose, I 
 could continue my journey. Accordingly, I 
 rode up through the Notch on a platform car, 
 a mode of conveyance which I can heartily 
 and in all good conscience recommend. There 
 is no crowd of exclaiming tourists, the train of 
 necessity moves slowly, and the open platform 
 offers no obstruction to the view. For a time 
 I had a seat, which after a little two strangers 
 ventured to occupy with me ; for " it 's an ill 
 wind that blows nobody good,'' and there hap- 
 pened to be on the car one piece of baggage, 
 a coffin, inclosed in a pine box. Our sitting 
 upon it could not harm either it or us ; nor did 
 we mean any disrespect to the man, whoever 
 he might be, whose body was to be buried in it. 
 
80 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Judging the dead charitably, as in duty bound, 
 I had no doubt he would have been glad if he 
 could have seen his " narrow house " put to 
 such a use. So we made ourselves comfortable 
 with it, until, at an invisible station, it was 
 taken off. Then we were obliged to stand, or 
 to retreat into a miserable small box-car behind 
 us. The platform would lurch a little now and 
 then, and I, for one, was not experienced as a 
 "train hand ; " but we all kept our places till 
 the Frankenstein trestle was reached. Here, 
 where for five hundred feet we could look down 
 upon the jagged rocks eighty feet below us, 
 one of the trio suddenly had an errand into the 
 box-car aforesaid, leaving the platform to the 
 other stranger and me. All in all, the ride 
 through the Notch had never before been so 
 enjoyable, I thought; and late in the evening 
 I found myself once again at the Crawford 
 House, and in one of the best rooms, as well 
 enough I might be, being the only guest in the 
 house. 
 
 The next morning, before it was really light, 
 I was lying awake looking at Mount Webster, 
 while through the open window came the loud, 
 cheery song of the white-throated sparrows. 
 The hospitable creatures seemed to be inviting 
 me to come at once into their woods ; but I 
 knew only too well that, if the invitation were 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 81 
 
 accepted, they would every one of them take 
 to hiding like bashful children. 
 
 The white-throat is one of the birds for 
 whom I cherish a special liking. On my first 
 trip to the mountains I jumped off the train for 
 a moment at Bartlett, and had hardly touched 
 the ground before I heard his familiar call. 
 Here, then, was Mr. Peabody at home. Season 
 after season he had camped near me in Massa- 
 chusetts, and many a time I had been gladdened 
 by his lively serenade ; now he greeted me from 
 his own native woods. So far as my observa- 
 tions have gone, he is common throughout the 
 mountain region ; and that in spite of the 
 standard guide-book, which puts him down as 
 patronizing the Glen House almost exclusively. 
 He knows the routes too well to need any guide, 
 however, and may be excused for his ignorance 
 of the official programme. It is wonderful how 
 shy he is, the more wonderful, because, dur- 
 ing his migrations, his manner is so very differ- 
 ent. Then, even in a city park you may watch 
 him at your leisure, while his loud, clear whis- 
 tle is often to be heard rising above a din of 
 horse-cars and heavy wagons. But here, in his 
 summer quarters, you will listen to his song a 
 hundred times before you once catch a glimpse 
 of the singer. At first thought it seems strange 
 that a bird should be most at home when he is 
 
 6 
 
82 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 away from home ; but in the one case he has 
 nothing but his own safety to consult, while in 
 the other he is thinking of those whose lives 
 are more to him than his own, and whose hid- 
 ing-place he is every moment on the alert to 
 conceal. 
 
 In Massachusetts we do not expect to find 
 sparrows in deep woods. They belong in fields 
 and pastures, in roadside thickets, or by fence- 
 rows and old stone-walls bordered with bar- 
 berry bushes and alders. But these white- 
 throats are children of the wilderness. It is 
 one charm of their music that it always comes, 
 or seems to come, from such a distance, from 
 far up the mountain-side, or from the inaccessi- 
 ble depths of some ravine. I shall not soon for- 
 get its wild beauty as it rose out of the spruce 
 forests below me, while I was enjoying an 
 evening promenade, all by myself, over the 
 long, flat summit of Moosilauke. From his 
 habit of singing late at night this sparrow is in 
 some places known as the nightingale. His 
 more common name is the Peabody bird ; while 
 a Jefferson man, who was driving me over the 
 Cherry Mountain road, called him the Peverly 
 bird, and told me the following story : 
 
 A farmer named Peverly was walking about 
 his fields one spring morning, trying to make 
 up his mind whether the time had come to put 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 83 
 
 in his wheat. The question was important, 
 and he was still in a deep quandary, when a 
 bird spoke up out of the wood and said, " Sow 
 wheat, Peverly, Peverly, Peverly ! Sow wheat, 
 Peverly, Peverly, Peverly ! " That settled the 
 matter. The wheat was sown, and in the fall 
 a most abundant harvest was gathered ; and 
 ever since then this little feathered oracle has 
 been known as the Peverly bird. 
 
 We have improved on the custom of the an- 
 cients : they examined a bird's entrails ; we lis- 
 ten to his song. Who says the Yankee is not 
 wiser than the Greek ? 
 
 But I was lying abed in the Crawford House 
 when the voice of Zonotrichia albicollis sent 
 my thoughts thus astray, from Moosilauke to 
 Delphi. That day and the two following were 
 passed in roaming about the woods near the 
 hotel. The pretty painted trillium was in blos- 
 som, as was also the dark purple species, and 
 the hobble-bush showed its broad white cymes 
 in all directions. Here and there was the mod- 
 est little spring beauty (Claytonia Carolini- 
 ana), and not far from the Elephant's Head I 
 discovered my first and only patch of dicentra, 
 with its delicate dissected leaves and its oddly 
 shaped petals of white and pale yellow. The 
 false mitrewort (Tiardla cordifolia) was in 
 flower likewise, and the spur which is cut off 
 
84 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Mount Willard by the railroad was all aglow 
 with rhodora, a perfect flower-garden, on the 
 monochromatic plan now so much in vogue. 
 Along the edge of the rocks on the summit of 
 Mount Willard a great profusion of the com- 
 mon saxifrage was waving in the fresh breeze : 
 
 " Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
 Tossing their heads in sprightly dance." 
 
 On the lower parts of the mountains, the foli- 
 age was already well out, while the upper parts 
 were of a fine purplish tint, which at first I 
 was unable to account for, but which I soon 
 discovered to be due to the fact that the trees 
 at that height were still only in bud. 
 
 A notable feature of the White Mountain 
 forests is the absence of oaks and hickories. 
 These tough, hard woods would seem to have 
 been created on purpose to stand against wind 
 and cold. But no ; the hills are covered with 
 the fragile poplars and birches and spruces, 
 with never an oak or hickory among them. I 
 suspect, indeed, that it is the very softness of 
 the former which gives them their advantage. 
 For this, as I suppose, is correlated with rapid 
 growth ; and where the summer is very short, 
 speed may count for more than firmness of 
 texture, especially during the first one or two 
 years of the plant's life. Trees, like men, lose 
 in one way what they gain in another ; or, in 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 85 
 
 other words, they "have the defects of their 
 qualities." Probably Paul's confession, " When 
 I am weak, then am I strong," is after all only 
 the personal statement of a general law, as true 
 of a poplar as of a Christian. For we all be- 
 lieve (do we not?) that the world is a uni- 
 verse, governed throughout by one Mind, so 
 that whatever holds in one part is good every- 
 where. 
 
 But it was June, and the birds, who were 
 singing from daylight till dark, would have the 
 most of my attention. It was pleasant to find 
 here two comparatively rare warblers, of whom 
 I had before had only casual glimpses, the 
 mourning warbler and the bay-breasted. The 
 former was singing his loud but commonplace 
 ditty within a few rods of the piazza on one 
 side of the house, while his congener, the Mary- 
 land yellow-throat, was to be heard on the other 
 side, along with the black-cap {Dendroeca stri- 
 ata), the black-and-yellow, and the Canadian 
 flycatcher. The mourning warbler's song, as 
 I heard it, was like this : Whit whit whit, wit 
 wit. The first three notes were deliberate and 
 loud, on one key, and without accent. The 
 last two were pitched a little lower, and were 
 shorter, with the accent on the first of the pair ; 
 they were thinner in tone than the opening 
 triplet, as is meant to be indicated by the dif- 
 
86 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 ference of spelling. 1 Others of the family were 
 the golden - crowned thrush, the small -billed 
 water- thrush, the yellow-rumped, the Blaek- 
 burnian (with his characteristic zillup, zillup^ 
 zillup), the black-throated green, the black- 
 throated blue (the last with his loud, coarse 
 Jcree, kree, Icree)^ the redstart, and the elegant 
 blue yellow-back. Altogether, they were a gor- 
 geous company. 
 
 But the chief singers were the olive-backed 
 thrushes and the winter wrens. I should be 
 glad to know on just what principle the olive- 
 backs and their near relatives, the hermits, dis- 
 tribute themselves throughout the mountain 
 region. Each species seems to have its own 
 sections, to which it returns year after year, 
 and the olive-backed, being, as is well known, 
 the more northern species of the two, naturally 
 prefers the more elevated situations. I have 
 found the latter abundant near the Profile 
 House, and for three seasons it has had exclu- 
 sive possession of the White Mountain Notch, 
 so far, at least, as I have been able to discover. 2 
 The hermits, on the other hand, frequent such 
 places as North Conway, Gorham, Jefferson, 
 Bethlehem, and the vicinity of the Flume. 
 
 1 He is said to have another song, beautiful and wren-like ; but 
 that I have never heard. 
 
 2 This is making no account of the gray-cheeked thrushes, who 
 are found only near the tops of the mountains. 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 87 
 
 Only once have I found the two species in the 
 same neighborhood. That was near the Breezy 
 Point House, on the side of Mount Moosilauke ; 
 but this place is so peculiarly romantic, with its 
 noble amphitheatre of hills, that I could not 
 wonder neither species was willing to yield the 
 ground entirely to the other ; and even here it 
 was to be noticed that the hermits were in or 
 near the sugar-grove, while the Swainsons were 
 in the forest, far off in an opposite direction. 1 
 
 It is these birds, if any, whose music reaches 
 the ears of the ordinary mountain tourist. 
 Every man who is known among his acquaint- 
 ances to have a little knowledge of such things 
 is approached now and then with the question, 
 " What bird was it, Mr. So-and-So, that I heard 
 singing up in the mountains ? I did n't see 
 him ; he was always ever so far off ; but his 
 voice was wonderful, so sweet and clear and 
 loud ! " As a rule it may safely be taken for 
 granted that such interrogatories refer either 
 to the Swainson thrush or to the hermit. The 
 inquirer is very likely disposed to be incredu- 
 lous when he is told that there are birds in his 
 own woods whose voice is so like that of his 
 admired New Hampshire songster that, if he 
 were to hear the two together, he would not at 
 
 1 I have since found both species at Willoughby Lake, Vermont, 
 and the veery with them. 
 
88 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 first be able to tell the one from the other. He 
 has never heard them, he protests ; which is 
 true enough, for he never goes into the woods 
 of his own town, or, if by chance he does, he 
 leaves his ears behind him in the shop. His 
 case is not peculiar. Men and women gaze 
 enraptured at New Hampshire sunsets. How 
 glorious they are, to be sure ! What a pity the 
 sun does not sometimes set in Massachusetts ! 
 
 As a musician the olive-back is certainly in- 
 ferior to the hermit, and, according to my taste, 
 he is surpassed also by the wood thrush and the 
 Wilson ; but he is a magnificent singer, for all 
 that, and when he is heard in the absence of 
 the others it is often hard to believe that any 
 one of them could do better. A good idea of the 
 rhythm and length of his song may be gained 
 by pronouncing somewhat rapidly the words, 
 " I love, I love, I love you," or, as it sometimes 
 runs, " I love, I love, I love you truly." How 
 literal this translation is I am not scholar 
 enough to determine, but without question it 
 gives the sense substantially. 
 
 The winter wrens were less numerous than 
 the thrushes, I think, but, like them, they sang 
 at all hours of the day, and seemed to be well 
 distributed throughout the woods. We can 
 hardly help asking how it is that two birds so 
 very closely related as the house wren and the 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 89 
 
 winter wren should have chosen haunts so ex- 
 tremely diverse, the one preferring door-yards 
 in thickly settled villages, the other keeping 
 strictly to the wildest of all wild places. But 
 whatever the explanation, we need not wish the 
 fact itself different. Comparatively few ever 
 hear the winter wren's song, to be sure (for 
 you will hardly get it from a hotel piazza), but 
 it is not the less enjoyed on that account. 
 There is such a thing as a bird's making him- 
 self too common ; and probably it is true even of 
 the great prima donna that it is not those who 
 live in the house with her who find most pleas- 
 ure in her music. Moreover, there is much in 
 time and circumstance. You hear a song in 
 the village street, and pass along unmoved ; but 
 stand in the silence of the forest, with your feet 
 in a bed of creeping snowberry and oxalis, and 
 the same song goes to your very soul. 
 
 The great distinction of the winter wren's 
 melody is its marked rhythm and accent, which 
 give it a martial, fife -like character. Note 
 tumbles over note in the true wren manner, and 
 the strain comes to an end so suddenly that for 
 the first few times you are likely to think that 
 the bird has been interrupted. In the middle 
 is a long in-drawn note, much like one of the 
 canary's. The odd little creature does not get 
 far away from the ground. I have never seen 
 
90 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 him sing from a living tree or bush, but always 
 from a stump or a log, or from the root or 
 branch of an overturned tree, from some- 
 thing, at least, of nearly his own color. 1 The 
 song is intrinsically one of the most beautiful, 
 and in my ears it has the further merit of being 
 forever associated with reminiscences of ram- 
 blings among the White Hills. How well I 
 remember an early morning hour at Profile 
 Lake, when it came again and again across the 
 water from the woods on Mount Cannon, under 
 the Great Stone Face ! 
 
 Whichever way I walked, I was sure of the 
 society of the snow-birds. They hopped famil- 
 iarly across the railroad track in front of the 
 Crawford House, and on the summit of Mount 
 Washington were scurrying about among the 
 rocks, opening and shutting their pretty white- 
 bordered fans. Half-way up Mount Willard I 
 sat down to rest on a stone, and after a minute 
 or two out dropped a snow-bird at my feet, and 
 ran across the road, trailing her wings. I looked 
 under the bank for her nest, but, to my surprise, 
 could find nothing of it. So I made sure of 
 knowing the place again, and continued my 
 tramp. Returning two hours later, I sat down 
 upon the same bowlder, and watched for the 
 
 1 True when written, but now needing to be qualified by one 
 exception. See p. 226. 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 91 
 
 bird to appear as before; but she had gath- 
 ered courage from my former failure, or so 
 it seemed, and I waited in vain till I rapped 
 upon the ground over her head. Then she scram- 
 bled out and limped away, repeating her inno- 
 cent but hackneyed ruse. This time I was re- 
 solved not to be baffled. The nest was there, 
 and I would find it. So down on my knees I 
 got, and scrutinized the whole place most care- 
 fully. But though I had marked the precise 
 spot, there was no sign of a nest. I was about 
 giving over the search ignominiously, when I de- 
 scried a slight opening between the overhang- 
 ing roof of the bank and a layer of earth which 
 some roots held in place close under it. Into 
 this slit I inserted my fingers, and there, en- 
 tirely out of sight, was the nest full of eggs. No 
 man could ever have found it, had the bird been 
 brave and wise enough to keep her seat. How- 
 ever, I had before this noticed that the snow- 
 bird, while often extremely clever in choosing 
 a building site, is seldom very skillful in keeping 
 a secret. I saw him one day standing on the 
 side of the same Mount Willard road, 1 gesticu- 
 
 1 Beside this road (in June, 1883) I found a nest of the yellow- 
 bellied flycatcher (Empidonax flaviventris). It was built at the 
 base of a decayed stump, in a little depression between two roots, 
 and was partially overarched with growing moss. It contained 
 four eggs, white, spotted with brown. I called upon the bird 
 half a dozen times or more, and found her a model " keeper at 
 
92 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 lating and scolding with all his might, as much 
 as to say, " Please don't stop here ! Go straight 
 along, I beg of you ! Our nest is right under 
 this bank ! " And one glance under the bank 
 showed that I had not misinterpreted his dem- 
 onstrations. For all that, I do not feel like 
 taking a lofty tone in passing judgment upon 
 Junco. He is not the only one whose wisdom 
 is mixed with foolishness. There is at least one 
 other person of whom the same is true, a 
 person of whom I have nevertheless a very good 
 opinion, and with whom I am, or ought to be, 
 better acquainted than I am with any animal 
 that wears feathers. 
 
 The prettiest snow-bird's nest I ever saw was 
 built beside the Crawford bridle path, on Mount 
 Clinton, just before the path comes out of the 
 woods at the top. It was lined with hair-moss 
 (a species of Polytrichum) of a bright orange 
 color, and with its four or five white, lilac-spot- 
 ted eggs made so attractive a picture that I was 
 constrained to pause a moment to look at it, 
 even though I had three miles of a steep, rough 
 footpath to descend, with a shower threatening 
 
 home." On one occasion she allowed my hand to come wi'thin two 
 or three inches of her bill. In every case she flew off without any 
 outcry or ruse, and once at least she fell immediately to fly-catch- 
 ing with admirable philosophy. So far as I know, this is the only 
 nest of the species ever found in New England outside of Maine. 
 But it is proper to add that I did not capture the bird. 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 93 
 
 to overtake me before I could reach the bottom. 
 I wondered whether the architects really pos- 
 sessed an eye for color, or had only stumbled 
 upon this elegant bit of decoration. On the 
 whole, it seemed more charitable to conclude the 
 former ; and not only more charitable, but more 
 scientific as well. For, if I understand the mat- 
 ter aright, Mr. Darwin and his followers have 
 settled upon the opinion that birds do display 
 an unmistakable fondness for bright tints ; that, 
 indeed, the males of many species wear brilliant 
 plumage for no other reason than that their 
 mates prefer them in that dress. Moreover, if 
 a bird in New South Wales adorns her bower 
 with shells and other ornaments, why may not 
 our little Northern darling beautify her nest 
 with such humbler materials as her surround- 
 ings offer? On reflection, I am more and more 
 convinced that the birds knew what they were 
 doing ; probably the female, the moment she 
 discovered the moss, called to her mate, " Oh, 
 look, how lovely ! Do, my dear, let 's line our 
 nest with it ! " 
 
 This artistic structure was found on the an- 
 niversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, a day 
 which I had been celebrating, as best I could, 
 by climbing the highest hill in New England. 
 Plunging into the woods within fifty yards of 
 the Crawford House, I had gone up and up, 
 
94 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 and on and on, through a magnificent forest, 
 and then over more magnificent rocky heights, 
 until I stood at last on the platform of the hotel 
 at the summit. True, the path, which I had 
 never traveled before, was wet and slippery, 
 with stretches of ice and snow here and there ; 
 but the shifting view was so grand, the atmos- 
 phere so bracing, and the solitude so impressive 
 that I enjoyed every step, till it came to clam- 
 bering up the Mount Washington cone over the 
 bowlders. At this point, to speak frankly, I 
 began to hope that the ninth mile would prove 
 to be a short one. The guide-books are agreed 
 in warning the visitor against making this as- 
 cent without a companion, and no doubt they 
 are right in so doing. A crippling accident 
 would almost in'evitably be fatal, while for sev- 
 eral miles the trail is so indistinct that it would 
 be difficult, if not impossible, to follow it in a 
 fog. And yet, if one is willing to take the 
 risk (and is not so unfortunate as never to 
 have learned how to keep himself company), 
 he will find a very considerable compensation 
 in the peculiar pleasure to be experienced in 
 being absolutely alone above the world. For 
 myself, I was shut up to going in this way or 
 not going at all ; and a Bostonian must do 
 something patriotic on the Seventeenth of June. 
 But for all that, if the storm which chased me 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 95 
 
 down the mountains in the afternoon, clouding 
 first Mount Washington and then Mount Pleas- 
 ant behind me, and shutting me indoors all the 
 next day, had started an hour sooner, or if I had 
 been detained an hour later, it is not impossi- 
 ble that I might now be writing in a different 
 strain. 
 
 My reception at the top was none of the 
 heartiest. The hotel was tightly closed, while 
 a large snow-bank stood guard before the door. 
 However, I invited myself into the Signal Ser- 
 vice Station, and made my wants known to one 
 of the officers, who very kindly spread a table 
 with such things as he and his companions had 
 just been eating. It would be out of place to 
 say much about the luncheon : the bread and 
 butter were good, and the pudding was interest- 
 ing. I had the cook's word for it that the lat- 
 ter was made of corn-starch, but he volunteered 
 no explanation of its color, which was nearly 
 that of chocolate. As a working hypothesis I 
 adopted the molasses or brown-sugar theory, but 
 a brief experiment (as brief as politeness per- 
 mitted) indicated a total absence of any saccha- 
 rine principle. But then, what do we climb 
 mountains for, if not to see something out of 
 the common course ? On the whole, if this de- 
 partment of our national government is ever on 
 trial for extravagance in the matter of high liv- 
 
96 JN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 ing, I shall be moved to offer myself as a com- 
 petent witness for the defense. 
 
 A company of chimney-swifts were flying 
 criss-cross over the summit, and one of the men 
 said that he presumed they lived there. I took 
 the liberty to doubt his opinion, however. To 
 me it seemed nothing but a blunder that they 
 should be there even for an hour. There could 
 hardly be many insects at that height, I thought, 
 and I had abundant cause to know that the 
 woods below were full of them. I knew, also, 
 that the swifts knew it ; for while I had been 
 prowling about between Crawford's and Fab- 
 yan's, they had several times shot by my head 
 so closely that I had instinctively fallen to cal- 
 culating the probable consequences of a colli- 
 sion. But, after all, the swift is no doubt a 
 far better entomologist than I am, though he 
 has never heard of Packard's Guide. Possibly 
 there are certain species of insects, and those 
 of a peculiarly delicate savor, which are to be 
 obtained only at about this altitude. 
 
 The most enjoyable part of the Crawford path 
 is the five miles from the top of Mount Clinton 
 to the foot of the Mount Washington cone. 
 Along this ridge I was delighted to find in blos- 
 som two beautiful Alpine plants, which I had 
 missed in previous (July) visits, the diapen- 
 sia (Diapemia Lapponica) and the Lapland rose- 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 97 
 
 bay (Rhododendron Lapponicum), and to get 
 also a single forward specimen of Potentilla 
 frigida. Here and there was a bumblebee, 
 gathering honey from the small purple catkins 
 of the prostrate willows, now in full bloom. 
 (Rather high-minded hurnblebees, they seemed, 
 more than five thousand feet above the sea !) 
 Professional entomologists (the chimney-swift, 
 perhaps, included) may smile at my simplicity, 
 but I was surprised to find this " animated tor- 
 rid zone," this " insect lover of the sun," in such 
 a Greenland climate. Did he not know that his 
 own poet had described him as "hot midsum- 
 mer's petted crone " ? But possibly he was 
 equally surprised at my appearance. He might 
 even have taken his turn at quoting Emer- 
 son : 
 
 "Pants up hither the spruce clerk 
 From South Cove and City Wharf" ? 1 
 
 Of the two, he was unquestionably the more at 
 home, for he was living where in forty-eight 
 hours I should have found my death. So much 
 is Bombus better than a man. 
 
 In a little pool of water, which seemed to be 
 
 1 But by this time the clerk's appearance was, to say the least, 
 not reprehensibly " spruce." For one thing, what with the moist- 
 ure and the sharp stones, he was already becoming jealous of his 
 shoes, lest they should not hold together till he could get back to 
 the Crawford House. 
 7 
 
98 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 nothing but a transient puddle caused by the 
 melting snow, was a tiny fish. I asked him by 
 what miracle he got there, but he could give no 
 explanation. He, too, might well enough have 
 joined the noble company of Emersonian s : 
 
 " I never thought to ask, I never knew ; 
 But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 
 The self-same Power that brought me here brought you." 
 
 Almost at the very top of Mount Clinton I 
 was saluted by the familiar ditty of the Nash- 
 ville warbler. I could hardly believe my ears ; 
 but there was no mistake, for the bird soon ap- 
 peared in plain sight. Had it been one of the 
 hardier-seeming species, the yellow-rumped for 
 example, I should not have thought it very 
 strange ; but this dainty HelmintJiophaga^ so 
 common in the vicinity of Boston, did appear to 
 be out of his latitude, summering here on Al- 
 pine heights. With a good pair of wings, and 
 the whole continent to choose from, he surely 
 might have found some more congenial spot 
 than this in which to bring up his little family. 
 I took his presence to be only an individual 
 freak, but a subsequent visitor, who made the 
 ascent from the Glen, reported the same spe- 
 cies on that side also, and at about, the same 
 height. 
 
 These signs of life on bleak mountain ridges 
 are highly interesting and suggestive. The 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 99 
 
 fish, the bumblebees, the birds, and a mouse 
 which scampered away to its hole amid the 
 rocks, all these might have found better liv- 
 ing elsewhere. But Nature will have her world 
 full. Stunted life is better than none, she 
 thinks. So she plants her forests of spruces, 
 and keeps them growing, where, with all their 
 efforts, they cannot get above the height of a 
 man's knee. There is no beauty about them, 
 no grace. They sacrifice symmetry and every- 
 thing else for the sake of bare existence, re- 
 minding one of Satan's remark, " All that a 
 man hath will he give for his life." 
 
 Very admirable are the devices by which veg- 
 etation maintains itself against odds. Every- 
 body notices that many of the mountain species, 
 like the diapensia, the rose-bay, the Greenland 
 sandwort (called the mountain daisy by the 
 Summit House people, for some inscrutable 
 reason), and the phyllodoce, have blossoms dis- 
 proportionately large and handsome ; as if they 
 realized that, in order to attract their indispen- 
 sable allies, the insects, to these inhospitable 
 regions, they must offer them some special in- 
 ducements. Their case is not unlike that of a 
 certain mountain hotel which might be named, 
 which happens to be poorly situated, but which 
 keeps itself full, nevertheless, by the peculiar 
 excellence of its cuisine. 
 
100 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 It does not require much imagination to be- 
 lieve that these hardy vegetable mountaineers 
 love their wild, desolate dwelling-places as truly 
 as do the human residents of the region. An 
 old man in Bethlehem told me that sometimes, 
 during the long, cold winter, he felt that per- 
 haps it would be well for him, now his work 
 was done, to sell his " place " and go down to 
 Boston to live, near his brother. " But then," 
 he added, " you know it 's dangerous transplant- 
 ing an old tree ; you 're likely as not to kill it." 
 Whatever we have, in this world, we must pay 
 for with the loss of something else. The bitter 
 must be taken with the sweet, be we plants, an- 
 imals, or men. These thoughts recurred to me 
 a day or two later, as I lay on the summit of 
 Mount Agassiz, in the sun and out of the wind, 
 gazing down into the Franconia Valley, then in 
 all its June beauty. Nestled under the lee of 
 the mountain, but farther from the base, doubt- 
 less, than it seemed from my point of view, was 
 a small dwelling, scarcely better than a shanty. 
 Two or three young children were playing about 
 the door, and near them was the man of the 
 house splitting wood. The air was still enough 
 for me to hear every blow, although it reached 
 me only as the axe was again over the man's 
 head, ready for the next descent. Ifc was a 
 charming picture, the broad r green valley full 
 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 101 
 
 of sunshine and peace, and the solitary cottage, 
 from whose doorstep might be seen in one di- 
 rection the noble Mount Washington range, and 
 in another the hardly less noble Franconias. 
 How easy to live simply and well in such a 
 grand seclusion ! But soon there came a 
 thought of Wordsworth's sonnet, addressed to 
 just such a mood, " Yes, there is holy pleasure 
 in thine eye," and I felt at once the truth of his 
 admonition. What if the cottage really were 
 mine, mine to spend a lifetime in ? How 
 quickly the poetry would turn to prose ! 
 
 An hour afterwards, on my way back to the 
 Sinclair House, I passed a group of men at 
 work on the highway. One of them was a lit- 
 tle apart from the rest, and out of a social im- 
 pulse I accosted him with the remark, " I sup- 
 pose, in heaven, the streets never will need 
 mending." Quick as thought came the reply : 
 " Well, I hope not. If I ever get there, I don't 
 want to work on the road" Here spoke uni- 
 versal human nature, which finds its strong 
 argument for immortality in its discontent with 
 matters as they now are. The one thing we 
 are all sure of is that we were born for some- 
 thing better than our present employment ; and 
 even those who school themselves most relig- 
 iously in the virtue of contentment know very 
 well how to define that grace so as not to ex- 
 
102 IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 elude from it a comfortable mixture of " divine 
 dissatisfaction." Well for us if we are still 
 able to stand in our place and do faithfully our 
 allotted task, like the mountain spruces and the 
 Bethlehemite road-mender. 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song. 
 
 SPENSER. 
 
 Much ado there was, God wot : 
 He would love, and she would not. 
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 THE happiness of birds, heretofore taken for 
 granted, and long ago put to service in a prov- 
 erb, is in these last days made a matter of 
 doubt. It transpires that they are engaged 
 without respite in a struggle for existence, a 
 struggle so fierce that at least two of them per- 
 ish every year for one that survives. 1 How, 
 then, can they be otherwise than miserable ? 
 
 There is no denying the struggle, of course ; 
 nor need we question some real effect produced 
 ~by it upon the cheerfulness of the participants. 
 The more rationalistic of the smaller species, 
 we may be sure, find it hard to reconcile the 
 existence of hawks and owls with the doctrine 
 of an all- wise Providence ; while even the most 
 simple-minded of them can scarcely fail to real- 
 ize that a world in which one is liable any day 
 to be pursued by a boy with a shot-gun is not 
 in any strict sense paradisiacal. 
 
 And yet, who knows the heart of a bird? A 
 
 1 Wallace, Natural Selection, p. 30. 
 
106 PHILLIDA AND COR I DON. 
 
 child, possibly, or a poet ; certainly not a phi- 
 losopher. And happiness, too, is that some- 
 thing of which the scientific mind can render 
 us a quite adequate description ? Or is it, 
 rather, a wayward, mysterious thing, coming 
 often when least expected, and going away 
 again when, by all tokens, it ought to remain? 
 How is it with ourselves ? Do we wait to 
 weigh all the good and evil of our state, to take 
 an accurate account of it pro and con, before 
 we allow ourselves to be glad or sorry ? Not 
 many of us, I think. Mortuary tables may 
 demonstrate that half the children born in this 
 country fail to reach the age of twenty years. 
 But what then ? Our " expectation of life " is 
 not based upon statistics. The tables may be 
 correct, for aught we know ; but they deal with 
 men in general and on the average ; they have 
 no message for you and me individually. And 
 it seems not unlikely that birds may be equally 
 illogical ; always expecting to live, and not die, 
 and often giving themselves up to impulses of 
 gladness without stopping to inquire whether, 
 on grounds of absolute reason, these impulses 
 are to be justified. Let us hope so, at all events, 
 till somebody proves the contrary. 
 
 But even looking at the subject a little more 
 philosophically, we may say and be thankful 
 to say it that the joy of life is not dependent 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 107 
 
 upon comfort, nor yet upon safety. The essen- 
 tial matter is that the heart be engaged. Then, 
 though we be toiling up the Matterhorn, or 
 swept along in the rush of a bayonet charge, 
 we may still find existence not only endurable, 
 but in the highest degree exhilarating. On 
 the other hand, if there is no longer anything 
 we care for ; if enthusiasm is dead, and hope 
 also, then, though we have all that money can 
 buy, suicide is perhaps the only fitting action 
 that is left for us, unless, perchance, we are 
 still able to pass the time in writing treatises to 
 prove that everybody else ought to be as un- 
 happy as ourselves. 
 
 Birds have many enemies and their full share 
 of privation, but I do not believe that they of- 
 ten suffer from ennui. Having " neither store- 
 house nor barn," l they are never in want of 
 something to do. From sunrise till noon there 
 is the getting of breakfast, then from noon till 
 sunset the getting of dinner, both out-of- 
 doors, and without any trouble of cookery or 
 dishes, a kind of perpetual picnic. What 
 
 1 The shrike lays up grasshoppers and sparrows, and the Cali- 
 fornia woodpecker hoards great numbers of acorns, but it is still 
 in dispute, I believe, whether thrift is the motive with either of 
 them. Considering what has often 'been done in similar cases, we 
 may think it surprising that the Scripture text above quoted (to- 
 gether with its exegetical parallel, Matthew vi. 26) has never been 
 brought into court to settle the controversy; but to the best of my 
 knowledge it never has been. 
 
108 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 could be simpler or more delightful ? Carried 
 on in this way, eating is no longer the coarse 
 and sensual thing we make it, with our set 
 meal-times and elaborate preparations. 
 
 Country children know that there are two 
 ways to go berrying. According to the first 
 of these you stroll into the pasture in the cool 
 of the day, and at your leisure pick as many as 
 you choose of the ripest and largest of the ber- 
 ries, putting every one into your mouth. This 
 is agreeable. According to the second, you 
 carry a basket, which you are expected to bring 
 home again well filled. And this method 
 well, tastes will differ, but following the good 
 old rule for judging in such cases, I must be- 
 lieve that most unsophisticated persons prefer 
 the other. The hand-to-mouth process cer- 
 tainly agrees best with our idea of life in Eden ; 
 and, what is more to the purpose now, it is the 
 one which the birds, still keeping the garden 
 instead of tilling the ground, continue to follow. 
 
 That this unworldliness of the birds has any 
 religious or theological significance I do not 
 myself suppose. Still, as anybody may see, 
 there are certain very plain Scripture texts on 
 their side. Indeed, if birds were only acute 
 theologians, they would unquestionably proceed 
 to turn these texts (since they find it so easy to 
 obey them) into the basis of a " system of 
 
PH1LLIDA AND CORIDON. 109 
 
 truth." Other parts of the Bible must be in- 
 terpreted, to be sure (so the theory would run) ; 
 but these statements mean just what they say, 
 and whoever meddles with them is carnally 
 minded and a rationalist. 
 
 Somebody will object, perhaps, that, with 
 our talk about a " perpetual picnic," we are 
 making a bird's life one cloudless holiday ; con- 
 tradicting what we have before admitted about 
 a struggle for existence, and leaving out of 
 sight altogether the seasons of scarcity, the 
 storms, and the biting cold. But we intend no 
 such foolish recantation. These hardships are 
 real enough, and serious enough. What we 
 maintain is that evils of this kind are not nec- 
 essarily inconsistent with enjoyment, and may 
 even give to life an additional zest. It is a 
 matter of every-day observation that the peo- 
 ple who have nothing to do except to " live 
 well " (as the common sarcasm has it) are not 
 always the most cheerful ; while there are 
 certain diseases, like pessimism and the gout, 
 which seem appointed to wait on luxury and 
 idleness, as though nature were determined 
 to have the scales kept somewhat even. And 
 surely this divine law of compensation has not 
 left the innocent birds unprovided for, the 
 innocent birds of whom it was said, " Your 
 heavenly Father feedeth them." How must 
 
110 PH1LLIDA AND COR1DON. 
 
 the devoted pair exult, when, in spite of owls 
 and hawks, squirrels and weasels, small boys 
 and full - grown oologists, they have finally 
 reared a brood of offspring ! The long uncer- 
 tainty and the thousand perils only intensify 
 the joy. In truth, so far as this world is con- 
 cerned, the highest bliss is never to be had 
 without antecedent sorrow ; and even of heaven 
 itself we may not scruple to say that, if there 
 are painters there, they probably feel obliged 
 to put some shadows into their pictures. 
 
 But of course (and this is what we have been 
 coming to through this long introduction), of 
 course our friends of the air are happiest in the 
 season of mating ; happiest, and therefore most 
 attractive to us who find our pleasure in study- 
 ing them. In spring, of all times of the year, 
 it seems a pity that everybody should not turn 
 ornithologist. For " all mankind love a lover; " 
 and the world, in consequence, has given itself 
 up to novel - reading, not knowing, unfortu- 
 nately, how much better that rdle is taken by 
 the birds than by the common run of story- 
 book heroes. 
 
 People whose notions of the subject are de- 
 rived from attending to the antics of our im- 
 ported sparrows have no idea how delicate and 
 beautiful a thing a real feathered courtship is. 
 To tell the truth, these foreigners have asso- 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. Ill 
 
 ciated too long and too intimately with men, 
 and have fallen far away from their primal in- 
 nocence. There is no need to describe their 
 actions. The vociferous and most unmannerly 
 importunity of the suitor, and the correspond- 
 ingly spiteful rejection of his overtures by the 
 little vixen on whom his affections are for the 
 moment placed, these we have all seen to 
 our hearts' discontent. 
 
 The sparrow will not have been brought over 
 the sea for nothing, however, if his bad behavior 
 serves to heighten our appreciation of our own 
 native songsters, with their " perfect virtues " 
 and " manners for the heart's delight." 
 
 The American robin, for instance, is far from 
 being a bird of exceptional refinement. His 
 nest is rude, not to say slovenly, and his gen- 
 eral deportment is unmistakably common. But 
 watch him when he goes a-wooing, arid you will 
 begin to feel quite a new respect for him. How 
 gently he approaches his beloved ! How care- 
 fully he avoids ever coming disrespectfully near ! 
 No sparrow-like screaming, no dancing about, 
 no melodramatic gesticulation. li: she moves 
 from one side of the tree to the other, or to the 
 tree adjoining, he follows in silence. Yet every 
 movement is a petition, an assurance that his 
 heart is hers and ever must be. The action is 
 extremely simple ; there is nothing of which to 
 
112 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 make an eloquent description ; but I should 
 pity the man who could witness it with indiffer- 
 ence. Not that the robin's suit is always car- 
 ried on in the same way ; he is much too versa- 
 tile for that. On one occasion, at least, I saw 
 him holding himself absolutely motionless, in a 
 horizontal posture, staring at his sweetheart as 
 if he would charm her with his gaze, and emit- 
 ting all the while a subdued hissing sound. The 
 significance of this conduct I do not profess to 
 have understood ; it ended with his suddenly 
 darting at the female, who took wing and was 
 pursued. Not improbably the robin finds the 
 feminine nature somewhat fickle, and counts it 
 expedient to vary his tactics accordingly ; for 
 it is getting to be more and more believed that, 
 in kind at least, the intelligence of the lower 
 animals is not different from ours. 
 
 I once came unexpectedly upon a wood 
 thrush, who was in the midst of a perform- 
 ance very similar to this of the robin ; standing 
 on the dead branch of a tree, with his crown 
 feathers erect, his bill set wide open, and his 
 whole body looking as rigid as death. His 
 mate, as I perceived the next moment, was 
 not far away, on the same limb. If he was at- 
 tempting fascination, he had gone very clumsily 
 about it, I thought, unless his mate's idea of 
 beauty was totally different from mine ; for I 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 113 
 
 could hardly keep from laughing at his absurd 
 appearance. It did not occur to me till after- 
 wards that he had perhaps heard of Othello's 
 method, and was at that moment acting out a 
 story 
 
 "of most disastrous chances, 
 Of moving accidents by flood and field, 
 Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, 
 Of being taken by the insolent foe 
 And sold to slavery." 
 
 How much depends upon the point of view ! 
 Here was I, ready to laugh ; while poor Desde- 
 mona only thought, " 'T was pitiful, 't was won- 
 drous pitiful." Dear sympathetic soul ! Let 
 us hope that she was never called to play out 
 the tragedy. 
 
 Two things are very noticeable during the 
 pairing season, the scarcity of females and 
 their indifference. Every one of them seems 
 to have at least two admirers dangling after 
 her, 1 while she is almost sure to carry herself 
 as if a wedding were the last thing she would 
 ever consent to think of ; and that not because 
 of bashfulness, but from downright aversion. 
 The observer begins to suspect that the fair 
 creatures have really entered into some sort of 
 no-marriage league, and that there are not to 
 
 1 So near do birds come to Mr. Raskin's idea that " a girl worth 
 anything ought to have always half a dozen or so of suitors under 
 vow for her." 
 
 8 
 
114 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 be any nests this year, nor any young birds. 
 But by and by he discovers that somehow, he 
 cannot surmise how, it must have been when 
 his eyes were turned the other way, the scene 
 is entirely changed, the maidens are all wedded, 
 and even now the nests are being got ready. 
 
 I watched a trio of cat-birds in a clump of 
 alder bushes by the roadside ; two males, almost 
 as a matter of course, " paying attentions " to 
 one female. Both suitors were evidently in 
 earnest ; each hoped to carry off the prize, and 
 perhaps felt that he should be miserable for- 
 ever if he were disappointed ; and yet, on their 
 part, everything was being done decently and 
 in order. So far as I saw, there was no dispo- 
 sition to quarrel. Only let the dear creature 
 choose one of them, and the other would take 
 his broken heart away. So, always at a modest 
 remove, they followed her about from bush to 
 bush, entreating her in most loving and persua- 
 sive tones to listen to their suit. But she, all 
 this time, answered every approach with a 
 snarl ; she would never have anything to do 
 with either of them ; she disliked them both, 
 and only wished they would leave her .to her- 
 self. This lasted as long as I stayed to watch. 
 Still I had little doubt she fully intended to 
 accept one of them, and had even made up her 
 mind already which it should be. She knew 
 
PH1LLIDA AND CORIDON. 115 
 
 enough, I felt sure, to calculate the value of a 
 proper maidenly reluctance. How could her 
 mate be expected to rate her at her worth, if 
 she allowed herself to be won too easily ? Be- 
 sides, she could afford not to be in haste, seeing 
 she had a choice of two. 
 
 What a comfortably simple affair the matri- 
 monial question is with the feminine cat-bird ! 
 Her wooers are all of equally good family and 
 all equally rich. There is literally nothing for 
 her to do but to look into her own heart and 
 choose. No temptation has she to sell herself 
 for the sake of a fashionable name or a fine 
 house, or in order to gratify the prejudice of 
 father or mother. As for a marriage settle- 
 ment, she knows neither the name nor the 
 thing. In fact, marriage in her thought is a 
 simple union of hearts, with no taint of any- 
 thing mercantile about it. Happy cat-bird ! 
 She perhaps imagines that human marriages 
 are of the same ideal sort ! 
 
 I have spoken of the affectionate language of 
 these dusky lovers ; but it was noticeable that 
 they did not sing, although, to have fulfilled 
 the common idea of such an affair, they cer- 
 tainly should have been doing so, and each try- 
 ing his best to outsing the other. Possibly 
 there had already been such a tournament be- 
 fore my arrival ; or, for aught I know, this 
 
116 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 particular female may have given out that she 
 had no ear for music. 
 
 In point of fact, however, there was nothing 
 peculiar in their conduct. No doubt, in the 
 earlier stages of a bird's attachment he is likely 
 to express his passion musically ; but later he 
 is not content to warble from a tree-top. There 
 are things to be said which cannot appropri- 
 ately be spoken at long range ; and unless my 
 study of novels has been to little purpose, all 
 this agrees well with the practices of human 
 gallants. Do not these begin by singing under 
 the lady's window, or by sending verses to her? 
 and are not such proceedings intended to pre- 
 pare the way, as speedily as possible, for others 
 of a more satisfying, though it may be of a less 
 romantic nature ? 
 
 Bearing this in mind, we may be able to ac- 
 count, in part at least, for the inexperienced 
 observer's disappointment when, fresh from the 
 perusal of (for example) the thirteenth chapter 
 of Darwin's " Descent of Man," he goes into 
 the woods to look about for himself. He ex- 
 pects to find here and there two or three song- 
 sters, each in turn doing his utmost to surpass 
 the brilliancy and power of the other's music ; 
 while a feminine auditor sits in full view, pre- 
 paring to render her verdict, and reward the 
 successful competitor with her own precious 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 117 
 
 self. This would be a pretty picture. Unfor- 
 tunately, it is looked for in vain. The two or 
 three singers may be found, likely enough ; but 
 the female, if she be indeed within hearing, is 
 modestly hidden away somewhere in the bushes, 
 and our student is none the wiser. Let him 
 watch as long as he please, he will hardly see 
 the prize awarded. 
 
 Nevertheless he need not grudge the time 
 thus employed ; not, at any rate, if he be sensi- 
 tive to music. For it will be found that birds 
 have at least one attribute of genius : they can 
 do their best only on great occasions. Our 
 brown thrush, for instance, is a magnificent 
 singer, albeit he is not of the best school, be- 
 ing too " sensational " to suit the most exacting 
 taste. His song is a grand improvisation : a 
 good deal jumbled, to be sure, and without any 
 recognizable form or theme ; and yet, like a 
 Liszt rhapsody, it perfectly answers its purpose, 
 that is, it gives the performer full scope to 
 show what he can do with his instrument. You 
 may laugh a little, if you like, at an occasional 
 grotesque or overwrought passage, but unless 
 you are well used to it you will surely be aston- 
 ished. Such power and range of voice ; such 
 startling transitions ; such endless variety ! And 
 withal such boundless enthusiasm and almost 
 incredible endurance! Regarded as pure mu- 
 
118 PHILLIDA AND COR1DON. 
 
 sic, one strain of the hermit thrush is to my 
 mind worth the whole of it; just as a single 
 movement of Beethoven's is better than a world 
 of Liszt transcriptions. But in its own way it 
 is unsurpassable. 
 
 Still, though this is a meagre and quite un- 
 exaggerated account of the ordinary song of the 
 brown thrush, I have discovered that even he 
 can be outdone by himself. One morning 
 in early May I came upon three birds of this 
 species, all singing at once, in a kind of jealous 
 frenzy. As they sang they continually shifted 
 from tree to tree, and one in particular (the 
 one nearest to where I stood) could hardly be 
 quiet a moment. Once he sang with full power 
 while on the ground (or close to it, for he was 
 just then behind a low bush), after which he 
 mounted to the very tip of a tall pine, which 
 bent beneath his weight. In the midst of the 
 hurly-burly one of the trio suddenly sounded 
 the whip-poor-will's call twice, an absolutely 
 perfect reproduction. 1 
 
 The significance of all this sound and fury, 
 what the prize was, if any, and who obtained 
 
 1 " That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over, 
 Lest you should think he never could recapture 
 The first fine careless rapture! " 
 
 The "authorities" long since forbade Harporhynchus rufus to 
 play the mimic. Probably in the excitement of the moment this 
 fellow forgot himself. 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 119 
 
 it, this another can conjecture as well as my- 
 self. I know no more than old Kaspar : 
 
 44 ' Why, that I cannot tell,' said he, 
 * But 't was a famous victory.' " 
 
 As I turned to come away, the contest all at 
 once ceased, and the silence of the woods, or 
 what seemed like silence, was really impressive. 
 The chewinks and field sparrows were singing, 
 but it was like the music of a village singer 
 after Patti ; or, to make the comparison less 
 unjust, like the Pastoral Symphony of Handel 
 after a Wagner tempest. 
 
 It is curious how deeply we are sometimes 
 affected by a very trifling occurrence. I have 
 remembered many times a slight scene in which 
 three purple finches were the actors. Of the 
 two males, one was in full adult plumage of 
 bright crimson, while the other still wore his 
 youthful suit of brown. First, the older bird 
 suspended himself in mid air, and sang most 
 beautifully ; dropping, as he concluded, to a 
 perch beside the female. Then the younger 
 candidate, who was already sitting near by, 
 took his turn, singing nearly or quite as well 
 as his rival, but without quitting the branch, 
 though his wings quivered. I saw no more. 
 Yet, as I say, I have often since thought of the 
 three birds, arid wondered whether the bright, 
 feathers and the flying song carried the day 
 
120 PHILLIDA AND COR1DON. 
 
 against the younger suitor. I fear they did. 
 Sometimes, too, I have queried whether young 
 birds (who none the less are of age to marry) 
 can be so very meek or so very dull as never to 
 rebel against the fashion that only the old fel- 
 lows shall dress handsomely ; and I have tried 
 in vain to imagine the mutterings, deep and 
 loud, which such a law would excite in certain 
 other quarters. It pains me to say it, but I 
 suspect that taxation without representation 
 would seem a small injustice, in comparison. 
 
 Like these linnets in the exceptional interest 
 they excited were two large seabirds, who sud- 
 denly appeared circling about over the woods, 
 as I was taking a solitary walk on a Sunday 
 morning in April. One of them was closely 
 pursuing the other ; not as though he were try- 
 ing to overtake her, but rather as though he 
 were determined to keep her company. They 
 swept now this way, now that, now lost to 
 sight, and now reappearing ; and once they 
 passed straight over my head, so that I heard 
 the whistling of their wings. Then they were 
 off, and I saw them no more. They came from 
 far, and by night they were perhaps a hundred 
 leagues away. But I followed them with my 
 blessing, and to this day I feel toward them a 
 little as I suppose we all do toward a certain 
 few strangers whom we have met here and 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 121 
 
 there in our journey ings, and chatted with for 
 an hour or two. We had never seen them be- 
 fore ; if we learned their names we have long 
 ago forgotten them ; but somehow the persons 
 themselves keep a place in our memory, and 
 even in our affection. 
 
 " I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 
 And a certain use in the world, no doubt ; 
 Yet a hand's breadth of it shines alone 
 'Mid the blank miles round about: 
 
 " For there I picked up on the heather, 
 And there I put inside my breast, 
 A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! 
 Well, I forget the rest." 
 
 Since we cannot ask birds for an explanation 
 of their conduct, we have nothing for it but to 
 steal their secrets, as far as possible, by patient 
 and stealthy watching. In this way I hope, 
 sooner or later, to find out what the golden- 
 winged woodpecker means by the shout with 
 which he makes the fields reecho in the spring, 
 especially in the latter half of April. I have 
 no doubt it has something to do with the proc- 
 ess of mating, but it puzzles me to guess just 
 what the message can be which requires to be 
 published so loudly. Such a stentorian, long- 
 winded cry ! You wonder where the bird finds 
 breath for such an effort, and think he must be 
 a very ungentle lover, surely. But withhold 
 your judgment for a few days, till you see him 
 
122 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 and bis mate gamboling about the branches of 
 some old tree, calling in soft, affectionate tones, 
 Wick-a-wick, wick-a-wick ; then you will con- 
 fess that, whatever failings the golden-wing 
 may have, he is not to be charged with insensi- 
 bility. The fact is that our " yellow-hammer " 
 has a genius for noise. When he is very happy 
 he drums. Sometimes, indeed, he marvels how 
 birds who haven't this resource are able to get 
 through the world at all. Nor ought we to 
 think it strange if in his love-making he finds 
 great use for this his crowning accomplishment. 
 True, we have nowhere read of a human lover's 
 serenading his mistress with a drum ; but we 
 must remember what creatures of convention 
 men are, and that there is no inherent reason 
 why a drum should not serve as well as a flute 
 for such a purpose. 
 
 " All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
 All are but ministers of Love, 
 And feed his sacred flame." 
 
 I saw two of these flickers clinging to the 
 trunk of a shell-bark tree ; which, by the way, 
 is a tree after the woodpecker's own heart. 
 One was perhaps fifteen feet above the other, 
 and before each was a strip of loose bark, a sort 
 of natural drum -head. First, the lower one 
 "beat his music out," rather softly. Then, 
 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 123 
 
 as he ceased, and held his head back to listen, 
 the other answered him; and so the dialogue 
 went on. Evidently, they were already mated, 
 and were now renewing their mutual vows ; 
 for birds, to their praise be it spoken, believe 
 in courtship after marriage. The day happened 
 to be Sunday, and it did occur to me that pos- 
 sibly this was the woodpeckers' ritual, a kind 
 of High Church service, with antiphonal choirs. 
 But I dismissed the thought ; for, on the whole, 
 the shouting seems more likely to be diagnos- 
 tic, and in spite of his gold-lined wings, I have 
 set the flicker down as almost certainly an old- 
 fashioned Methodist. 
 
 Speaking of courtship after marriage, I am 
 reminded of a spotted sandpiper, whose capers 
 I amused myself with watching, one day last 
 June, on the shore of Saco Lake. As I caught 
 sight of him, he was straightening himself up, 
 with a pretty, self-conscious air, at the same 
 time spreading his white-edged tail, and calling, 
 Tweet, tiveet, tweet. 1 Afterwards he got upon 
 a log, where, with head erect and wings thrown 
 forward and downward, he ran for a yard or 
 two, calling as before. This trick seemed es- 
 
 1 May one who knows nothing of philology venture to inquire 
 whether the very close agreement of this tweet with our sweet 
 (compare also the Anglo-Saxon swete, the Icelandic scetr, and the 
 Sanskrit svad) does not point to a common origin of the Aryan 
 and sandpiper languages ? 
 
124 PHILL1DA AND COR1DON. 
 
 pecially to please him, and was several times 
 repeated. He ran rapidly, and with a comical 
 prancing movement ; but nothing he did was 
 half so laughable as the behavior of his mate, 
 who all this while dressed her feathers without 
 once deigning to look at her spouse's perform- 
 ance. Undoubtedly they had been married for 
 several weeks, and she was, by this time, well 
 used to his nonsense. It must be a devoted 
 husband, I fancy, who continues to offer atten- 
 tions when they are received in such a spirit. 
 
 Walking a log is a somewhat common prac- 
 tice with birds. I once detected our little golden- 
 crowned thrush showing off in this way to his 
 mate, who stood on the ground close at hand. 
 In his case the head was lowered instead of 
 raised, and the general effect was heightened by 
 his curiously precise gait, which even on ordi- 
 nary occasions is enough to provoke a smile. 
 
 Not improbably every species of birds has its 
 own code of etiquette ; unwritten, of course, but 
 carefully handed down from father to son, and 
 faithfully observed Nor is it cause for wonder 
 if, in our ignorant eyes, some of these " society 
 manners " look a little ridiculous. Even the 
 usages of fashionable human circles have not 
 always escaped the laughter of the profane. 
 
 I was standing on the edge of a small thicket, 
 observing a pair of cuckoos as they made a break- 
 
PHILL1DA AND CORIDON. 125 
 
 fast out of a nest of tent caterpillars (it was a 
 feast rather than a common meal ; for the cat- 
 erpillars were plentiful, and, as I judged, just 
 at their best, being about half grown), when a 
 couple of scarlet tanagers appeared upon the 
 scene. The female presently selected a fine strip 
 of cedar bark, and started off with it, sounding 
 a call to her handsome husband, who at once 
 followed in her wake. I thought, What a brute, 
 to leave his wife to build the house ! But he, 
 plainly enough, felt that in escorting her back 
 and forth he was doing all that ought to be ex- 
 pected of any well-bred, scarlet-coated tanager. 
 And the lady herself, if one might infer any- 
 thing from her tone and demeanor, was of the 
 same opinion. I mention this trifling occurrence, 
 not to put any slight uponPyranga rubra (who 
 am I, that I should accuse so gentle and well 
 dressed a bird of bad manners ?), but merely as 
 an example of the way in which feathered polite- 
 ness varies. In fact, it seems not unlikely that 
 the male tanager may abstain on principle from 
 taking any active part in constructing the nest, 
 lest his fiery color should betray its whereabouts. 
 As for his kindness and loyalty, I only wish I 
 could feel as sure of one half the human hus- 
 bands whom I meet. 
 
 It would be very ungallant of me, however, to 
 leave my readers to understand that the female 
 
126 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 bird is always so unsympathetic as most of the 
 descriptions thus far given would appear to in- 
 dicate. In my memory are several scenes, any 
 one of which, if I could put it on paper as I saw 
 it, would suffice to correct such an erroneous 
 impression. In one of these the parties were a 
 pair of chipping sparrows. Never was man so 
 churlish that his heart would not have been 
 touched with the vision of their gentle but rap- 
 turous delight. As they chased each other 
 gayly from branch to branch and from tree to 
 tree, they flew with that delicate, affected move- 
 ment of the wings which birds are accustomed 
 to use at such times, and which, perhaps, bears 
 the same relation to their ordinary flight that 
 dancing does to the every-day walk of men and 
 women. The two seemed equally enchanted, 
 and both sang. Little they knew of the " strug- 
 gle for existence " and the " survival of the 
 fittest." Adam and Eve, in Paradise, were never 
 more happy. 
 
 A few weeks later, taking an evening walk, 
 I was stopped by the sight of a pair of cedar- 
 birds on a stone wall. They had chosen a con- 
 venient flat stone, and were hopping about upon 
 it, pausing every moment or two to put their 
 little bills together. What a loving ecstasy pos- 
 sessed them ! Sometimes one, sometimes the 
 other, sounded a faint lisping note, and motioned 
 
PHILL1DA AND CORIDON. 127 
 
 for another kiss. Bat there is no setting forth 
 the ineffable grace and sweetness of their chaste 
 behavior. I looked and looked, till a passing 
 carriage frightened them away. They were 
 only common cedar-birds ; if I were to see them 
 again I should not know them ; but if my pen 
 were equal to my wish, they should be made 
 immortal. 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 A man that hath friends must show himself friendly. 
 
 PROVERBS xviii. 24. 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 As I was crossing Boston Common, some 
 years ago, my attention was caught by the un- 
 usual behavior of a robin, who wa,s standing on 
 the lawn, absolutely motionless, and every few 
 seconds making a faint hissing noise. So much 
 engaged was he that, even when a dog ran near 
 him, he only started slightly, and on the instant 
 resumed his statue-like attitude. Wondering 
 what this could mean, and not knowing how 
 else to satisfy my curiosity, I bethought myself 
 of a man whose letters about birds I had now 
 and then noticed in the daily press. So, look- 
 ing up his name in the City Directory, and find- 
 ing that he lived at such a number, Beacon 
 Street, I wrote him a note of inquiry. He must 
 have been amused as he read it ; for I remem- 
 ber giving him the title of " Esquire," and speak- 
 ing of his communication's to the newspapers as 
 the groumd of my application to him. " Such 
 is fame ! " he likely enough said to himself. 
 " Here is a man with eyes in his head, a man, 
 
132 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 moreover, who has probably been at school in 
 his time, for most of his words are spelled 
 correctly, and yet he knows my name only 
 as he has seen it signed once in a while to a few 
 lines in a newspaper." Thoughts like these, 
 however, did not prevent his replying to the 
 note (my " valued favor ") with all politeness, 
 although he confessed himself unable to answer 
 my question ; and by the time I had occasion to 
 trouble him again I had learned that he was to 
 be addressed as Doctor, and, furthermore, was 
 an ornithologist of world-wide reputation, being, 
 in fact, one of the three joint-authors of the 
 most important work so far issued on the birds 
 of North America. 
 
 Certainly I was and am grateful to him (he 
 is now dead) for his generous treatment of my 
 ignorance ; but even warmer is my feeling to- 
 ward that city thrush, who, all unconscious of 
 what he was doing, started me that day on a 
 line of study which has been ever since a con- 
 tinual delight. Most gladly would I do him 
 any kindness in my power ; but I have little 
 doubt that, long ere this, he, too, has gone the 
 way of all the earth. As to what he was think- 
 ing about on that memorable May morning, I am 
 as much in the dark as ever. But tfcere is no 
 law against a bird's behaving mysteriously, I 
 suppose. Most of us, I am sure, often do things 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 133 
 
 which are inexplicable to ourselves, and once in 
 a very great while, perhaps, it would puzzle even 
 our next-door neighbors to render a complete ac- 
 count of our motives. 
 
 Whatever the robin meant, however, and no 
 doubt there was some good reason for his con- 
 duct, he had given my curiosity the needed 
 jog. Now, at last, I would do what I had often 
 dreamed of doing, learn something about the 
 birds of my own region, and be able to recognize 
 at least the more common ones when I saw them. 
 
 The interest of the study proved to be the 
 greater for my ignorance, which, to speak 
 within bounds, was nothing short of wonderful ; 
 perhaps I might appropriately use a more fash- 
 ionable word, and call it phenomenal. All my 
 life long I had had a kind of passion for being 
 out-of-doors ; and, to tell the truth, I had been 
 so often seen wandering by myself in out-of-the- 
 way wood-paths, or sitting idly about on stone 
 walls in lonesome pastures, that some of my 
 Philistine townsmen had most likely come to 
 look upon me as no better than a vagabond. 
 Yet I was not a vagabond, for all that. I liked 
 work, perhaps, as well as the generality of peo- 
 ple. But I was unfortunate in this respect : 
 while I enjoyed in-door work, I hated to be in 
 the house ; and, on the other hand, while I en- 
 joyed being out-of-doors, I hated all manner of 
 
134 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 out-door employment. I was not lazy, but I pos- 
 sessed well, let us call it the true aboriginal 
 temperament ; though I fear that this distinc- 
 tion will be found too subtile, even for the well- 
 educated, unless, along with their education, 
 they have a certain sympathetic bias, which, 
 after all, is the main thing to be depended on 
 in such nice psychological discriminations. 
 
 With all my rovings in wood and field, how- 
 ever, I knew nothing of any open-air study. 
 Study was a thing of books. At school we were 
 never taught to look elsewhere for knowledge. 
 Reading and spelling, geography and grammar, 
 arithmetic and algebra, geometry and trigo- 
 nometry, these were studied, of course, as also 
 were Latin and Greek. But none of our lessons 
 took us out of the school-room, unless it was 
 astronomy, the study of which I had nearly for- 
 gotten ; and that we pursued in the night-time, 
 when birds and plants were as though they were 
 not. I cannot recollect that any one of my teach- 
 ers ever called my attention to a natural object. 
 It seems incredible, but, so far as my memory 
 serves, I was never in the habit of observing the 
 return of the birds in the spring or their de- 
 parture in the autumn ; except, to be sure, that 
 the semi-annual flight of the ducks and geese 
 was always a pleasant excitement, more espe- 
 cially because there were several lakes (invari- 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 135 
 
 ably spoken of as ponds) in our vicinity, on the 
 borders of which 'the village " gunners " built 
 pine-branch booths in the season. 
 
 But now, as I have said, my ignorance was 
 converted all at once into a kind of bless- 
 ing ; for no sooner had I begun to read bird 
 books, and consult a cabinet of mounted speci- 
 mens, than every turn out-of-doors became full 
 of all manner of delightful surprises. Could it 
 be that what I now beheld with so much won- 
 der was only the same as had been going on 
 year after year in these my own familiar lanes 
 and woods ? Truly the human eye is nothing 
 more than a window, of no use unless the man 
 looks out of it. 
 
 Some of the experiences of that period seem 
 ludicrous enough in the retrospect. Only two 
 or three days after my eyes were first opened I 
 was out with a friend in search of wild-flowers 
 (I was piloting him to a favorite station for 
 Viola pubescens), when I saw a most elegant 
 little creature, mainly black and white, but 
 with brilliant orange markings. He was dart- 
 ing hither and thither among the branches of 
 some low trees, while I stared at him in amaze- 
 ment, calling on my comrade, who was as igno- 
 rant as myself, but less excited, to behold the 
 prodigy. Half trembling lest the bird should 
 prove to be some straggler from the tropics, the 
 
136 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 like of which would not be found in the cabi- 
 net before mentioned, I went thither that very 
 evening. Alas, my silly fears ! there stood the 
 little beauty's exact counterpart, labeled Seto- 
 pTiaga ruticilla, the American redstart, a bird 
 which the manual assured me was very common 
 in my neighborhood. 
 
 But it was not my eyes only that were 
 opened, my ears also were touched. It was as 
 if all the birds had heretofore been silent, and 
 now, under some sudden impulse, had broken 
 out in universal concert. What a glorious 
 chorus it was ; and every voice a stranger ! 
 For a week or more I was puzzled by a song 
 which I heard without fail whenever I went 
 into the woods, but the author of which I could 
 never set eyes on, a song so exceptionally 
 loud and shrill, and marked by such a vehe- 
 ment crescendo, that, even to my new-found 
 ears, it stood out from the general medley a 
 thing by itself. Many times I struck into the 
 woods in the direction whence it came, but 
 without getting so much as a flying glimpse 
 of the musician. Very mysterious, surely ! 
 Finally, by accident I believe, I caught the fel- 
 low in the very act of singing, as he stood on 
 a dead pine-limb; and a few minutes later he 
 was on the ground, walking about (not hop- 
 ping) with the primmest possible gait, a 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 137 
 
 small olive-brown bird, with an orange crown 
 and a speckled breast. Then I knew him for 
 the golden-crowned thrush ; but it was not for 
 some time after this that I heard his famous 
 evening song, and it was longer still before I 
 found his curious roofed nest. 
 
 " Happy those early days," those days of 
 childish innocence, though I was a man 
 grown, when every bird seemed newly cre- 
 ated, and even the redstart and the wood wag- 
 tail were like rarities from the ends of the 
 earth. Verily, my case was like unto Adam's, 
 when every fowl of the air was brought before 
 him for a name. 
 
 One evening, on my way back to the city 
 after an afternoon ramble, I stopped just at 
 dusk in a grove of hemlocks, and soon out of 
 the tree-top overhead came a song, a brief 
 strain of about six notes, in a musical buij 
 rather rough voice, and in exquisite accord 
 with the quiet solemnity of the hour. Again 
 and again the sounds fell on my ear, and as 
 often I endeavored to obtain a view of the 
 singer ; but he was in the thick of the upper 
 branches, and I looked for him in vain. How 
 delicious the music was ! a perfect lullaby, 
 drowsy and restful ; like the benediction of the 
 wood on the spirit of a tired city-dweller. I 
 blessed the unknown songster in return ; and 
 
138 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 even now I have a feeling that the peculiar en- 
 joyment which the song of the black-throated 
 green warbler never fails to afford me may per- 
 haps be due in some measure to its association 
 with that twilight hour. 
 
 To this same hemlock grove I was in the 
 habit, in those days, of going now and then 
 to listen to the evening hymn of the veery, or 
 Wilson thrush. Here, if nowhere else, might 
 be heard music fit to be called sacred. Nor did 
 it seem a disadvantage, but rather the contrary, 
 when, as sometimes happened, I was compelled 
 to take my seat in the edge of the wood, and 
 wait quietly, in the gathering darkness, for 
 vespers to begin. The veery's mood is not so 
 lofty as the hermit's, nor is his music to be com- 
 pared for brilliancy and fullness with that of the 
 wood thrush ; but, more than any other bird- 
 song known to me, the veery's has, if I may 
 say so, the accent of sanctity. Nothing is here 
 of self-consciousness ; nothing of earthly pride 
 or passion. If we chance to overhear it and 
 laud the singer, that is our affair. Simple- 
 hearted worshiper that he is, he has never 
 dreamed of winning praise for himself by the 
 excellent manner in which he praises his Crea- 
 tor, an absence of thrift, which is very be- 
 coming in thrushes, though, I suppose, it is 
 hardly to be looked for in human choirs. 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 139 
 
 And yet, for all the unstudied ease and sim- 
 plicity of the veery's strain, he is a great master 
 of technique. In his own artless way he does 
 what I have never heard any other bird at- 
 tempt : he gives to his melody all the force of 
 harmony. How this unique and curious effect, 
 this vocal double-stopping, as a violinist might 
 term it, is produced, is not certainly known ; 
 but it would seem that it must be by an arpeggio, 
 struck with such consummate quickness and 
 precision that the ear is unable to follow it, and 
 is conscious of nothing but the resultant chord. 
 At any rate, the thing itself is indisputable, and 
 has often been commented on. 
 
 Moreover, this is only half the veery's tech- 
 nical proficiency. Once in a while, at least, he 
 will favor you with a delightful feat of ventril- 
 oquism ; beginning to sing in single voice, as 
 usual, and anon, without any noticeable increase 
 in the loudness of the tones, diffusing the music 
 throughout the wood, as if there were a bird in 
 every tree, all singing together in the strictest 
 time. I am not sure that all members of the 
 species possess this power, and I have never 
 seen the performance alluded to in print ; but 
 I have heard it when the illusion was complete, 
 and the effect most beautiful. 
 
 Music so devout and unostentatious as the 
 veery's does not appeal to the hurried or the 
 
140 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 preoccupied. If you would enjoy it you must 
 bring an ear to hear. I have sometimes pleased 
 myself with imagining a resemblance between 
 it and the poetry of George Herbert, both 
 uncared for by the world, but both, on that very 
 account, prized all the more dearly by the few 
 in every generation whose spirits are in tune 
 with theirs. 
 
 This bird is one of a group of small thrushes 
 called the Hylocichlce, of which group we have 
 five representatives in the Atlantic States : the 
 wood thrush ; the Wilson, or tawny thrush ; 
 the hermit ; the olive-backed, or Swainson ; and 
 the gray-cheeked, or Alice's thrush. To the 
 unpracticed eye the five all look alike. All of 
 them, too, have the same glorious voice, so that 
 the young student is pretty sure to find it a 
 matter of some difficulty to tell them apart. 
 Yet there are differences of coloration which 
 may be trusted as constant, and to which, after 
 a while, the eye becomes habituated ; and, at 
 the same time, each species has a song and call- 
 notes peculiar to itself. One cannot help wish- 
 ing, indeed, that he might hear the five singing 
 by turns in the same wood. Then he could fix 
 the distinguishing peculiarities of the different 
 songs in his mind so as never to confuse them 
 again. But this is more than can be hoped 
 for ; the listener must be content with hearing 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 141 
 
 two, or at the most three, of the species singing 
 together, and trust his memory to make the nec- 
 essary comparison. 
 
 The song of the wood thrush is perhaps the 
 most easily set apart from the rest, because of 
 its greater compass of voice and bravery of ex- 
 ecution. The Wilson's song, as you hear it by 
 itself, seems so perfectly characteristic that you 
 fancy you can never mistake any other for it ; 
 and yet, if you are in northern New England 
 only a week afterwards, you may possibly hear 
 a Swainson (especially if he happens to be one 
 of the best singers of his species, and, more es- 
 pecially still, if he happens to be at just the 
 right distance away), who you will say, at first 
 thought, is surely a Wilson. The difficulty of 
 distinguishing the voices is naturally greatest in 
 the spring, when they have not been heard for 
 eight or nine months. Here, as elsewhere, the 
 student must be willing to learn the same lesson 
 over and over, letting patience have her perfect 
 work. That the five songs are really distin- 
 guishable is well illustrated by the fact (which 
 I have before mentioned), that the presence of 
 the Alice thrush in New England during the 
 breeding season was announced as probable by 
 myself, simply on the strength of a song which 
 I had heard in the White Mountains, and which, 
 as I believed, must be his, notwithstanding I 
 
142 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 was entirely unacquainted with it, and though 
 all our books affirmed that the Alice thrush 
 was not a summer resident of any part of the 
 United States. 
 
 It is worth remarking, also, in this connec- 
 tion, that the Hylocichlce differ more decidedly 
 in their notes of alarm than in their songs. 
 The wood thrush's call is extremely sharp and 
 brusque, and is usually fired off in a little vol- 
 ley ; that of the Wilson is a sort of whine, or 
 snarl, in distressing contrast with his song ; the 
 hermit's is a quick, sotto voce, sometimes almost 
 inaudible chuck; the Swainson's is a mellow 
 whistle ; while that of the Alice is something 
 between the Swainson's and the Wilson's, 
 not so gentle and refined as the former, nor so 
 outrageously vulgar as the latter. 
 
 In what is here said about discriminating 
 species it must be understood that I am not 
 speaking of such identification as will answer 
 a strictly scientific purpose. For that the bird 
 must be shot. To the maiden 
 
 "whose light blue eyes 
 Are tender over drowning flies," 
 
 this decree will no doubt sound cruel. Men who 
 pass laws of that sort may call themselves orni- 
 thologists, if they will ; for her part she calls them 
 butchers. We might turn on our fair accuser, it 
 is true, with some inquiry about the two or three 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 143 
 
 bird-skins which adorn her bonnet. But that 
 would be only giving one more proof of our heart- 
 lessness ; and, besides, unless a man is down- 
 right angry he can scarcely feel that he has 
 really cleared himself when he has done nothing 
 more than to point the finger and say, You 're 
 another. However, I am not set for the defence 
 of ornithologists. They are abundantly able to 
 take care of themselves without the help of any 
 outsider. I only declare that, even to my un- 
 professional eye, this rule of theirs seems wise 
 and necessary. They know, if their critics do 
 not, how easy it is to be deceived ; how many 
 times things have been seen and minutely de- 
 scribed, which, as was afterwards established, 
 could not by any possibility have been visible. 
 Moreover, regret it as we may, it is clear that in 
 this world nobody can escape giving and taking 
 more or less pain. We of the sterner sex are 
 accustomed to think that even our blue-eyed 
 censors are not entirely innocent in this regard ; 
 albeit, for myself, I am bound to believe that 
 generally they are not to blame for the tortures 
 they inflict upon us. 
 
 Granting the righteousness of the scientist's 
 caution, however, we may still find a less rigor- 
 ous code sufficient for our own non-scientific, 
 though I hope not unscientific, purpose. For it 
 is certain that no great enjoyment of bird study 
 
144 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 is possible for some of us, if we are never to be 
 allowed to call our gentle friends by name un- 
 til in every case we have gone through the for- 
 mality of a post-mortem examination. Practi- 
 cally, and for every-day ends, we may know a 
 robin, or a redstart, or even a hermit thrush, 
 when we see him, without first turning the bird 
 into a specimen. 
 
 Probably there are none of our birds which 
 afford more surprise and pleasure to a novice 
 than the family of warblers. A well-known 
 ornithologist has related how one day he wan- 
 dered into the forest in an idle mood, and acci- 
 dentally catching a gleam of bright color over- 
 head, raised his gun and brought the bird to his 
 feet ; and how excited and charmed he was with 
 the wondrous beauty of his little trophy. Were 
 there other birds in the woods as lovely as this ? 
 He would see for himself. And that was the 
 beginning of what bids fair to prove a life-long 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Thirty-eight warblers are credited to New 
 England ; but it would be safe to say that not 
 more than three of them are known to the 
 average New-Englander. How should. he know 
 them, indeed ? They do not come about the 
 flower-garden like the humming-bird, nor about 
 the lawn like the robin ; neither can they be 
 hunted with a dog like the grouse and the 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 145 
 
 woodcock. Hence, for all their gorgeous ap- 
 parel, they are mainly left to students and 
 collectors. Of our common species the most 
 beautiful are, perhaps, the blue yellow - back, 
 the blue golden-wing, the Blackburnian, the 
 black -and -yellow, the Canada flycatcher, and 
 the redstart ; with the yellow-rump, the black- 
 throated green, the prairie warbler, the sum- 
 mer yellow -bird, and the Maryland yellow- 
 throat coming not far behind. But all of them 
 are beautiful, and they possess, besides, the 
 charm of great diversity of plumage and hab- 
 its ; while some of them have the further merit, 
 by no means inconsiderable, of being rare. 
 
 It was a bright day for me when the blue 
 golden-winged warbler settled in my neighbor- 
 hood. On my morning walk I detected a new 
 song, and, following it up, found a new bird, 
 a result which is far from being a thing 
 of course. The spring migration was at its 
 height, and at first I expected to have the 
 pleasure of my new friend's society for only 
 a day or two ; so I made the most of it. But 
 it turned out that he and his companion had 
 come to spend the summer, and before very long 
 I discovered their nest. This was still unfin- 
 ished when I came upon it ; but I knew pretty 
 well whose it was, having several times noticed 
 the birds about the spot, and a few days after- 
 10 
 
146 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 wards the female bravely sat still, while I bent 
 over her, admiring her courage and her hand- 
 some dress. I paid my respects to the little 
 mother almost daily, but jealously guarded her 
 secret, sharing it only with a kind-hearted 
 woman, whom I took with me on one of my 
 visits. But, alas! one day I called, only to 
 find the nest empty. Whether the villain who 
 pillaged it traveled on two legs, or on four, I 
 never knew. Possibly he dropped out of the 
 air. But I wished him no good, whoever he 
 was. Next year the birds appeared again, and 
 more than one pair of them ; but no nest could 
 I find, though I often looked for it, and, as 
 children say in their games, was sometimes very 
 warm. 
 
 Is there any lover of birds in whose mind 
 certain birds and certain places are not indis- 
 solubly joined ? Most of us, I am sure, could 
 go over the list and name the exact spots 
 where we first saw this one, where we first 
 heard that one sing, and where we found 
 our first nest of the other. There is a piece 
 of swampy woodland in Jefferson, New Hamp- 
 shire, midway between the hotels and the rail- 
 way station, which, for me, will always be as- 
 sociated with the song of the winter wren. I 
 had been making an attempt to explore the 
 wood, with a view to its botanical treasures ; 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 147 
 
 but the mosquitoes had rallied with such spirit 
 that I was glad to beat a retreat to the road. 
 Just then an unseen bird broke out into a song, 
 and by the time he had finished I was saying to 
 myself, A winter wren ! Now, if I could only 
 see him in the act, and so be sure of the correct- 
 ness of my guess! I worked to that end as 
 cautiously as possible, but all to no purpose ; 
 and finally I started abruptly toward the spot 
 whence the sound had come, expecting to see 
 the bird fly. But apparently there was no bird 
 there, and I stood still, in a little perplexity. 
 Then, all at once, the wren appeared, hopping 
 about among the dead branches, within a few 
 yards of my feet, and peering at the intruder 
 with evident curiosity ; and the next moment 
 he was joined by a hermit thrush, equally in- 
 quisitive. Both were silent as dead men, but 
 plainly had no doubt whatever that they were 
 in their own domain, and that it belonged to 
 the other party to move away. I presumed 
 that the thrush, at least, had a nest not far off, 
 but after a little search (the mosquitoes were 
 still active) I concluded not to intrude further 
 on his domestic privacy. I had heard the 
 wren's famous song, and it had not been over- 
 praised. But then came the inevitable second 
 thought : had I really heard it ? True, the 
 music possessed the wren characteristics, and a 
 
148 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 winter wren was in the brush ; but what proof 
 had I that the bird and the song belonged to- 
 gether ? No ; I must see him in the act of 
 singing. But this, I found, was more easily 
 said than done. In Jefferson, in Gorham, in 
 the Franconia Notch, in short, wherever I 
 went, there was no difficulty about hearing the 
 music, and little about seeing the wren ; but it 
 was provoking that eye and ear could never 
 be brought to bear witness to the same bird. 
 However, this difficulty was not insuperable, 
 and after it was once overcome I was in the 
 habit of witnessing the whole performance 
 almost as often as I wished. 
 
 Of similar interest to me is a turn in an old 
 Massachusetts road, over which, boy and man, 
 I have traveled hundreds of times ; one of those 
 delightful back-roads, half road and half lane, 
 where the grass grows between the horse-track 
 and the wheel-track, while bushes usurp what 
 ought to be the sidewalk. Here, one morning 
 in the time when every day was disclosing two 
 or three new species for my delight, I stopped 
 to listen to some bird of quite unsuspected 
 identity, who was calling and singing and scold- 
 ing in the Indian brier thicket, making, in truth, 
 a prodigious racket. I twisted and turned, and 
 was not a little astonished when at last I de- 
 tected the author of all this outcry. From a 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 149 
 
 study of the manual I set him down as proba- 
 bly the white-eyed vireo, a conjecture which 
 further investigation confirmed. This vireo is 
 the very prince of stump-speakers, fluent, 
 loud, and sarcastic, and is well called the 
 politician, though it is a disappointment to learn 
 that the title was given him, not for his elo- 
 quence, but on account of his habit of putting 
 pieces of newspaper into his nest. While I 
 stood peering into the thicket, a man whom I 
 knew came along the road, and caught me thus 
 disreputably employed. Without doubt he 
 thought me a lazy good-for-nothing ; or pos- 
 sibly (being more charitable) he said to him- 
 self, " Poor fellow ! he 's losing his mind." 
 
 Take a gun on your shoulder, and go wan- 
 dering about the woods all day long, and you 
 will be looked upon with respect, no matter 
 though you kill nothing bigger than a chip- 
 munk ; or stand by the hour at the end of a 
 fishing-pole, catching nothing but mosquito- 
 bites, and your neighbors will think no ill of 
 you. But to be seen staring at a bird for five 
 minutes together, or picking road-side weeds ! 
 well, it is fortunate there are asylums for the 
 crazy. Not unlikely the malady will grow upon 
 him ; and who knows how soon he may become 
 dangerous? Something must be wrong about 
 that to which we are unaccustomed. Blowing 
 
150 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 out the brains of rabbits and squirrels is an 
 innocent and delightful pastime, as everybody 
 knows ; and the delectable excitement of pull- 
 ing half-grown fishes out of the pond to perish 
 miserably on the bank, that, too, is a recreation 
 easily enough appreciated. But what shall be 
 said of enjoying birds without killing them, or 
 of taking pleasure in plants, which, so far as we 
 know, cannot suffer even if we do kill them ? 
 
 Of my many pleasant associations of birds 
 with places, one of the pleasantest is connected 
 with the red-headed woodpecker. This showy 
 bird has for a good many years been very rare 
 in Massachusetts ; and therefore, when, during 
 the freshness of my ornithological researches, I 
 went to Washington for a month's visit, it was 
 one of the things which I had especially in 
 mind, to make his acquaintance. But I looked 
 for him without success, till, at the end of a 
 fortnight, I made a pilgrimage to Mount Ver- 
 non. Here, after visiting the grave, and going 
 over the house, as every visitor does, I saun- 
 tered about the grounds, thinking of the great 
 man who used to do the same so many years 
 before, but all the while keeping my eyes open 
 for the present feathered inhabitants of the sa- 
 cred spot. Soon a bird dashed by me, and 
 struck against the trunk of an adjacent tree, 
 and glancing up quickly, I beheld my much- 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 151 
 
 sought red -headed woodpecker. How appro- 
 priately patriotic he looked, at the home of 
 Washington, wearing the national colors, red, 
 white, and blue ! After this he became abun- 
 dant about the capital, so that I saw him often, 
 and took much pleasure in his frolicsome ways ; 
 and, some years later, he suddenly appeared in 
 force in the vicinity of Boston, where he re- 
 mained through the winter months. To my 
 thought, none the less, he will always suggest 
 Mount Vernon. Indeed, although he is cer- 
 tainly rather jovial, and even giddy, he is to me 
 the bird of Washington much more truly than 
 is the solemn, stupid-seeming eagle, who com- 
 monly bears that name. 
 
 To go away from home, even if the journey 
 be no longer than from Massachusetts to the 
 District of Columbia, is sure to prove an event 
 of no small interest to a young naturalist ; and 
 this visit of mine to the national capital was no 
 exception. On the afternoon of my arrival, 
 walking up Seventh Street, I heard a series of 
 loud, clear, monotonous whistles, which I had 
 then no leisure to investigate, but the author 
 of which I promised myself the satisfaction of 
 meeting at another time. In fact, I think it 
 was at least a fortnight before I learned that 
 these whistles came from the tufted titmouse. 
 I had been seeing him almost daily, but till 
 
152 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 then he had never chanced to use that particu- 
 lar note while under my eye. 
 
 There was a certain tract of country, wood- 
 land and pasture, over which I roamed a good 
 many times, and which is still clearly mapped 
 out in my memory. Here I found my first 
 Carolina or mocking wren, who ran in at one 
 side of a woodpile and came out at the other as 
 I drew near, and who, a day or two afterwards, 
 sang so loudly from an oak tree that I ransacked 
 it with my eye in search of some large bird, 
 and was confounded when finally I discovered 
 who the musician really was. Here, every day, 
 were to be heard the glorious song of the car- 
 dinal grosbeak, the insect-like effort of the blue- 
 gray gnat-catcher, and the rigmarole of the yel- 
 low-breasted chat. On a wooded hillside, 
 where grew a profusion of trailing arbutus, 
 pink azalea, and bird-foot violets, the rowdy- 
 ish, great-crested flycatchers were screaming in 
 the tree-tops. In this same grove I twice saw 
 the rare red-bellied woodpecker, who, on both 
 occasions, after rapping smartly with his beak, 
 turned his head and laid his ear against the 
 trunk, evidently listening to see whether his 
 alarm had set any grub a-stirring. Near by, 
 in an undergrowth, I fell in with a few worm- 
 eating warblers. They seemed of a peculiarly 
 unsuspicious turn of mind, and certainly wore 
 
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 153 
 
 the quaintest of head-dresses. I must mention 
 also a scarlet tanager, who, all afire as he was, 
 one day alighted in a bush of flowering dog- 
 wood, which was completely covered with its 
 large white blossoms. Probably he had no idea 
 how well his perch became him. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to be ashamed to confess it, 
 but, though I went several times into the gal- 
 leries of our honorable Senate and House of 
 Representatives, and heard speeches by some 
 celebrated men, including at least half a dozen 
 candidates for the presidency, yet, after all, 
 the congressmen in feathers interested me 
 most. I thought, indeed, that the chat might 
 well enough have been elected to the lower 
 house. His volubility and waggish manners 
 would have made him quite at home in that 
 assembly, while his orange - colored waistcoat 
 would have given him an agreeable conspicuity. 
 But, to be sure, he would have needed to learn 
 the use of tobacco. 
 
 Well, all this was only a few years ago ; but 
 the men whose eloquence then drew the crowd 
 to the capitol are, many of them, heard there 
 no longer. Some are dead ; some have retired 
 to private life. But the birds never die. Every 
 spring they come trooping back for their all- 
 summer session. The turkey-buzzard still floats 
 majestically over the city ; the chat still prac- 
 
154 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 tices his lofty tumbling in the suburban pas- 
 tures, snarling and scolding at all comers ; the 
 flowing Potomac still yields " a blameless 
 sport " to the fish-crow and the kingfisher ; the 
 orchard oriole continues to whistle in front of 
 the Agricultural Department, and the crow 
 blackbird to parade back and forth over the 
 Smithsonian lawns. Presidents and senators 
 may come and go, be praised and vilified, and 
 then in turn forgotten ; but the birds are sub- 
 ject to no such mutations. It is a foolish 
 thought, but sometimes their happy careless- 
 ness seems the better part. 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 The lesser lights, the dearer still 
 That they elude a vulgar eye. 
 
 BROWNING. 
 
 Listen too, 
 How every pause is filled with under-notes. 
 
 SHELLKY. 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 AMONG those of us who are in the habit of 
 attending to bird-songs, there can hardly be 
 anybody, I think, who has not found himself 
 specially and permanently attracted by the mu- 
 sic of certain birds who have little or no gen- 
 eral reputation. Our favoritism may perhaps 
 be the result of early associations : we heard the 
 singer first in some uncommonly romantic spot, 
 or when we were in a mood of unusual sensibil- 
 ity ; and, in greater or less degree, the charm of 
 that hour is always renewed for us with the 
 repetition of the song. Or it may be (who will 
 assert the contrary ?) that there is some occult 
 relation between the bird's mind and our own. 
 Or, once more, something may be due to the nat- 
 ural pleasure which amiable people take (and 
 all lovers of birds may be supposed, a priori, to 
 belong to that class) in paying peculiar honor 
 to merit which the world at large, less discrimi- 
 nating than they, has thus far failed to recog- 
 nize, and in which, therefore, as by " right of 
 
158 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 discovery," they have a sort of proprietary inter- 
 est. This, at least, is evident : our preference 
 is not determined altogether by the intrinsic 
 worth of the song ; the mind is active, not pass- 
 ive, and gives to the music something from it- 
 self, " the consecration and the poet's dream." 
 
 Furthermore, it is to be said that a singer 
 and a bird no less than a man may be want- 
 ing in that fullness and scope of voice and that 
 large measure of technical skill which are abso- 
 lutely essential to the great artist, properly so 
 called, and yet, within his own limitations, may 
 be competent to please even the most fastidious 
 ear. It is with birds as with other poets : the 
 smaller gift need not be the less genuine ; and 
 they whom the world calls greatest, and whom 
 we ourselves most admire, may possibly not be 
 the ones who touch us most intimately, or to 
 whom we return oftenest and with most delight. 
 
 This may be well illustrated by a comparison 
 of the chickadee with the brown thrush. The 
 thrush, or, as he is sometimes profanely styled, 
 the thrasher, is the most pretentious, perhaps I 
 ought to say the greatest, of New England song- 
 sters, if we rule out the mocking-bird, who is so 
 very rare with us as scarcely to come into the 
 competition ; and still, in my opinion, his sing- 
 ing seldom produces the effect of really fine 
 music. With all his ability, which is nothing 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 159 
 
 short of marvelous, his taste is so deplorably 
 uncertain, and his passion so often becomes a 
 downright frenzy, that the excited listener, 
 hardly knowing what to think, laughs and shouts 
 Bravo ! by turns. Something must be amiss, 
 certainly, when the deepest feelings of the heart 
 are poured forth in a manner to suggest the per- 
 formance of a buffo. The chickadee, on the 
 other hand, seldom gets mention as a singer. 
 Probably he never looked upon himself as such. 
 You will not find him posing at the top of a 
 tree, challenging the world to listen and admire. 
 But, as he hops from twig to twig in quest of 
 insects' eggs and other dainties, his merry spirits 
 are all the time bubbling over in little chirps 
 and twitters, with now and then a Chickadee, 
 dee, or a Hear, hear me, every least syllable of 
 which is like " the very sound of happy 
 thoughts." For my part, I rate such trifles with 
 the best of all good music, and feel that we 
 cannot be grateful enough to the brave tit, who 
 furnishes us with them for the twelve months 
 of every year. 
 
 So far as the chickadee is concerned, I see 
 nothing whatever to wish different ; but am 
 glad to believe that, for my day and long after, 
 he will remain the same unassuming, careless- 
 hearted creature that he now is. If I may be 
 allowed the paradox, it would be too bad for 
 
160 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 him to change, even for the better. But the 
 bluebird, who like the titmouse is hardly to be 
 accounted a musician, does seem to be some- 
 what blameworthy. Once in a while, it is true, 
 he takes a perch and sings ; but for the most 
 part he is contented with a few simple notes, 
 having no semblance of a tune. Possibly he 
 holds that his pure contralto voice (I do not re- 
 member ever to have heard from him any note 
 of a soprano, or even of a mezzo-soprano quality) 
 ought by itself to be a sufficient distinction ; but 
 I think it likelier that his slight attempt at 
 music is only one manifestation of the habitual 
 reserve which, more than anything else per- 
 haps, may be said to characterize him. How 
 differently he and the robin impress us in this 
 particular ! Both take up their abode in our 
 door-yards and orchards ; the bluebird goes so 
 far, indeed, as to accept our hospitality outright, 
 building his nest in boxes put up for his accom- 
 modation, and making the roofs of our houses 
 his favorite perching stations. But, while the 
 robin is noisily and jauntily familiar, the blue- 
 bird maintains a dignified aloofness ; coming and 
 going about the premises, but keeping his 
 thoughts to himself, and never becoming one of 
 us save by the mere accident of local proximity. 
 The robin, again, loves to travel in large flocks, 
 when household duties are over for the season ; 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 161 
 
 but although the same has been reported of the 
 bluebird, I have never myself seen such a thing, 
 and am satisfied that, as a rule, this gentle spirit 
 finds a family party of six or seven company 
 enough. His reticence, as we cheerfully admit, 
 is nothing to quarrel with ; it is all well-bred, 
 and not in the least unkindly ; in fact, we like 
 it, on the whole, rather better than the robin's 
 pertness and garrulity ; but, none the less, its 
 natural consequence is that the bird has small 
 concern for musical display. When he sings, 
 it is not to gain applause, but to express his af- 
 fection ; and while, in one aspect of the case, 
 there is nothing out of the way in this, since 
 his affection need not be the less deep and true 
 because it is told in few words and with un- 
 adorned phrase, yet, as I said to begin with, 
 it is hard not to feel that the world is being de- 
 frauded, when for any reason, however amiable, 
 the possessor of such a matchless voice has no 
 ambition to make the most of it. 
 
 It is always a double pleasure to find a plod- 
 ding, humdrum-seeming man with a poet's heart 
 in his breast ; and a little of the same delighted 
 surprise is felt by every one, I imagine, when 
 he learns for the first time that our little brown 
 creeper is a singer. What life could possibly 
 be more prosaic than his ? Day after day, year 
 in and out, he creeps up one tree-trunk after 
 11 
 
162 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 another, pausing only to peer right and left 
 into the crevices of the bark, in search of mi- 
 croscopic tidbits. A most irksome sameness, 
 surely ! How the poor fellow must envy the 
 swallows, who live on the wing, and, as it were, 
 have their home in heaven ! So it is easy for 
 us to think ; but I doubt whether the creeper 
 himself is troubled with such suggestions. He 
 seems, to say the least, as well contented as the 
 most of us ; and, what is more, I am inclined to 
 doubt whether any except " free moral agents," 
 like ourselves, are ever wicked enough to find 
 fault with the orderings of Divine Providence. 
 I fancy, too, that we may have exaggerated the 
 monotony of the creeper's lot. It can scarcely 
 be that even his days are without their occa- 
 sional pleasurable excitements. After a good 
 many trees which yield little or nothing for his 
 pains, he must now and then light upon one 
 which is like Canaan after the wilderness, 
 " a land flowing with milk and honey." In- 
 deed, the longer I think of it the more confi- 
 dent I feel that every aged creeper must have 
 had sundry experiences of this sort, which he 
 is never weary of recounting for the edification 
 of his nephews and nieces, who, of course, are 
 far too young to have anything like the wide 
 knowledge of the world which their venerable 
 three-years-old uncle possesses. Certhia works 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 163 
 
 all day for his daily bread ; and yet even of 
 him it is true that " the life is more than meat." 
 He has his inward joys, his affectionate de- 
 lights, which no outward infelicity can touch. 
 A bird who thinks nothing of staying by his 
 nest and bis mate at the sacrifice of his life is 
 not to be written down a dullard or a drudge, 
 merely because his dress is plain and his occu- 
 pation unromantic. He has a right to sing, for 
 he has something within him to inspire the 
 strain. 
 
 There are descriptions of the creeper's music 
 which liken it to a wren's. I am sorry that 
 I have myself heard it only on one occasion : 
 then, however, so far was it from being wren- 
 like that it might rather have been the work of 
 one of the less proficient warblers, a some- 
 what long opening note followed by a hurried 
 series of shorter ones, the whole given in a 
 sharp, thin voice, and having nothing to recom- 
 mend it to notice, considered simply as music. 
 All the while the bird kept on industriously 
 with his journey up the tree ; and it is not in 
 the least unlikely that he may have another 
 and better song, which he reserves for times of 
 more leisure. 1 
 
 Our American wood-warblers are all to be 
 
 1 Since this was written I have heard the creeper sing a tune 
 very different from the one described above. See p. 227. 
 
164 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 classed among the minor songsters ; standing 
 in this respect in strong contrast with the true 
 Old World warblers, of whose musical capacity 
 enough, perhaps, is said when it is mentioned 
 that the nightingale is one of them. But, com- 
 parisons apart, our birds are by no means to be 
 despised, and not a few of their songs have a 
 good degree of merit. That of the well-known 
 summer yellow-bird may be taken as fairly rep- 
 resentative of the entire group, being neither 
 one of the best nor one of the poorest. He, I 
 have noticed, is given to singing late in the 
 day. Three of the New England species have 
 at the same time remarkably rough voices and 
 black throats, I mean the black - throated 
 blue, the black-throated green, and the blue 
 golden -wing, and seeing that the first two 
 are of the genus Dendrceoa, while the last is 
 a Helminthophaga, I have allowed myself to 
 query (half in earnest) whether they may not, 
 possibly, be more nearly related than the sys- 
 tematists have yet discovered. Several of the 
 warbler songs are extremely odd. The blue 
 yellow-back's, for example, is a brief, hoarse, 
 upward run, a kind of scale exercise ; and if 
 the practice of such things be really as bene- 
 ficial as music teachers affirm, it would seem 
 that this little beauty must in time become a 
 vocalist of the first order. Nearly the same 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 165 
 
 might be said of the prairie warbler ; but his 
 etude is a little longer and less hurried, besides 
 being in a higher key. I do not call to mind 
 any bird who sings a downward scale. Having 
 before spoken of the tendency of warblers to 
 learn two or even three set tunes, I was the 
 more interested when, last summer, I added 
 another to my list of the species which aspire 
 to this kind of liberal education. It was on the 
 side of Mount Clinton that I heard two Black- 
 burnians, both in full sight and within a few 
 rods of each other, who were singing two en- 
 tirely distinct songs. One of these it is the 
 common one, I think ended quaintly with 
 three or four short notes, like zip, zip, zip; 
 while the other was not unlike a fraction of the 
 winter wren's melody. Those who are familiar 
 with the latter bird will perhaps recognize the 
 phrase referred to if I call it the willie, willie, 
 winkie, with a triple accent on the first syl- 
 lable of the last word. Most of the songs of 
 this family are rather slight, but the extremest 
 case known to me is that of the black - poll 
 (Dendrceca striata), whose zee, zee, zee is al- 
 most ridiculously faint. You may hear it con- 
 tinually in the higher spruce forests of the 
 White Mountains ; but you will look a good 
 many times before you discover its author, and 
 not improbably will begin by taking it for the 
 
166 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 call of the kinglet. The music of the bay- 
 breasted warbler is similar to the black-poll's, 
 but hardly so weak and formless. It seems 
 reasonable to believe not only that these two 
 species are descended from a common ancestry, 
 but that the divergence is of a comparatively 
 recent date : even now the young of the year 
 can be distinguished only with great difficulty, 
 although the birds in full feather are clearly 
 enough marked. 
 
 Warblers' songs are often made up of two 
 distinct portions : one given deliberately, the 
 other hurriedly and with a concluding flourish. 
 Indeed, the same may be said of bird-songs gen- 
 erally, those of the song sparrow, the bay- 
 winged bunting, and the wood thrush being 
 familiar examples. Yet there are many sing- 
 ers who attempt no climax of this sort, but 
 make their music to consist of two, or three, or 
 more parts, all alike. The Maryland yellow- 
 throat, for instance, cries out over and over, 
 " What a pity, what a pity, what a pity ! " So, 
 at least, he seems to say; though, I confess, it 
 is more than likely I mistake the words, since 
 the fellow never appears to be feeling' badly, 
 but, on the contrary, delivers his message with 
 an air of cordial satisfaction. The song of the 
 pine-creeping warbler is after still another fash- 
 ion, one simple short trill. It is musical and 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 167 
 
 sweet ; the more so for coming almost always 
 out of a pine-tree. 
 
 The vireos, or greenlets, are akin to the war- 
 blers in appearance and habits, and like them 
 are peculiar to the western continent. We have 
 no birds that are more unsparing of their mu- 
 sic (prodigality is one of the American vir- 
 tues, we are told) : they sing from morning till 
 night, and some of them, at least continue 
 thus till the very end of the season. It is 
 worth mentioning, however, that the red-eye 
 makes a short day ; becoming silent just at the 
 time when the generality of birds grow most 
 noisy. Probably the same is true of the rest 
 of the family, but on that point I am not pre- 
 pared to speak with positiveness. Of the five 
 New England species (I omit the brotherly-love 
 greenlet, never having been fortunate enough 
 to know him) the white-eye is decidedly the 
 most ambitious, the warbling and the solitary 
 are the most pleasing, while the red-eye and 
 the yellow-throat are very much alike, and both 
 of them rather too monotonous and persistent. 
 It is hard, sometimes, not to get out of patience 
 with the red-eye's ceaseless and noisy iteration 
 of his trite theme ; especially if you are doing 
 your utmost to catch the notes of some rarer 
 and more refined songster. In my note-book I 
 find an entry describing my vain attempts to 
 
168 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 enjoy the music of a rose-breasted grosbeak, 
 who at that time had never been a common 
 bird with me, while " a pesky Wagnerian 
 red-eye kept up an incessant racket." 
 
 The warbling vireo is admirably named; 
 there is no one of our birds that can more prop- 
 erly be said to warble. He keeps further from 
 the ground than the others, and shows a strong 
 preference for the elms of village streets, out of 
 which his delicious music drops upon the ears 
 of all passers underneath. How many of them 
 hear it and thank the singer is unhappily an- 
 other question. 
 
 The solitary vireo may once in a while be 
 heard in a roadside tree, chanting as familiarly 
 as any red-eye ; but he is much less abundant 
 than the latter, and, as a rule, more retiring. 
 His ordinary song is like the red-eye's and the 
 yellow-throat's, except that it is pitched some- 
 what higher and has a peculiar inflection or ca- 
 dence, which on sufficient acquaintance becomes 
 quite unmistakable. This, however, is only the 
 smallest part of his musical gift. One morning 
 in May, while strolling through a piece of thick 
 woods, I came upon a bird of this species, who, 
 all alone like myself, was hopping from one low 
 branch to another, and every now and then 
 breaking out into a kind of soliloquizing song, 
 a musical chatter, shifting suddenly to an in- 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 169 
 
 tricate, low-voiced warble. Later in the same 
 day I found another in a chestnut grove. This 
 last was in a state of quite unwonted fervor, 
 and sang almost continuously ; now in the usual 
 disconnected vireo manner, and now with a 
 chatter and warble like what I had heard in the 
 morning, but louder and longer. His best ef- 
 forts ended abruptly with the ordinary vireo 
 call, and the instantaneous change of voice gave 
 to the whole a very strange effect. The chat- 
 ter and warble appeared to be related to each 
 other precisely as are those of the ruby-crowned 
 kinglet ; while the warble had a certain tender, 
 affectionate, some would say plaintive quality, 
 which at once put me in mind of the goldfinch. 
 I have seldom been more charmed with the 
 song of any bird than I was on the 7th of last 
 October with that of this same Vireo solitarius. 
 The morning was bright and warm, but the 
 birds had nearly all taken their departure, and 
 the few that remained were silent. Suddenly 
 the stillness was broken by a vireo note, and I 
 said to myself with surprise, A red-eye ? List- 
 ening again, however, I detected the solitary's 
 inflection ; and after a few moments the bird, 
 in the most obliging manner, came directly to- 
 wards me, and began to warble in the fashion 
 already described. He sang and sang, as if 
 his song could have no ending, and mean- 
 
170 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 while was flitting from tree to tree, intent upon 
 his breakfast. As far as I could discover, he 
 was without company; and his music, too, 
 seemed to be nothing more than an unpremed- 
 itated, half-unconscious talking to himself. 
 Wonderfully sweet it was, and full of the hap- 
 piest content. " I listened till I had my fill," 
 and returned the favor, as best I could, by hop- 
 ing that the little wayfarer's lightsome mood 
 would not fail him, all the way to Guatemala 
 and back again. 
 
 Exactly a month before this, and not far from 
 the same spot, I had stood for some minutes to 
 enjoy the "recital" of the solitary's saucy 
 cousin, the white-eye. Even at that time, al- 
 though the woods were swarming with birds, 
 many of them travelers from the North, this 
 white-eye was nearly the only one still in song. 
 He, however, was fairly brimming over with 
 music ; changing his tune again and again, and 
 introducing (for the first time in Weymouth, as 
 concert programmes say) a notably fine shake. 
 Like the solitary, he was all the while busily 
 feeding (birds in general, and vireos in particu- 
 lar, hold with Mrs. Browning that we may 
 " prove our work the better for the sweetness of 
 our song "), and one while was exploring a poi- 
 son-dogwood bush, plainly without the slightest 
 fear of any ill-result. It occurred to me that 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 171 
 
 possibly it is our fault, and not that of HJius 
 venenata, when we suffer from the touch of that 
 graceful shrub. 
 
 The white-eyed greenlet is a vocalist of such 
 extraordinary versatility and power that one 
 feels almost guilty in speaking of him under the 
 title which stands at the head of this paper. 
 How he would scold, out-carlyling Carry le, if he 
 knew what were going on ! Nevertheless I can- 
 not rank him with the great singers, exception- 
 ally clever and original as, beyond all dispute, 
 he is ; and for that matter, I look upon the sol- 
 itary as very much his superior, in spite of 
 or, shall I say, because of ? the latter 's greater 
 simplicity and reserve. 
 
 But if we hesitate thus about these two in- 
 conspicuous vireos, whom half of those who do 
 them the honor to read what is here said about 
 them will have never seen, how are we to deal 
 with the scarlet tanager? Our handsomest 
 bird, and with musical aspirations as well, shall 
 we put him into the second class? It must be 
 so, I fear : yet such justice is a trial to the 
 flesh ; for what critic could ever quite leave out 
 of account the beauty of a prima donna in pass- 
 ing judgment on her work ? Does not her an- 
 gelic face sing to his eye, as Emerson says ? 
 
 Formerly I gave the tanager credit for only 
 one song, the one which suggests a robin 
 
172 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 laboring under an attack of hoarseness ; but I 
 have discovered that he himself regards his chip- 
 cherr as of equal value. At least, I have found 
 him perched at the tip of a tall pine, and re- 
 peating this inconsiderable and not very melo- 
 dious trochee with all earnestness and persever- 
 ance. Sometimes he rehearses it thus at night- 
 fall ; but even so I cannot call it highly artistic. 
 I am glad to believe, however, that he does not 
 care in the least for my opinion. Why should 
 he ? He is too true a gallant to mind what 
 anybody else thinks, so long as one is pleased ; 
 and she, no doubt, tells him every day that he 
 is the best singer in the grove. Beside his di- 
 vine chip-cherr the rhapsody of the wood thrush 
 is a mere nothing, if she is to be the judge. 
 Strange, indeed, that so shabbily dressed a 
 creature as this thrush should have the pre- 
 sumption to attempt to sing at all ! " But 
 then," she charitably adds, " perhaps he is not 
 to blame ; such things come by nature ; and 
 there are some birds, you know, who cannot tell 
 the difference between noise and music." 
 
 We trust that the tanager will improve as 
 time goes on ; but in any case we are largely in 
 his debt. How we should miss him if he were 
 gone, or even were become as rare as the sum- 
 mer red-bird and the cardinal are in our lati- 
 tude ! As it is, he lights up our Northern woods 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 173 
 
 with a truly tropical splendor, the like of which 
 no other of our birds can furnish. Let us hold 
 him in hearty esteem, and pray that he may 
 never be exterminated ; no, not even to beau- 
 tify the head-gear of our ladies, who, if they 
 only knew it, are already sufficiently bewitch- 
 ing. 
 
 What shall we say now about the lesser 
 lights of that most musical family, the finches ? 
 Of course the cardinal and rose-breasted gros- 
 beaks are not to be included in any such cate- 
 gory. Nor will / put there the goldfinch, the 
 linnet, the fox-colored sparrow, and the song 
 sparrow. These, if no more, shall stand among 
 the immortals ; so far, at any rate, as my suf- 
 frage counts. But who ever dreamed of calling 
 the chipping sparrow a fine singer ? And yet, 
 who that knows it does not love his earnest, 
 long-drawn trill, dry and tuneless as it is ? I 
 can speak for one, at all events ; and he always 
 has an ear open for it by the middle of April. 
 It is the voice of a friend, a friend so true 
 and gentle and confiding that we do not care to 
 ask whether his voice be smooth and his speech 
 eloquent. 
 
 The chipper's congener, the field sparrow, 
 is less neighborly than he, but a much better 
 musician. His song is simplicity itself ; yet, 
 even at its lowest estate, it never fails of being 
 
174 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 truly melodious, while by one means and an- 
 other its wise little author contrives to impart 
 to it a very considerable variety, albeit within 
 pretty narrow limits. Last spring the field 
 sparrows were singing constantly from the mid- 
 dle of April till about the 10th of May, when 
 they became entirely dumb. Then, after a 
 week in which I heard not a note, they again 
 grew musical. I pondered not a little over 
 their silence, but concluded that they were just 
 then very much occupied with preparations for 
 housekeeping. 
 
 The bird who is called indiscriminately the 
 grass finch, the bay-winged bunting, the bay- 
 winged sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and I know 
 not what else (the ornithologists have nick- 
 named him Pocecetes gramineus), is a singer 
 of good parts, but is especially to be com- 
 mended for his refinement. In form his music 
 is strikingly like the song sparrow's ; but the 
 voice is not so loud and ringing, and the two 
 or three opening notes are less sharply empha- 
 sized. In general the difference between the 
 two songs may perhaps be well expressed by 
 saying that the one is more declamatory, the 
 other more cantabile ; a difference exactly such 
 as we might have expected, considering the ner- 
 vous, impetuous disposition of the song sparrow 
 and the placidity of the bay-wing. 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 175 
 
 As one of his titles indicates, the bay-wing 
 is famous for singing in the evening, when, of 
 course, his efforts are doubly acceptable ; and I 
 can readily believe that Mr. Minot is correct in 
 his " impression " that he has once or twice 
 heard the song in the night. For while spend- 
 ing a few days at a New Hampshire hotel, 
 which was surrounded with fine lawns such as 
 the grass finch delights in, I happened to be 
 awake in the morning, long before sunrise, 
 when, in fact, it seemed like the dead of night, 
 and one or two of these sparrows were pip- 
 ing freely. The sweet and gentle strain had 
 the whole mountain valley to itself. How 
 beautiful it was, set in such a broad " margin 
 of silence," I must leave to be imagined. I 
 noticed, moreover, that the birds sang almost 
 incessantly the whole day through. Much of 
 the time there were two singing antiphonally. 
 Manifestly, the lines had fallen to them in 
 pleasant places : at home for the summer in 
 those luxuriant Sugar-Hill fields, in continual 
 sight of yonder magnificent mountain pano- 
 rama, with Lafayette himself looming grandly 
 in the foreground ; while they, innocent souls, 
 had never so much as heard of hotel-keepers 
 and their bills. " Happy commoners," indeed ! 
 Their " songs in the night " seemed nowise sur- 
 prising. I fancied that I could be happy my- 
 self in such a case. 
 
176 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 Our familiar and ever-welcome snow-bird, 
 known in some quarters as the black ehipping- 
 bird, and often called the black snow-bird, has 
 a long trill, not altogether unlike the common 
 chipper's, but in a much higher key. It is a 
 modest lay, yet doubtless full of meaning ; for 
 the singer takes to the very tip of a tree, and 
 throws his head back in the most approved 
 style. He does his best, at any rate, and so far 
 ranks with the angels; while, if my testimony 
 can be of any service to him, I am glad to say 
 ('t is too bad the praise is so equivocal) that I 
 have heard many human singers who gave me 
 less pleasure ; and further, that he took n in- 
 dispensable though subordinate part in what 
 was one of the most memorable concerts at 
 which I was ever happy enough to be a listener. 
 This was given some years ago in an old apple- 
 orchard by a flock of fox-colored sparrows, who, 
 perhaps for that occasion only, had the " valua- 
 ble assistance " of a large choir of snow-birds. 
 The latter were twittering in every tree, while 
 to this goodly accompaniment the sparrows 
 were singing their loud, clear, thrush-like song. 
 The combination was felicitous in the extreme. 
 I would go a long way to hear the like again. 
 
 If distinction cannot be attained by one means, 
 who knows but that it may be by another ? It 
 is denied us to be great ? Very well, we can at 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 177 
 
 least try the effect of a little originality. Some- 
 thing like this seems to be the philosophy of the 
 indigo-bird ; and he carries it out both in dress 
 and in song. As we have said already, it is usual 
 for birds to reserve the loudest and most taking 
 parts of their music for the close, though it may 
 be doubted whether they have any intelligent 
 purpose* in so doing. Indeed, the apprehension 
 of a great general truth such as lies at the basis 
 of this well-nigh universal habit, the truth, 
 namely, that everything depends upon the im- 
 pression finally left on the hearer's mind ; that 
 to end with some grand burst, or with some 
 surprisingly lofty note, is the only, or to speak 
 cautiously, the principal, requisite to a really 
 great musical performance, the intelligent 
 grasp of such a truth as this, I say, seems to me 
 to lie beyond the measure of a bird's capacity 
 in the present stage of his development. Be 
 this as it may, however, it is noteworthy that 
 the indigo-bird exactly reverses the common 
 plan. He begins at his loudest and spright- 
 liest, and then runs off into a diminuendo, which 
 fades into silence almost imperceptibly. The 
 strain will never be renowned for its beauty ; 
 but it is unique, and, further, is continued well 
 into August. Moreover, and this adds grace 
 to the most ordinary song, it is often let fall 
 while the bird is on the wing. 
 12 
 
178 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 This eccentric genius has taken possession of 
 a certain hillside pasture, which, in another 
 way, belongs to me also. Year after year he 
 comes back and settles down upon it about the 
 middle of May ; and I have often been amused 
 to see his mate who is not permitted to wear 
 a single blue feather drop out of her nest in 
 a barberry bush and go fluttering off, both 
 wings dragging helplessly through the grass. I 
 should pity her profoundly but that I am in no 
 doubt her injuries will rapidly heal when once 
 I am out of sight. Besides, I like to imagine 
 her beatitude, as, five minutes afterward, she 
 sits again upon the nest, with her heart's treas- 
 ures all safe underneath her. Many a time was 
 a boy of my acquaintance comforted in some 
 ache or pain with the words, " Never mind I 
 'twill feel better when it gets well ; " and so, 
 sure enough, it always did. But what a wicked 
 world this is, where nature teaches even a bird 
 to play the deceiver ! 
 
 On the same hillside is always to be found the 
 chewink, a creature whose dress and song are 
 so unlike those of the rest of his tribe that the 
 irreverent amateur is tempted to believe that, 
 for once, the men of science have made a mis- 
 take. What has any finch to do with a call 
 like cherawink, or with such a three-colored 
 harlequin suit? But it is unsafe to judge ac- 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 179 
 
 cording to the outward appearance, in ornithol- 
 ogy as in other matters ; and I have heard that 
 it is only those who are foolish as well as igno- 
 rant who indulge in off-hand criticisms of wiser 
 men's conclusions. So let us call the towhee a 
 finch, and say no more about it. 
 
 But whatever his lineage, it is plain that the 
 chewink is not a bird to be governed very strictly 
 by the traditions of the fathers. His usual song 
 is characteristic and pretty, yet he is so far 
 from being satisfied with it that he varies it con- 
 tinually and in many ways, some of them sadly 
 puzzling to the student who is set upon telling 
 all the birds by their voices. I remember well 
 enough the morning I was inveigled through the 
 wet grass of two pastures and that just as I 
 was shod for the city by a wonderfully for- 
 eign note, which filled me with lively anticipa- 
 tions of a new bird, but which turned out to be 
 the work of a most innocent-looking towhee. It 
 was perhaps this same bird, or his brother, whom 
 I one day heard throwing in between his cus- 
 tomary clierawinks a profusion of staccato notes 
 of widely varying pitch, together with little vol- 
 leys of tinkling sounds such as his every-day 
 song concludes with. This medley was not laugh- 
 able, like the chat's, which it suggested, but it 
 had the same abrupt, fragmentary, and promis- 
 cuous character. All in all, it was what I never 
 
180 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 should have expected from this paragon of self- 
 possession. 
 
 For self-control, as I have elsewhere said, is 
 Pipilo's strong point. One afternoon last sum- 
 mer a young friend and I found ourselves, as we 
 suspected, near a ehewink's nest, and at once 
 set out to see which of us should have the honor 
 of the discovery. We searched diligently, but 
 without avail, while the father-bird sat quietly 
 in a tree, calling with all sweetness and with 
 never a trace of anger or trepidation, cherawink, 
 cherawink. Finally we gave over the hunt, and 
 I began to console my companion and myself 
 for our disappointment by shaking in the face 
 of the bird a small tree which very conveniently 
 leaned toward the one in which he was perched. 
 By rather vigorous efforts I could make this pass 
 back and forth within a few inches of his bill ; 
 but he utterly disdained to notice it, and kept 
 on calling as before. While we were laughing 
 at his impudence (his impudence !) the mother 
 suddenly appeared, with an insect in her beak, 
 and joined her voice to her husband's. I was 
 just declaring how cruel as well as useless it 
 was for us to stay, when she ungratefully gave 
 a ludicrous turn to what was intended for a very 
 sage and considerate remark, by dropping almost 
 at my feet, stepping upon the edge of her nest, 
 and offering the morsel to one of her young. 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 181 
 
 We watched the little tableau admiringly (I had 
 never seen a prettier show of nonchalance), and 
 thanked our stars that we had been saved from 
 an involuntary slaughter of the innocents while 
 trampling all about the spot. The nest, which 
 we had tried so hard to find, was in plain sight, 
 concealed only by the perfect agreement of its 
 color with that of the dead pine-branches in the 
 midst of which it was placed. The shrewd birds 
 had somehow learned by experience, perhaps, 
 like ourselves that those who would escape 
 disagreeable and perilous conspicuity must con- 
 form as closely as possible to the world around 
 them. 
 
 According to my observation, the towhee is 
 not much given to singing after July ; but he 
 keeps up his call, which is little less musical 
 than his song, till his departure in late Septem- 
 ber. At that time of the year the birds collect 
 together in their favorite haunts ; and I remem- 
 ber my dog's running into the edge of a road- 
 side pasture among some cedar-trees, when there 
 broke out such a chorus of cherawinks that I 
 was instantly reminded of a swamp full of frogs 
 in April. 
 
 After the tanager the Baltimore oriole (named 
 for Lord Baltimore, whose colors he wears) is 
 probably the most gorgeous, as he is certainly 
 one of the best known, of New England birds. 
 
182 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 He has discovered that men, bad as they are, 
 are less to be dreaded than hawks and weasels, 
 and so, after making sure that his wife is not 
 subject to sea-sickness, he swings his nest boldly 
 from a swaying shade-tree branch, in full view 
 of whoever may choose to look at it. Some 
 morning in May not far from the 10th you 
 will wake to hear him fifing in the elm before 
 your window. He has come in the night, and 
 is already making himself at home. Once I saw 
 a pair who on the very first morning had begun 
 to get together materials for a nest. His whistle 
 is one of the clearest and loudest, but he makes 
 little pretensions to music. I have been pleased 
 and interested, however, to see how tuneful he 
 becomes in August, after most other birds have 
 ceased to sing, and after a long interval of silence 
 on his own part. Early and late he pipes and 
 chatters, as if he imagined that the spring were 
 really coming back again forthwith. What the 
 explanation of this lyrical revival may be I have 
 never been able to gather ; but the fact itself is 
 very noticeable, so that it would not be amiss to 
 call the " golden robin " the bird of August. 
 
 The oriole's dusky relatives have the- organs 
 of song well developed ; and although most of 
 the species have altogether lost the art of music, 
 there are none of them, even now, that do not 
 betray more or less of the musical impulse. The 
 
MINOR SONGSTERS. 183 
 
 red-winged blackbird, indeed, has some really 
 praiseworthy notes; and to me for personal 
 reasons quite aside from any question about its 
 lyrical value his rough cucurree is one of the 
 very pleasantest of sounds. For that matter, 
 however, there is no one of our birds be he, 
 in technical language, " oscine " or " non-oscine " 
 whose voice is not, in its own way, agreeable. 
 Except a few uncommonly superstitious people, 
 who does not enjoy the whip-poor-will's trisyl- 
 labic exhortation, and the yak of the night- 
 hawk ? Bob White's weather predictions, also, 
 have a wild charm all their own, albeit his 
 persistent No more wet is often sadly out of ac- 
 cord with the farmer's hopes. We have no more 
 untuneful bird, surely, than the cow bunting ; 
 yet even the serenades of this shameless polyg- 
 amist have one merit, they are at least amus- 
 ing. With what infinite labor he brings forth his 
 forlorn, broken-winded whistle, while his tail 
 twitches convulsively, as if tail and larynx were 
 worked by the same spring ! 
 
 The judging, comparing spirit, the conscien- 
 tious dread of being ignorantly happy when a 
 broader culture would enable us to be intelli- 
 gently miserable, this has its place, unques- 
 tionably, in concert halls ; but if we are to make 
 the best use of out-door minstrelsy, we must 
 learn to take things as we find them, throwing 
 
184 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
 
 criticism to the winds. Having said which, I 
 am bound to go further still, and to acknowledge 
 that on looking back over the first part of this 
 paper I feel more than half ashamed of the 
 strictures therein passed upon the bluebird and 
 the brown thrush. When I heard the former's 
 salutation from a Boston Common elm on the 
 morning of the 22d of February last, I said to 
 myself that no music, not even the nightingale's, 
 could ever be sweeter. Let him keep on, by all 
 means, in his own artless way, paying no heed 
 to what I have foolishly written about his short- 
 comings. As for the thrasher's smile-provoking 
 gutturals, I recall that even in the symphonies 
 of the greatest of masters there are here and 
 there quaint bassoon phrases, which have, and 
 doubtless were intended to have, a somewhat 
 whimsical effect ; and remembering this, I am 
 ready to own that I was less wise than I thought 
 myself when I found so much fault with the 
 thrush's performance. I have sins enough to 
 answer for : may this never be added to them, 
 that I set up my taste against that of Beethoven 
 and HarporhyncTius rufus. 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 Not much to find, not much to see; 
 But the air was fresh, the path was free. 
 
 W. ALLINGHAM. 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 A WEED has been defined as a plant the use 
 of which is not yet discovered. If the defini- 
 tion be correct there are few weeds. For the 
 researches of others beside human investigators 
 must be taken into the account. What we com- 
 placently call the world below us is full of in- 
 telligence. Every animal has a lore of its own ; 
 not one of them but is what the human 
 scholar is more and more coming to be a spe- 
 cialist. In these days the most eminent bot- 
 anists are not ashamed to compare notes with 
 the insects, since it turns out that these bits of 
 animate wisdom long ago anticipated some of 
 the latest improvements of our modern system- 
 atists. 1 We may see the red squirrel eating, 
 
 1 See a letter by Dr. Fritz Miiller, "Butterflies as Botanists : " 
 Nature, vol. xxx. p. 240. Of similar import is the case, cited by 
 Dr. Asa Gray (in the American Journal of Science* November, 
 1884, p. 325), of two species of plantain found in this country, 
 which students have only of late discriminated, although it turns 
 out that the cows have all along known them apart, eating one and 
 declining the other, the bovine taste being more exact, it would 
 seem, or at any rate more prompt, than the botanist's lens. 
 
188 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 with real epicurean zest, mushrooms, the white 
 and tender flesh of which we have ourselves 
 looked at longingly, but have never dared to 
 taste. How amused he would be (I fear he 
 would even be rude enough to snicker) were 
 you to caution him against poison ! As if Sci- 
 urus Hudsonius did n't know what he were 
 about ! Why should men be so provincial as 
 to pronounce anything worthless merely because 
 they can do nothing with it ? The clover is not 
 without value, although the robin and the ori- 
 ole may agree to think so. We know better ; 
 and so do the rabbits and the bumblebees. The 
 wise respect their own quality wherever they 
 see it, and are thankful for a good hint from no 
 matter what quarter. Here is a worthy neigh- 
 bor of mine whom I hear every summer com- 
 plaining of the chicory plants which disfigure 
 the roadside in front of her windows. She 
 wishes they were exterminated, every one of 
 them. And they are homely, there is no deny- 
 ing it, for all the beauty of their individual 
 sky-blue flowers. No wonder a neat housewife 
 finds them an eyesore. But I never pass the 
 spot in August (I do not pass it at all after 
 that) without seeing that hers is only one side 
 of the story. My approach is sure to startle 
 a few goldfinches (and they too are most esti- 
 mable neighbors), to whom these scraggy herbs 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 189 
 
 are quite as useful as my excellent lady's apple- 
 trees and pear-trees are to her. I watch them 
 as they circle about in musical undulations, and 
 then drop down again to finish their repast ; 
 and I perceive that, in spite of its unsightli- 
 ness, the chicory is not a weed, its use has 
 been discovered. 
 
 In truth, the lover of birds soon ceases to 
 feel the uncomeliness of plants of this sort ; he 
 even begins to have a peculiar and kindly in- 
 terest in them. A piece of " waste ground," as 
 it is called, an untidy garden, a wayside thicket 
 of golden-rods and asters, pig-weed and even- 
 ing primrose, these come to be almost as 
 attractive a sight to him as a thrifty field of 
 wheat is to an agriculturalist. Taking his cue 
 from the finches, he separates plants into two 
 grand divisions, those that shed their seeds 
 in the fall, and those that hold them through 
 the winter. The latter, especially if they are 
 of a height to overtop a heavy snow-fall, are 
 friends in need to his clients ; and he is certain 
 to have marked a few places within the range 
 of his every-day walks where, thanks to some- 
 body's shiftlessness, perhaps, they have been 
 allowed to flourish. 
 
 It is not many years since there were several 
 such winter gardens of the birds in Common- 
 wealth Avenue, vacant house-lots overgrown 
 
190 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 with tall weeds. Hither came flocks of gold- 
 finches, red -poll linnets, and snow buntings; 
 and thither I went to watch them. It hap- 
 pened, I remember, that the last two species, 
 which are not to be met with in this region 
 every season, were unusually abundant during 
 the first or second year of my ornithological 
 enthusiasm. Great was the delight with which 
 I added them to the small but rapidly increas- 
 ing list of my feathered acquaintances. 
 
 The red-polls and the goldfinches often travel 
 together, or at least are often to be found feed- 
 ing in company ; and as they resemble each 
 other a good deal in size, general appearance, 
 and ways, the casual observer is very likely not 
 to discriminate between them. Only the sum- 
 mer before the time of which I speak I had 
 spent a vacation at Mount Wachusett ; and a 
 resident of Princeton, noticing my attention to 
 the birds (a taste so peculiar is not easily con- 
 cealed), had one day sought an interview with 
 me to inquire whether the u yellow-bird " did 
 not remain in Massachusetts through the win- 
 ter. I explained that we had two birds which 
 commonly went by that name, and asked 
 whether he meant the one with a black fore- 
 head and black wings and tail. Yes, he said, 
 that was the one. I assured him, of course, 
 that this bird, the goldfinch, did stay with us 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 191 
 
 all the year round, and that whoever had in- 
 formed him to the contrary must have under- 
 stood him to be speaking about the golden 
 warbler. He expressed his gratification, but 
 declared that he had really entertained no 
 doubt of the fact himself ; he had often seen 
 the birds on the mountain when he had been 
 cutting wood there in midwinter. At such 
 times, he added, they were very tame, and 
 would come about his feet to pick up crumbs 
 while he was eating his dinner. Then he went 
 on to tell me that at that season of the year 
 their plumage took on more or less of a red- 
 dish tinge : he had seen in the same flock some 
 with no trace of red, others that were slightly 
 touched with it, and others still of a really 
 bright color. At this I had nothing to say, 
 save that his red birds, whatever else they 
 were, could not have been goldfinches. But 
 next winter, when I saw the " yellow-birds " 
 and the red - poll linnets feeding together in 
 Commonwealth Avenue, I thought at once of 
 my Wachusett friend. Here was the very 
 scene he had so faithfully described, some 
 of the flock with no red at all, some with red 
 crowns, and a few with bright carmine crowns 
 and breasts. They remained all winter, and 
 no doubt thought the farmers of Boston a very 
 good and wise set, to cultivate the evening 
 
192 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 primrose so extensively. This plant, like the 
 succory, is of an ungraceful aspect ; yet it has 
 sweet and beautiful blossoms, and as an herb 
 bearing seed is in the front rank. I doubt 
 whether we have any that surpass it, the birds 
 being judges. 
 
 Many stories are told of the red-polls' fear- 
 lessness and ready reconciliation to captivity, 
 as well as of their constancy to each other. I 
 have myself stood still in the midst of a flock, 
 until they were feeding round my feet so closely 
 that it looked easy enough to catch one or two 
 of them with a butterfly net. Strange that 
 creatures so gentle and seemingly so delicately 
 organized should choose to live in the regions 
 about the North Pole ! Why should they pre- 
 fer Labrador and Greenland, Iceland and Spitz- 
 bergen, to more southern countries ? Why ? 
 Well, possibly for no worse a reason than this, 
 that these are the lands of their fathers. Other 
 birds, it may be, have grown discouraged, and 
 one after another ceased to come back to their 
 native shores as the rigors of the climate have 
 increased ; but these little patriots are still faith- 
 ful. Spitzbergen is home, and every spring they 
 make the long and dangerous passage to it. All 
 praise to them ! 
 
 If any be ready to call this an over-refine- 
 ment, deeming it incredible that beings so small 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 193 
 
 and lowly should come so near to human senti- 
 ment and virtue, let such not be too hasty with 
 their dissent. Surely they may in reason wait 
 till they can point to at least one country where 
 the men are as universally faithful to their 
 wives and children as the birds are to theirs. 
 
 The red-poll linnets, as I have said, are ir- 
 regular visitors in this region ; several years 
 may pass, and not one be seen ; but the gold- 
 finch we have with us always. Easily recog- 
 nized as he is, there are many well-educated 
 New-Englanders, I fear, who do not know him, 
 even by sight ; yet when that distinguished 
 ornithologist, the Duke of Argyll, comes to 
 publish his impressions of this country, he avers 
 that he has been hardly more interested in the 
 "glories of Niagara" than in this same little 
 yellow-bird, which he saw for the first time 
 while looking from his hotel window at the 
 great cataract. u A golden finch, indeed ! " he 
 exclaims. Such a tribute as this from the pen 
 of a British nobleman ought to give Astragali- 
 nus tristis immediate entrance into the very 
 best of American society. 
 
 It is common to say that the goldfinches wan- 
 der about the country during the winter. Un- 
 doubtedly this is true in a measure ; but I have 
 seen things which lead me to suspect that the 
 statement is sometimes made too sweeping. 
 
 13 
 
194 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 Last winter, for example, a flock took up their 
 quarters in a certain neglected piece of ground 
 on the side of Beacon Street, close upon the 
 boundary between Boston and Brookline, and 
 remained there nearly or quite the whole sea- 
 son. Week after week I saw them in the same 
 place, accompanied always by half a dozen tree 
 sparrows. They had found a spot to their 
 mind, with plenty of succory and evening prim- 
 rose, and were wise enough not to forsake it for 
 any uncertainty. 
 
 The goldfinch loses his bright feathers and 
 canary-like song as the cold season approaches, 
 but not even a New England winter can rob 
 him of his sweet call and his cheerful spirits ; 
 and for one, I think him never more winsome 
 than when he hangs in graceful attitudes above 
 a snowbank, on a bleak January morning. 
 
 Glad as we are of the society of the goldfinches 
 and the red-polls at this time of the year, we 
 cannot easily rid ourselves of a degree of solici- 
 tude for their comfort ; especially if we chance 
 to come upon them after sunset on some bit- 
 terly cold day, and mark with what a nervous 
 haste they snatch here and there a seed, making 
 the utmost of the few remaining minutes of twi- 
 light. They will go to bed hungry and cold, 
 we think, and were surely better off in a milder 
 clime. But, if I am to judge from my own ex- 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 195 
 
 perience, the snow buntings awaken no such 
 emotions. Arctic explorers by instinct, they 
 come to us only with real arctic weather, and 
 almost seem to be themselves a part of the 
 snow-storm with which they arrive. No matter 
 what they are doing : running along the street 
 before an approaching sleigh ; standing on a 
 wayside fence ; jumping up from the ground to 
 snatch the stem of a weed, and then setting at 
 work hurriedly to gather the seeds they have 
 shaken down ; or, best of all, skimming over 
 the snow in close order, their white breasts 
 catching the sun as they veer this way or that, 
 whatever they may be doing, they are the 
 most picturesque of all our cold-weather birds. 
 In point of suspiciousness their behavior is very 
 different at different times, as, for that matter, 
 is true of birds generally. Seeing the flock 
 alight in a low roadside lot, you steal silently 
 to the edge of the sidewalk to look over upon 
 them. There they are, sure enough, walking 
 and running about, only a few rods distant. 
 What lovely creatures, and how prettily they 
 walk ! But just as you are wishing, perhaps, 
 that they were a little nearer, they begin to fly 
 from right under your feet. You search the 
 ground eagerly, right and left, but not a bird 
 can you discover; and still they continue to 
 start up, now here, now there, till you are 
 
196 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTOtf. 
 
 ready to question whether, indeed, " eyes were 
 made for seeing." The " snow-flakes " wear 
 protective colors, and, like most other animals., 
 are of opinion that, for such as lack the receipt 
 of fern-seed, there is often nothing safer than 
 to sit still. The worse the weather, the less 
 timorous they are, for with them, as with wiser 
 heads, one thought drives out another ; and it 
 is nothing uncommon, when times are hard, to 
 see them stay quietly upon the fence while a 
 sleigh goes past, or suffer a foot passenger to 
 come again and again within a few yards. 
 
 It gives a lively touch to the imagination to 
 overtake these beautiful strangers in the middle 
 of Beacon Street ; particularly if one has lately 
 been reading about them in some narrative of 
 Siberian travel. Coming from so far, associa- 
 ting in flocks, with costumes so becoming and 
 yet so unusual, they might be expected to at- 
 tract universal notice, and possibly to get into 
 the newspapers. But there is a fashion even 
 about seeing ; and of a thousand persons who 
 may take a Sunday promenade over the Mill- 
 dam, while these tourists from the North Pole 
 are there, it is doubtful whether a dozen are 
 aware of their presence. Birds feeding in the 
 street ? Yes, yes ; English sparrows, of course ; 
 we haven't any other birds in Boston nowa- 
 days, you know. 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 197 
 
 With the pine grosbeaks the case is different. 
 When a man sees a company of rather large 
 birds about the evergreens in his door-yard, most 
 of them of a neutral ashy-gray tint, but one or 
 two in suits of rose-color, he is pretty certain to 
 feel at least a momentary curiosity about them. 
 Their slight advantage in size counts for some- 
 thing ; for, without controversy, the bigger the 
 bird the more worthy he is of notice. And 
 then the bright color ! The very best men are 
 as yet but imperfectly civilized, and there must 
 be comparatively few, even of Bostonians, in 
 whom there is not some lingering susceptibility 
 to the fascination of red feathers. Add to these 
 things the fact that the grosbeaks are extremely 
 confiding, and much more likely than the bunt- 
 ings to be seen from the windows of the house, 
 and you have, perhaps, a sufficient explanation 
 of the more general interest they excite. Like 
 the snow buntings and the red-polls, they roam 
 over the higher latitudes of Europe, Asia, and 
 America, and make only irregular visits to our 
 corner of the world. 1 
 
 I cannot boast of any intimate acquaintance 
 with them. I have never caught them in a net, 
 or knocked them over with a club, as other per- 
 
 1 Unlike the snow bunting and the red-poll, however, the pine 
 grosbeak is believed to breed sparingly in Northern New Eng- 
 land. 
 
198 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 sons have done, although I have seen them 
 when their tameness promised success to any 
 such loving experiment. Indeed, it was sev- 
 eral years before my lookout for them was re- 
 warded. Then, one day, I saw a flock of about 
 ten fly across Beacon Street, on the edge of 
 Brookline, and alight in an apple-tree ; at 
 which I forthwith clambered over the picket- 
 fence after them, heedless alike of the deep 
 snow and the surprise of any steady-going cit- 
 izen who might chance to witness my high- 
 handed proceeding. Some of the birds were 
 feeding upon the rotten apples ; picking them 
 off the tree, and taking them to one of the large 
 main branches or to the ground, and there tear- 
 ing them to pieces, for the sake of the seeds, 
 I suppose. The rest sat still, doing nothing. 
 I was most impressed with the exceeding mild- 
 ness and placidity of their demeanor; as if 
 they had time enough, plenty to eat, and noth- 
 ing to fear. Their only notes were in quality 
 much like the goldfinch's, and hardly louder, 
 but without his characteristic inflection. I left 
 the whole company seated idly in a maple-tree, 
 where, to all appearance, they proposed, to ob- 
 serve the remainder of the day as a Sabbath. 
 
 Last winter the grosbeaks were uncommonly 
 abundant. I found a number of them within a 
 few rods of the place just mentioned; this time 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 199 
 
 in evergreen trees, and so near the road that I 
 had no call to commit trespass. Evergreens are 
 their usual resort, so, at least, I gather from 
 books, but I have seen them picking up prov- 
 ender from a bare-looking last year's garden. 
 Natives of the inhospitable North, they have 
 learned by long experience how to adapt them- 
 selves to circumstances. If one resource fails, 
 there is always another to be tried. Let us 
 hope that they even know how to show fight 
 upon occasion. 
 
 The purple finch a small copy of the pine 
 grosbeak, as the indigo bird is of the blue gros- 
 beak is a summer rather than a winter bird 
 with us ; yet he sometimes passes the cold sea- 
 son in Eastern Massachusetts, and even in 
 Northern New Hampshire. I have never heard 
 him sing more gloriously than once when the 
 ground was deep under the snow; a wonder- 
 fully sweet and protracted warble, poured out 
 while the singer circled about in the air with a 
 kind of half-hovering flight. 
 
 As I was walking briskly along a West End 
 street, one cold morning in March, I heard a 
 bird's note close at hand, and, looking down, 
 discovered a pair of these finches in a front 
 yard. The male, in bright plumage, was flit- 
 ting about his mate, calling anxiously, while 
 she, poor thing, sat motionless upon the snow, 
 
200 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 too sick or too badly exhausted to fly. I 
 stroked her feathers gently while she perched 
 on my finger, and then resumed my walk ; first 
 putting her into a little more sheltered position 
 on the sill of a cellar window, and promising to 
 call on my way back, when, if she were no bet- 
 ter, I would take her home with me, and give 
 her a warm room and good nursing. When I 
 returned, however, she was nowhere to be 
 found. Her mate, I regret to say, both on his 
 own account and for the sake of the story, had 
 taken wing and disappeared the moment I en- 
 tered the yard. Possibly he came back and en- 
 couraged her to fly off with him ; or perhaps 
 some cat made a Sunday breakfast of her. The 
 truth will never be known ; our vigilant city 
 police take no cognizance of tragedies so hum- 
 ble. 
 
 For several years a few song sparrows a 
 pair or two, at least have wintered in a piece 
 of ground just beyond the junction of Beacon 
 street and Brookline Avenue. I have grown ac- 
 customed to listen for their tseep as I go by the 
 spot, and occasionally I catch sight of one of them 
 perched upon a weed, or diving under the plank 
 sidewalk. It would be a pleasure to know the 
 history of the colony : how it started ; whether 
 the birds are the same year after year, as I sup- 
 pose to be the case ; and why this particular 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 201 
 
 site was selected. The lot is small, with no 
 woods or bushy thicket near, while it has build- 
 ings in one corner, and is bounded on its three 
 sides by the streets and the railway ; but it is 
 full of a rank growth of weeds, especially a 
 sturdy species of aster and the evergreen gold- 
 en-rod, and I suspect that the plank walk, which 
 on one side is raised some distance from the 
 ground, is found serviceable for shelter in severe 
 weather, as it is certainly made to take the place 
 of shrubbery for purposes of concealment. 
 
 Fortunately, birds, even those of the same 
 species, are not all exactly alike in their tastes 
 and manner of life. So, while by far the greater 
 part of our song sparrows leave us in the fall, 
 there are always some who prefer to stay. They 
 have strong local attachments, perhaps ; or they 
 dread the fatigue and peril of the journey ; or 
 they were once incapacitated for flight when 
 their companions went away, and, having found 
 a Northern winter not so unendurable as they 
 had expected, have since done from choice what 
 at first they did of necessity. Whatever their 
 reasons, and we cannot be presumed to have 
 guessed half of them, at all events a goodly 
 number of song sparrows do winter in Massachu- 
 setts, where they open the musical season before 
 the first of the migrants make their appearance. 
 I doubt, however, whether many of them choose 
 
202 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 camping grounds so exposed and public as this 
 in the rear of the " Half-way House." 
 
 Our only cold-weather thrushes are the rob- 
 ins. They may be found any time in favorable 
 situations ; and even in so bleak a place as Bos- 
 ton Common I have seen them in every month 
 of the year except February. This exception, 
 moreover, is more apparent than real, at the 
 most a matter of but twenty-four hours, since, 
 I once saw four birds in a tree near the Frog 
 Pond on the last day of January. The house 
 sparrows were as much surprised as I was at 
 the sight, and, with characteristic urbanity, gath- 
 ered from far and near to sit in the same tree 
 with the visitors, and stare at them. 
 
 We cannot help being grateful to the robins 
 and the song sparrows, who give us their soci- 
 ety at so great a cost ; but their presence can 
 scarcely be thought to enliven the season. 
 At its best their bearing is only that of patient 
 submission to the inevitable. They remind us 
 of the summer gone and the summer coming, 
 rather than brighten the winter that is now 
 upon us ; like friends who commiserate us in 
 some affliction, but are not able to comfort us. 
 How different the chickadee ! In the worst 
 weather his greeting is never of condolence, but 
 of good cheer. He has no theory upon the sub- 
 ject, probably ; he is no Shepherd of Salisbury 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 203 
 
 Plain ; but he knows better than to waste the 
 exhilarating air of this wild and frosty day in 
 reminiscences of summer time. It is a pretty- 
 sounding couplet, 
 
 " Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 
 No winter in thy year," 
 
 but rather incongruous, he would think. Chick- 
 adee, dee, he calls, chickadee, d'ee ; and though 
 the words have no exact equivalent in English, 
 their meaning is felt by all such as are worthy 
 to hear them. 
 
 Are the smallest birds really the most cour- 
 ageous, or does an unconscious sympathy on our 
 part inevitably give them odds in the compari- 
 son ? Probably the latter supposition comes 
 nearest the truth. When a sparrow chases a 
 butcher-bird we cheer the sparrow, and then 
 when a humming-bird puts to flight a sparrow, 
 we cheer the humming-bird ; we side with the 
 kingbird against the crow, and with the vireo 
 against the kingbird. It is a noble trait of 
 human nature though we are somewhat too 
 ready to boast of it that we like, as we say, 
 to see the little fellow at the top. These re- 
 marks are made, not with any reference to the 
 chickadee, I admit no possibility of exagger- 
 ation in his case, but as leading to a men- 
 tion of the golden-crested kinglet. He is the 
 least of all our winter birds, and one of the most 
 
204 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 engaging. Emerson's "atom in full breath" 
 and " scrap of valor" would apply to him even 
 better than to the titmouse. He says little, 
 zee, zee, zee is nearly the limit of his vocabu- 
 . lary ; but his lively demeanor and the grace 
 and agility of his movements are in themselves 
 an excellent language, speaking infallibly a con- 
 tented mind. (It is a fact, on which I forbear 
 to moralize, that birds seldom look unhappy 
 except when they are idle.) His diminutive size 
 attracts attention even from those who rarely 
 notice such things. About the first of Decem- 
 ber, a year ago, I was told of a man who had 
 shot a humming-bird only a few days before in 
 the vicinity of Boston. Of course I expressed a 
 polite surprise, and assured my informant that 
 such a remarkable capture ought by all means 
 to be put on record in " The Auk," as every 
 ornithologist in the land would be interested 
 in it. OK this he called upon the lucky sports- 
 man's brother, who happened to be standing by, 
 to corroborate the story. Yes, the latter said, 
 the fact was as had been stated. " But then," 
 he continued, u the bird did n't have a long bill, 
 like a humming-bird ; " and when I suggested 
 that perhaps its crown was yellow, bordered 
 with black, he said, " Yes, yes ; that 's the bird, 
 exactly." So easy are startling discoveries to 
 an observer who has just the requisite amount 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 205 
 
 of knowledge, enough, and (especially) not 
 too much ! 
 
 The brown creeper is quite as industrious and 
 good-humored as the kinglet, but he is less tak- 
 ing in his personal appearance and less roman- 
 tic in his mode of life. The same may be said 
 of our two black-and-white woodpeckers, the 
 downy and the hairy ; while their more showy 
 but less hardy relative, the flicker, evidently 
 feels the weather a burden. The creeper and 
 these three woodpeckers are with us in limited 
 numbers every winter ; and in the season of 
 1881-82 we had an altogether unexpected visit 
 from the red-headed woodpecker, such a 
 thing as had not been known for a long time, 
 if ever. Where the birds came from, and what 
 was the occasion of their journey, nobody could 
 tell. They arrived early in the autumn, and 
 went away, with the exception of a few strag- 
 glers, in the spring ; and as far as I know have 
 never been seen since. It is a great pity they 
 did not like us well enough to come again ; for 
 they are wide-awake, entertaining creatures, and 
 gorgeously attired. I used to watch them in 
 the oak groves of some Longwood estates, but 
 it was not till our second or third interview 
 that I discovered them to be the authors of a 
 mystery over which I had been exercising my 
 wits in vain, a tree-frog's note in winter ! One of 
 
206 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 their amusements was to drum on the tin girdles 
 of the shade trees ; and meanwhile they them- 
 selves afforded a pastime to the gray squirrels, 
 who were often to be seen creeping stealthily 
 after them, as if they imagined that Melanerpes 
 erythrocephalus might possibly be caught, if 
 only he were hunted long enough. I laughed 
 at them ; but, after all, their amusing halluci- 
 nation was nothing but the sportsman's instinct ; 
 and life would soon lose its charm for most of 
 us, sportsmen or not, if we could no longer pur- 
 sue the unattainable. 
 
 Probably my experience is not singular, but 
 there are certain birds, well known to be more 
 or less abundant in this neighborhood, which 
 for some reason or other I have seldom, if 
 ever, met. For example, of the multitude of 
 pine finches which now and then overrun East- 
 ern Massachusetts in winter I have never 
 seen one, while on the other hand I was once 
 lucky enough to come upon a few of the very 
 much smaller number which pass the summer 
 in Northern New Hampshire. This was in the 
 White Mountain Notch, first on Mount Willard 
 and then near the Crawford House, at which 
 latter place they were feeding on the lawn and 
 along the railway track as familiarly as the 
 gold-finches. 
 
 The shore larks, too, are no doubt common 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 207 
 
 near Boston for a part of every year; yet I 
 found half a dozen five or six years ago in the 
 marsh beside a Back Bay street, and have seen 
 none since. One of these stood upon a pile of 
 earth, singing to himself in an undertone, while 
 the rest were feeding in the grass. Whether 
 the singer was playing sentinel, and sounded an 
 alarm, I was not sure, but all at once the flock 
 started off, as if on a single pair of wings. 
 
 Birds which elude the observer in this man- 
 ner year after year only render themselves all 
 the more interesting. They are like other spe- 
 cies with which we deem ourselves well ac- 
 quainted, but which suddenly appear in some 
 quite unlooked-for time or place. The long- 
 expected and the unexpected have both an es- 
 pecial charm. I have elsewhere avowed my 
 favoritism for the white-throated sparrow ; but 
 I was never more delighted to see him than on 
 one Christmas afternoon. I was walking in a 
 back road, not far from the city, when I de- 
 scried a sparrow ahead of me, feeding in the 
 path, and, coming nearer, recognized my friend 
 the white-throat. He held his ground till the 
 last moment (time was precious to him that 
 short day), and then flew into a bush to let me 
 pass, which I had no sooner done than he was 
 back again ; and on my return the same thing 
 was repeated. Far and near the ground was 
 
208 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 white, but just at this place the snow-plough 
 had scraped bare a few square feet of earth, and 
 by great good fortune this solitary and hungry 
 straggler had hit upon it. I wondered what he 
 would do when the resources of this garden 
 patch were exhausted, but consoled myself with 
 thinking that by this time he must be well used 
 to living by his wits, and would probably find 
 a way to do so even in his present untoward 
 circumstances. 
 
 The snow-birds (not to be confounded with 
 the snow buntings) should have at least a men- 
 tion in such a paper as this. They are among 
 the most familiar and constant of our winter 
 guests, although very much less numerous at 
 that time than in spring and autumn, when the 
 fields and lanes are fairly alive with them. 
 
 A kind word must be said for the shrike, 
 also, who during the three coldest months is to 
 be seen on the Common oftener than any other 
 of our native birds. There, at all events, he is 
 doing a good work. May he live to finish it ! 
 
 The blue jay stands by us, of course. You 
 will not go far without hearing his scream, and 
 catching at least a distant view of his splendid 
 coat, which he is too consistent a dandy to put 
 off for one of a duller shade, let the season shift 
 as it will. He is not always good-natured ; but 
 none the less he is generally in good spirits (he 
 
WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 209 
 
 seems to enjoy his bad temper), and, all in all, 
 is not to be lightly esteemed in a time when 
 bright feathers are scarce. 
 
 As for the jay's sable relatives, they are the 
 most conspicuous birds in the winter landscape. 
 You may possibly walk to Brookline and back 
 without hearing a chickadee, or a blue jay, or 
 even a goldfinch ; but you will never miss sight 
 and sound of the crows. Black against white 
 is a contrast hard to be concealed. Sometimes 
 they are feeding in the street, sometimes stalk- 
 ing about the marshes ; but oftenest they are 
 on the ice in the river, near the water's edge. 
 For they know the use of friends, although they 
 have never heard of Lord Bacon's " last fruit of 
 friendship," and would hardly understand what 
 that provident philosopher meant by saying 
 that " the best way to represent to life the man- 
 ifold use of friendship is to cast and see how 
 many things there are which a man cannot do 
 himself." How aptly their case illustrates the 
 not unusual coexistence of formal ignorance 
 with real knowledge ! Having their Southern 
 brother's fondness for fish without his skill in 
 catching it, they adopt a plan worthy of the 
 great essayist himself, they court the society 
 of the gulls ; and with a temper eminently phil- 
 osophical, not to say Baconian, they cheerfully 
 sit at their patrons' second table. From the 
 
 14 
 
210 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
 
 Common you may see them almost any day 
 (in some seasons, at least) flying back and 
 forth between the river and the harbor. One 
 morning in early March I witnessed quite a 
 procession, one small company after another, 
 the largest numbering eleven birds, though it 
 was nothing to compare with what seems to be 
 a daily occurrence at some places further south. 
 At another time, in the middle of January, I 
 saw what appeared to be a flock of herring gulls 
 sailing over the city, making progress in their 
 own wonderfully beautiful manner, circle after 
 circle. But I noticed that about a dozen of 
 them were black ! What were these ? If they 
 could have held their peace I might have gone 
 home puzzled ; but the crow is in one respect a 
 very polite bird : he will seldom fly over your 
 head without letting fall the compliments of 
 the morning, and a vigorous caw, caw soon pro- 
 claimed my black gulls to be simply erratic 
 specimens of Corvus Americanus. Why were 
 they conducting thus strangely ? Had they be- 
 come so attached to their friends as to have 
 taken to imitating them unconsciously ? Or 
 were they practicing upon the vanity. of these 
 useful allies of theirs, these master fishermen ? 
 Who can answer ? The ways of shrewd people 
 are hard to understand ; and in all New Eng- 
 land there is no shrewder Yankee than the 
 crow. 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 
 
 There shall be 
 
 Beautiful things made new, for the surprise 
 Of the sky-children. 
 
 KEATS. 
 
 Everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their ap- 
 pointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, 
 which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly ex- 
 pected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival. 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 
 
 IT began on the 29th of March ; in the after- 
 noon of which day, despite the authority of the 
 almanac and the banter of my acquaintances 
 (March was March to them, and it was nothing 
 more), I shook off the city's dust from my feet, 
 and went into summer quarters. The roads 
 were comparatively dry ; the snow was entirely 
 gone, except a patch or two in the shadow of 
 thick pines under the northerly side of a hill ; 
 and all tokens seemed to promise an early 
 spring. So much I learned before the hasten- 
 ing twilight cut short my first brief turn out-of- 
 doors. In the morning would be time enough 
 to discover what birds had already reported 
 themselves at my station. 
 
 Unknown to me, however, our national 
 weather bureau had announced a snow-storm, 
 and in the morning I drew aside the curtains 
 to look out upon a world all in white, with a 
 cold, high wind blowing and snow falling fast. 
 " The worst Sunday of the winter," the natives 
 
214 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 said. The " summer boarder " went to church, 
 of course. To have done otherwise might have 
 been taken for a confession of weakness ; as if 
 inclemency of this sort were more than he had 
 bargained for. The villagers, lacking any such 
 spur to right conduct, for the most part stayed 
 at home ; feeling it not unpleasant, I dare say, 
 some of them, to have a natural inclination 
 providentially confirmed, even at the cost of an 
 hour's exercise with the shovel. The bravest 
 parishioner of all, and the sweetest singer, 
 the song sparrow by name, was not in the 
 meeting-house, but by the roadside. What if 
 the wind did blow, and the mercury stand at 
 fifteen or twenty degrees below the freezing 
 point ? In cold as in heat " the mind is its own 
 place." 
 
 Three days after this came a second storm, 
 one of the heaviest snow-falls of the year. The 
 robins were reduced to picking up seeds in the 
 asparagus bed. The bluebirds appeared to be 
 trying to glean something from the bark of 
 trees, clinging rather awkwardly to the trunk 
 meanwhile. (They are given to this, more or 
 less, at all times, and it possibly has some con- 
 nection with their half-woodpeckerish habit of 
 nestling in holes.) Some of the snow-birds 
 were doing likewise ; I noticed one traveling up 
 a trunk, which inclined a good deal, to be 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 215 
 
 sure, exploring the crannies right and left, 
 like any creeper. Half a dozen or more phoebes 
 were in the edge of a wood ; and they too 
 seemed to have found out that, if worst came 
 to worst, the tree-boles would yield a pittance 
 for their relief. They often hovered against 
 them, pecking hastily at the bark, and one at 
 least was struggling for a foothold on the per- 
 pendicular surface. Most of the time, however, 
 they went skimming over the snow and the 
 brook, in the regular flycatcher style. The 
 chickadees were put to little or no inconven- 
 ience, since what was a desperate makeshift to 
 the others was to them only an e very-day affair. 
 It would take a long storm to bury their gran- 
 ary. 1 After the titmice, the fox-colored spar- 
 rows had perhaps the best of it. Looking out 
 places where the snow had collected least, at 
 the foot of a tree or on the edge of water, these 
 adepts at scratching speedily turned up earth 
 enough to checker the white with very consid- 
 erable patches of brown. While walking I 
 continually disturbed song sparrows, fox spar- 
 rows, tree sparrows, and snow-birds feeding in 
 the road ; and when I sat in my room I was 
 advised of the approach of carriages by seeing 
 
 1 In the titmouse's cosmological system trees occupy a highly 
 important place, we may be sure; while the purpose of their tall, 
 upright method of growth no doubt receives a very simple and 
 logical (and correspondingly lucid) explanation. 
 
216 A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 
 
 these " pensioners upon the traveler's track " 
 scurry past the window in advance of them. 
 
 It is pleasant to observe how naturally birds 
 flock together in hard times, precisely as men 
 do, and doubtless for similar reasons. The edge 
 of the wood, just mentioned, was populous with 
 them : robins, bluebirds, chickadees, fox spar- 
 rows, snow-birds, song sparrows, tree sparrows, 
 phoebes, a golden-winged woodpecker, and a 
 rusty blackbird. The last, noticeable for his 
 conspicuous light-colored eye-ring, had some- 
 how become separated from his fellows, and re- 
 mained for several days about this spot entirely 
 alone. I liked to watch his aquatic perform- 
 ances ; they might almost have been those of 
 the American dipper himself, I thought. He 
 made nothing of putting his head and neck 
 clean under water, like a duck, and sometimes 
 waded the brook when the current was so 
 strong that he was compelled every now and 
 then to stop and brace himself against it, lest 
 he should be carried off his feet. 
 
 It is clear that birds, sharing the frailty of 
 some who are better than many sparrows, are 
 often wanting in patience. As spring draws 
 near they cannot wait for its coming. What 
 it has been the fashion to call their unerring 
 instinct is after all infallible only as a certain 
 great public functionary is, in theory; and 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 217 
 
 their mistaken haste is too frequently nothing 
 but a hurrying to their death. But I saw no 
 evidence that this particular storm was attended 
 with any fatal consequences. The snow com- 
 pletely disappeared within a day or two ; and 
 even while it lasted the song sparrows, fox spar-, 
 rows, and linnets could be heard singing with 
 all cheerfulness. On the coldest day, when 
 the mercury settled to within twelve degrees of 
 zero, I observed that the song sparrows, as they 
 fed in the road, had a trick of crouching till 
 their feathers all but touched the ground, so 
 protecting their legs against the biting wind. 
 
 The first indications of mating were noticed 
 on the 5th, the parties being two pairs of blue- 
 birds. One of the females was rebuffing her 
 suitor rather petulantly, but when he flew away 
 she lost no time in following. Shall I be ac- 
 cused of slander if I suggest that possibly her 
 No meant nothing worse than Ask me again ? 
 I trust not ; she was only a bluebird, remem- 
 ber. Three days later I came .upon two couples 
 engaged in house-hunting. In this business the 
 female takes the lead, with a silent, abstracted 
 air, as if the matter were one of absorbing in- 
 terest ; while her mate follows her about some- 
 what impatiently, and with a good deal of talk, 
 which is plainly intended to hasten the decision. 
 " Come, come," he says ; " the season is short, 
 
218 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 w 
 
 and we can't waste the whole of it in getting 
 ready." I never could discover that his elo- 
 quence produced much effect, however. Her 
 ladyship will have her own way ; as indeed she 
 ought to have, good soul, considering that she 
 is to have the discomfort and the hazard. In 
 one case I was puzzled by the fact that there 
 seemed to be two females to one of the opposite 
 sex. It really looked as if the fellow proposed 
 to set up housekeeping with whichever should 
 first find a house to her mind. But this is 
 slander, and I hasten to take it back. No 
 doubt I misinterpreted his behavior ; for it is 
 true with sorrow I confess it that I am as 
 yet but imperfectly at home in the Sialian dia- 
 lect. 
 
 For the first fortnight my note-book is full of 
 the fox-colored sparrows. It was worth while 
 to have come into the country ahead of time, 
 as city people reckon, to get my fill of this 
 Northern songster's music. Morning and night, 
 wherever I walked, and even if I remained in- 
 doors, I was certain to hear the loud and beau- 
 tiful strain ; to which I listened with the more 
 attention because the birds, I knew, would soon 
 be off for their native fields, beyond the boun- 
 daries of the United States. 
 
 It is astonishing how gloriously birds may 
 sing, and yet pass unregarded. We read of 
 
A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 219 
 
 nightingales and skylarks with a self-satisfied 
 thrill of second-hand enthusiasm, and mean- 
 while our native songsters, even the best of 
 them, are piping unheeded at our very doors. 
 There may have been half a dozen of the town's 
 people who noticed the presence of these fox 
 sparrows, but I think it doubtful ; and yet the 
 birds, the largest, handsomest, and most musi- 
 cal of all our many sparrows, were, as I say, 
 abundant everywhere, and in full voice. 
 
 One afternoon I stood still while a fox spar- 
 row and a song sparrow sang alternately on 
 either side of me, both exceptionally good vo- 
 calists, and each dokig his best. The songs 
 were of about equal length, and as far as theme 
 was concerned were not a little alike ; but the 
 fox sparrow's tone was both louder and more 
 mellow than the other's, while his notes were 
 longer, more sustained, and his 'voice was 
 " carried " from one pitch to another. On the 
 whole, I had no hesitation about giving him 
 the palm ; but I am bound to say that his rival 
 was a worthy competitor. In some respects, in- 
 deed, the latter was the more interesting singer 
 of the two. His opening measure of three pips 
 was succeeded by a trill of quite peculiar brill- 
 iancy and perfection ; and when the other bird 
 had ceased he suddenly took a lower perch, and 
 began to rehearse an altogether different tune 
 
220 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 in a voice not more than half as loud as what 
 he had been using ; after which, as if to cap 
 the climax, he several times followed the tune 
 with a detached phrase or two in a still fainter 
 voice. This last was pretty certainly an im- 
 provised cadenza, such a thing as I do not re- 
 member ever to have heard before from Melo- 
 spiza melodia. 
 
 The song of the fox sparrow has at times an 
 almost thrush-like quality ; and the bird him- 
 self, as he flies up in front of you, might easily 
 be mistaken for some member of that noble 
 family. Once, indeed, when I saw him eating 
 burning-bush berries in a Boston garden, I was 
 half ready to believe that I had before my eyes 
 a living example of the development of one 
 species out of another, a finch already well 
 on his way to become a thrush. Most often, 
 however, his voice puts me in mind of the car- 
 dinal grosbeak's ; his voice, and perhaps still 
 more his cadence, and especially his practice of 
 the portamento. 
 
 The llth of the month was sunny, and the 
 next morning I came back from my accustomed 
 rounds under a sense of bereavement :- the fox 
 sparrows were gone. Where yesterday there 
 had been hundreds of them, now I could find 
 only two silent stragglers. They had been well 
 scattered over the township, here a flock and 
 
A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 221 
 
 there a flock ; but in some way I should be 
 glad to have anybody tell ine how the word 
 had passed from company to company that after 
 sundown Friday night all hands would set out 
 once more on their northward journey. There 
 was one man, at least, who missed them, and 
 in the comparative silence which followed their 
 departure appreciated anew how much they had 
 contributed to fill the wet and chilly April morn- 
 ings with melody and good cheer. 
 
 The snow-birds tarried longer, but from this 
 date became less and less abundant. For the 
 first third of the month they had been as nu- 
 merous, I calculated, as all other species put 
 together. On one occasion I saw a large com- 
 pany of them chasing an albino, the latter dash- 
 ing wildly round a pine-tree, with the whole 
 flock in furious pursuit. They drove him off, 
 across an impassable morass, before I could get 
 close enough really to see him, but I presumed 
 him to be of their own kind. As far as I could 
 make out he was entirely white. For the mo- 
 ment it lasted, it was an exciting scene ; and I 
 was especially gratified to notice with what ex- 
 treme heartiness and unanimity the birds dis- 
 countenanced their wayward brother's hetero- 
 doxy. I agreed with them that one who cannot 
 be content to dress like other people ought not 
 to be allowed to live with them. The world is 
 large, let him go to Rhode Island ! 
 
222 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 On the evening of the 6th, just at dusk, I 
 had started up the road for a lazy after-dinner 
 saunter, when I was brought to a sudden halt 
 by what on the instant 1 took for the cry of a 
 * night-hawk. But no night-hawk could be here 
 thus early in the season, and listening further, 
 I perceived that the bird, if bird it was, was on 
 the ground, or, at any rate, not far from it. 
 Then it flashed upon me that this was the note 
 of the woodcock, which I had that very day 
 startled upon this same hillside. Now, then, 
 for another sight of his famous aerial courtship 
 act ! So, scrambling down the embankment, 
 and clambering over the stone-wall, I pushed up 
 the hill through bushes and briers, till, having 
 come as near the bird as I dared, I crouched, 
 and awaited further developments. I had not 
 long to wait, for after a few yaks, at intervals 
 of perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, the fellow 
 took to wing, and went soaring in a circle above 
 me ; calling hurriedly click, click, click, with a 
 break now and then, as if for breath-taking. 
 All this he repeated several times ; but unfor- 
 tunately it was too dark for me to see him, ex- 
 cept as he crossed a narrow illuminated strip of 
 sky just above the horizon line. I judged that 
 he mounted to a very considerable height, and 
 dropped invariably into the exact spot from 
 which he had started. For a week or two I 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 223 
 
 listened every night for a repetition of the yak ; 
 but I heard nothing more of it for a month. 
 Then it came to my ears again, this time from 
 a field between the road and a swamp. Watch- 
 ing my opportunity, while the bird was in the 
 air, I hastened across the field, and stationed 
 myself against a small cedar. He was still 
 clicking high overhead, but soon alighted 
 silently within twenty yards of where I was 
 standing, and commenced to " bleat," prefacing 
 each yak with a fainter syllable which I had 
 never before been near enough to detect. Pres- 
 ently he started once more on his skyward 
 journey. Up he went, in a large spiral, 
 " higher still and higher " till the cedar cut 
 off my view for an instant, after which I could 
 not again get my eye upon him. Whether he 
 saw me or not I cannot tell, but he dropped to 
 the ground some rods away, and did not make 
 another ascension, although he continued to 
 call irregularly, and appeared to be walking 
 about the field. Perhaps by this time the fair 
 one for whose benefit all this parade was in- 
 tended had come out of the swamp to meet and 
 reward her admirer. 
 
 Hoping for a repetition of the same pro- 
 gramme on the following night, I invited a 
 friend from the city to witness it with me ; one 
 who, less fortunate than the " forest seer," had 
 
224 A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 
 
 never " heard the woodcock's evening hymn," 
 notwithstanding his knowledge of birds is a 
 thousand-fold more than mine, as all students 
 of American ornithology would unhesitatingly 
 avouch were I to mention his name. We waited 
 till dark ; but though Philohela was there, and 
 sounded his yak two or three times, just 
 enough to excite our hopes, yet for some 
 reason he kept to terra firma. Perhaps he was 
 aware of our presence, and disdained to exhibit 
 himself in the rdle of a wooer under our pro- 
 fane and curious gaze ; or possibly, as my more 
 scientific (and less sentimental) companion sug- 
 gested, the light breeze may have been counted 
 unfavorable for such high-flying exploits. 
 
 After all, our matter-of-fact world is surpris- 
 ingly full of romance. Who would have ex- 
 pected to. find this heavy-bodied, long-billed, 
 gross-looking, bull-headed bird singing at heav- 
 en's gate ? He a " scorn er of the ground " ? 
 Verily, love worketh wonders ! And perhaps 
 it is really true that the outward semblance is 
 sometimes deceptive. To be candid, however, 
 I must end with confessing that, after listening 
 to the woodcock's " hymn " a good many times, 
 first and last, I cannot help thinking that it 
 takes an imaginative ear to discover anything 
 properly to be called a song in its monotonous 
 click, click) even at its fastest and loudest. 1 
 
 1 While this book is passing through the press (April 30th, 
 
A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 225 
 
 While I was enjoying the farewell matinee 
 of the fox-colored sparrows on the llth, sud- 
 denly there ran into the chorus the fine silver 
 thread of the winter wren's tune. Here was 
 pleasure unexpected. It is down in all the 
 books, I believe, that this bird does not sing 
 while on his travels ; and certainly I had my- 
 self never known him to do anything of the 
 sort before. But there is always something 
 new under the sun. 
 
 " Who ever heaad of th' Indian Peru ? 
 Or who in venturous v.essell measured 
 The Amazon's huge river, now found trew ? 
 Or fruitfullest Virginia who did ever vew ?" 
 
 I was all ear, of course, standing motionless 
 while the delicious music came again and again 
 
 1885) I am privileged with another sight and sound of the wood- 
 cock's vespertine performance, and under peculiarly favorable 
 conditions. In the account given above, sufficient distinction is 
 not made between the clicking noise, heard while the bird is soar- 
 ing, and the sounds which signalize his descent. The former is 
 probably produced by the wings, although I have heretofore 
 thought otherwise, while the latter are certainly vocal, and no 
 doubt intended as a song. But they are little if at all louder than 
 the click, click of the wings, and as far as I have ever been able 
 to make out are nothing more than a series of quick, breathless 
 whistles, with no attempt at either melody or rhythm. 
 
 In the present instance I could see only the start and the " fin- 
 ish," when the bird several times passed directly by and over me, 
 as I stood in a cluster of low birches, within two or three rods of 
 his point of departure. His angle of flight was small; quite as if 
 he had been going and coming from one field to another, in the 
 ordinary course. Once I timed him, and found that he was on the 
 wing for a few seconds more than a minute. 
 15 
 
226 A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 
 
 out of a tangle of underbrush behind a dilapi- 
 dated stone-wall, a spot for all the world 
 congenial to this tiny recluse, whose whole life, 
 we may say, is one long game of hide-and-seek. 
 Altogether the song was repeated twenty times 
 at least, and to my thinking I had never heard 
 it given with greater brilliancy and fervor. 
 The darling little minstrel !, he will never know 
 how grateful I felt. I even forgave him when 
 he sang thrice from a living bush, albeit in so 
 doing he spoiled a sentence which I had al- 
 ready committed to "the permanency of print." 
 Birds of all kinds will play such tricks upon us ; 
 but whether the fault be chargeable to fickle- 
 ness or a mischievous spirit on their part, rather 
 than to undue haste on the part of us their re- 
 porters, is a matter about which I am perhaps 
 not sufficiently disinterested to judge. In this 
 instance, however, it was reasonably certain 
 ' that the singer did not show himself intention- 
 ally ; for unless the whole tenor of his life belies 
 him, the winter wren's motto is, Little birds 
 should be heard, and not seen. 
 
 Two days afterward I was favored again in 
 like manner. But not by the same bird, I 
 think ; unless my hearing was at. fault (the 
 singer was further off than before), this one's 
 tune was in places somewhat broken and hesi- 
 tating, as if he were practicing a lesson not 
 yet fully learned. 
 
A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 227 
 
 I felt under a double obligation to these two 
 specimens of Anorthura troglodytes hiemalis : 
 first for their music itself; and then for the sup- 
 port which it gave to a pet theory of mine, that 
 all our singing birds will yet be found to sing 
 more or less regularly in the course of the 
 vernal migration. 
 
 Within another forty-eight hours this same 
 theory received additional confirmation. I was 
 standing under an apple-tree, watching a pair 
 of titmice who were hollowing out a stub for a 
 nest, when my ear caught a novel song not far 
 away. Of course I made towards it ; but the 
 bird flew off, across the road and into the woods. 
 My hour was up, and I reluctantly started home- 
 ward, but had gone only a few rods before the 
 song was repeated. This was more than human 
 nature could bear, and, turning back upon the 
 run, I got into the woods just in time to see 
 two birds chasing each other round a tree, both 
 uttering the very notes which had so roused my 
 curiosity. Then away they went ; but as I was 
 , again bewailing my evil luck, one of them re- 
 turned, and flew into the oak, directly over my 
 head, and as he did so fell to calling anew, Sue, 
 suky, suky. A single glance upward revealed 
 that this was another of the silent migrants, 
 a brown creeper ! Only once before had I 
 heard from him anything beside his customary 
 
228 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 lisping zee, zee ; and even on that occasion (in 
 June and in New Hampshire) the song bore no 
 resemblance to his present effort. I have writ- 
 ten it down as it sounded at the moment, Sue, 
 suky, sulcy, five notes, the first longer than the 
 others, and all of them brusque, loud, and mu- 
 sical, though with something of a warbler 
 quality. 1 
 
 It surprised me to find how the migratory 
 movement lagged for the first half of the month. 
 A pair of white-breasted swallows flew over my 
 head while I was attending to the winter wren 
 on the llth, and on the 14th appeared the first 
 pine - creeping warblers, welcome for their 
 own sakes, and doubly so as the forerunners of 
 a numerous and splendid company ; but aside 
 from these two, I saw no evidence that a single 
 
 1 Still further to corroborate my "pet theory," I may say here 
 in a foot-note, what I have said elsewhere with more detail, that 
 before the end of the following month the hermit thrushes, the 
 olive-backed thrushes, and the gray-cheeked thrushes all sang for 
 me in my Melrose woods. 
 
 Let me explain, also, that when I call the brown creeper a silent 
 migrant I am not unaware that others beside myself, and more 
 than myself, have heard him sing while traveling. Mr. William 
 Brewster, as quoted by Dr. Brewer in the History of North Amer- 
 ican Birds, has been exceptionally fortunate in this regard. But 
 my expression is correct as far as the rule is concerned; and the 
 latest word upon the subject which has come under my eye is this 
 from Mr. E. P. Bicknell's " Study of the Singing of our Birds," in 
 The Auk for April, 1884: " Some feeble notes, suggestive of those 
 of Regulus satrapa, are this bird's usual utterance during its visit. 
 Its song I have never heard." 
 
A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 229 
 
 new species arrived at my station for the entire 
 fortnight. 
 
 Robins sang sparingly from the beginning, 
 and became perceptibly more musical on the 
 8th, with signs of mating and jealousy ; but 
 the real robin carnival did not open till the 
 morning of the 14th. Then the change was 
 wonderful. Some of the birds were flying this 
 way and that, high in air, two or three to- 
 gether ; others chased each other about nearer 
 the ground ; some were screaming, some hiss- 
 ing, and more singing. So sudden was the out- 
 break and so great the commotion that I was 
 persuaded there must have been an arrival of 
 females in the night. 
 
 I have heard it objected against these 
 thrushes, whose extreme commonness renders 
 them less highly esteemed than they would 
 otherwise be, that they find their voices too 
 early in the morning. But I am not myself 
 prepared to second the criticism. They are 
 not often at their matins, I think, until the 
 eastern sky begins to flush, and it is not quite 
 certain to my mind that they are wrong in as- 
 suming that daylight makes daytime. I have 
 questioned before now whether our own custom 
 of sitting up for five or six hours after sunset, 
 and then lying abed two or three hours after 
 sunrise, may not have come down to us from 
 
230 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 times when there were still people in the world 
 who loved darkness rather than light, because 
 their deeds were evil ; and whether, after all, 
 in this as in some other respects, we might not 
 wisely take pattern of the fowls of the air. 
 
 Individually, the phcebes were almost as 
 noisy as the robins, but of course their numbers 
 were far less. They are models of persever- 
 ance. Were their voice equal to the nightin- 
 gale's they could hardly be more assiduous and 
 enthusiastic in its use. As a general thing they 
 are content to repeat the simple Phoebe, Phoebe 
 (there are moods in the experience of all of us, 
 I hope, when the repetition of a name is by it- 
 self music sufficient), but it is not uncommon 
 for this to be heightened to Phoebe, Phoebe ; 
 and now and then you will hear some fellow 
 calling excitedly, Phoebe, Phoebe-be-be-be-be, 
 a comical sort of stuttering, in which the diffi- 
 culty is not in getting hold of the first syllable, 
 but in letting go the last one. On the 15th I 
 witnessed a certain other performance of theirs, 
 one that I had seen two or three times the 
 season previous, and for which I had been on 
 the lookout from the first day of the month. I 
 heard a series of chips, which might have been 
 the cries of a chicken, but which, it appeared, 
 did proceed from a phcebe, who, as I looked up, 
 was just in the act of quitting his perch on the 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 231 
 
 ridge-pole of a barn. He rose for perhaps thirty 
 feet, not spirally, but in a zigzag course, like 
 a horse climbing a hill with a heavy load, 
 all the time calling, chip, chip, chip. Then he 
 went round and round in a small circle, with a 
 kind of hovering action of the wings, vocifer- 
 ating hurriedly, Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe ; after 
 which he shot down into the top of a tree, and 
 with a lively flirt of his tail took up again the 
 same eloquent theme. During the next few 
 weeks I several times found birds of this spe- 
 cies similarly engaged. And it is worthy of re- 
 mark that, of the four flycatchers which regu- 
 larly pass the summer with us, three may be 
 said to be in the habit of singing in the air, 
 while the fourth (the wood pewee) does the 
 same thing, only with less frequency. It is cu- 
 rious, also, on the other hand, that not one of 
 our eight common New England thrushes, as 
 far as I have ever seen or heard, shows the least 
 tendency toward any such state of lyrical exal- 
 tation. Yet the thrushes are song birds par ex- 
 cellence, while the phoebe, the least flycatcher, 
 and the kingbird are not supposed to be able 
 to sing at all. The latter have the soul of mu- 
 sic in them, at any rate ; and why should it not 
 be true of birds, as it is of human poets and 
 would-be poets, that sensibility and faculty are 
 not always found together? Perhaps those 
 
232 A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 
 
 who have nothing but the sensibility have, 
 after all, the better half of the blessing. 
 
 The golden - winged woodpeckers shouted 
 comparatively little before the middle of the 
 month, and I heard nothing of their tender 
 wick-a-wick until the 22d. After that they were 
 noisy enough. With all their power of lungs, 
 however, they not only are not singers ; they 
 do not aspire to be. They belong to the tribe 
 of Jubal. Hearing somebody drumming on 
 tin, I peeped over the wall, and saw one of 
 these pigeon woodpeckers hammering an old 
 tin pan lying in the middle of the pasture. 
 Rather small sport, I thought, for so large a 
 bird. But that was a matter of opinion, merely, 
 and evidently the performer himself had no 
 such scruples. He may even have considered 
 that his ability to play on this instrument of the 
 tinsmith's went far to put him on an equality 
 with some who boast themselves the only tool- 
 using animals. True, the pan was battered and 
 rusty ; but it was resonant, for all that, and 
 day after day he pleased himself with beating 
 reveille upon it. One morning I found him 
 sitting in a tree, screaming lustily in response 
 to another bird in an adjacent fiejd. After a 
 while, waxing ardent, he dropped to the ground, 
 and, stationing himself before his drum, pro- 
 ceeded to answer each cry of his rival with a 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 233 
 
 vigorous rubadub, varying the programme with 
 an occasional halloo. How long this would have 
 lasted there is no telling, but he caught sight of 
 me, skulking behind a tree-trunk, and flew back 
 to his lofty perch, where he was still shouting 
 when I came away. It was observable that, 
 even in his greatest excitement, he paused once 
 in a while to dress his feathers. At first I was 
 inclined to take this as betraying a want of 
 earnestness ; but further reflection led me to a 
 different conclusion. For I imagine that the 
 human lover, no matter how consuming his pas- 
 sion, is seldom carried so far beyond himself as 
 not to be able to spare now and then a thought 
 to the parting of his hair and the tie of his cra- 
 vat. 
 
 Seeing the great delight which this wood- 
 pecker took in his precious tin pan, it seemed 
 to me not at all improbable that he had selected 
 his summer residence with a view to being near 
 it, just as I had chosen mine for its convenience 
 of access to the woods on the one hand, and to 
 the city on the other. I shall watch with in- 
 terest to see whether he returns to the same 
 pasture another year. 
 
 A few field sparrows and chippers showed 
 themselves punctually on the 15th; but they 
 were only scouts, and the great body of their 
 followers were more than a week behind them. 
 
234 A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 
 
 I saw no bay-winged buntings until the 22d, 
 although it is likely enough they had been here 
 for some days before that. By a lucky chance^ 
 my very first bird was a peculiarly accomplished 
 musician : he altered his tune at nearly every 
 repetition of it, sang ifc sometimes loudly and 
 then softly, and once in a while added cadenza- 
 like phrases. It lost nothing by being heard on 
 a bright, frosty morning, when the edges of the 
 pools were filmed with ice. 
 
 Only three species of warblers appeared dur- 
 ing the month : the pine-creeping warblers, al- 
 ready spoken of, who were trilling on the 14th ; 
 the yellow-rumped, who came on the 23d ; and 
 the yellow red-polls, who followed the next morn- 
 ing. The black-throated greens were mysteri- 
 ously tardy, and the black-and-white creepers 
 waited for May-day. 
 
 A single brown thrush was leading the chorus 
 on the 29th. " A great singer," my note-book 
 says : " not so altogether faultless as some, but 
 with a large voice and style, adapted to a great 
 part ; " and then is added, " I thought this morn- 
 ing of Titiens, as I listened to him ! " a bit of 
 impromptu musical criticism, which, under cover 
 of the saving quotation marks may stand for 
 what it is worth. 
 
 Not long after leaving him I ran upon two 
 hermit thrushes (one had been seen on the 
 
A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 235 
 
 25th), flitting about the woods like ghosts. I 
 whistled softly to the first, and he condescended 
 to answer with a low chuck, after which I could 
 get nothing more out of him. This demure 
 taciturnity is very curiou% and characteristic, 
 and to me very engaging. The fellow will 
 neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low 
 branch, and looks at you, behaving not a lit- 
 tle as if you were the specimen and he the stu- 
 dent ! And in such a case, as far as I can see, 
 the bird equally with the man has a right to his 
 own point of view. 
 
 The hermits were not yet in tune ; and with- 
 out forgetting the fox-colored sparrows and the 
 linnets, the song sparrows and the bay-wings, 
 the winter wrens and the brown thrush, I am 
 almost ready to declare that the best music of 
 the month came from the smallest of all the 
 month's birds, the ruby-crowned kinglets. Their 
 spring season is always short with us, and un- 
 happily it was this year shorter even than usual, 
 my dates being April 23d and May 5th. But 
 we must be thankful for a little, when the little 
 is of such a quality. Once I descried two of them 
 in the topmost branches of a clump of tall ma- 
 ples. For a long time they fed in silence ; then 
 they began to chase each other about through 
 the trees, in graceful evolutions (I can imagine 
 nothing more graceful), and soon one, and then 
 
236 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 the other, broke out into song. u ' Infinite riches 
 in a little room,' " my note-book says, again ; and 
 truly the song is marvelous, a prolonged and 
 varied warble, introduced and often broken into, 
 with delightful effect, by a wrennish chatter. 
 For fluency, smoothness, and ease, and especially 
 for purity and sweetness of tone, I have never 
 heard any bird-song that seemed to me more 
 nearly perfect. If the dainty creature would 
 bear confinement, on which point I know 
 nothing, he would make an ideal parlor song- 
 ster ; for his voice, while round and full, in 
 contrast with the goldfinch's, for example, is 
 yet, even at its loudest, of a wonderful softness 
 and delicacy. Nevertheless, I trust that nobody 
 will ever cage him. Better far go out-of-doors, 
 and drink in the exquisite sounds as they drop 
 from the thick of some tall pine, while you catch 
 now and then a glimpse of the tiny author, flit- 
 ting busily from branch to branch, warbling at 
 his work ; or, as you may oftener do, look and 
 listen to your heart's content, while he explores 
 some low cedar or a cluster of roadside birches, 
 too innocent and happy to heed your presence. 
 So you will carry home not the song only, but 
 " the river and sky." 
 
 But if the kinglets were individually the best 
 singers, I must still confess that the goldfinches 
 gave the best concert. It was on a sunny after- 
 
A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 237 
 
 noon, the 27th, and in a small grove of tall 
 pitch-pines. How many birds there were I 
 could form little estimate, but when fifteen flew 
 away for a minute or two the chorus was not 
 perceptibly diminished. All were singing, twit- 
 tering, and calling together ; some of them di- 
 rectly over my head, the rest scattered through- 
 out the wood. No one voice predominated in 
 the least ; all sang softly, and with an inde- 
 scribable tenderness and beauty. Any who do 
 not know how sweet the goldfinch's note is may 
 get some conception of the effect of such a con- 
 cert if they will imagine fifty canaries thus en- 
 gaged out-of-doors. I declared then that I had 
 never heard anything so enchanting, and I am 
 not certain even now that I was over-enthusi- 
 astic. 
 
 A pine-creeping warbler, I remember, broke 
 in upon the choir two or three times with his 
 loud, precise trill. Foolish bird ! His is a pretty 
 song by itself, but set in contrast with music so 
 full of imagination and poetry, it sounded pain- 
 fully abrupt and prosaic. 
 
 I discovered the first signs of nest-building on 
 the 13th, while investigating the question of a 
 bird's ambi-dexterity. It happened that I had 
 just been watching a chickadee, as he picked 
 chip after chip from a dead branch, and held 
 them fast with one claw, while he broke them in 
 
238 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 pieces with his beak; "and walking away, it oc- 
 curred to me to ask whether or not he could 
 probably use both feet equally well for such a 
 purpose. Accordingly, seeing another go into 
 an apple-tree, I drew near to take his testimony 
 on that point. But when I came to look for 
 him he was nowhere in sight, and pretty soon it 
 appeared that he was at work in the end of an 
 upright stub, which he had evidently but just 
 begun to hollow out, as the tip of his tail still 
 protruded over the edge. A bird-lover's curi- 
 osity can always adapt itself to circumstances, 
 and in this case it was no hardship to post- 
 pone the settlement of my newly raised inquiry, 
 while I observed the pretty labors of my little 
 architect. These proved to be by no means 
 inconsiderable, lasting nearly or quite three 
 weeks. The birds were still bringing away 
 chips on the 30th, when their cavity was about 
 eleven inches deep ; but it is to be said that, as 
 far as I could find out, they never worked in the 
 afternoon or on rainy days. 
 
 Their demeanor toward each other all this 
 time was beautiful to see ; no effusive display of 
 affection, but every appearance of a perfect mu- 
 tual understanding and contentment. And their 
 treatment of me was no less appropriate and 
 delightful, a happy combination of freedom 
 and dignified reserve. I took it for an ex- 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 239 
 
 tremely neat compliment to myself, as well as 
 incontestable evidence of unusual powers of dis- 
 crimination on their part. 
 
 On my second visit the female sounded a call 
 as I approached the tree, and I looked to see 
 her mate take some notice of it ; but he kept 
 straight on with what he was doing. Not long 
 after she spoke again, however ; and now it was 
 amusing to see the fellow all at once stand still 
 on the top of the stub, looking up and around, 
 as much as to -say, " What is it, my dear? I 
 see nothing." Apparently it was nothing, and 
 he went head first into the hole again. Pretty 
 soon, while he was inside, I stepped up against 
 the trunk. His mate continued silent, and after 
 what seemed a long time he came out, flew to 
 an adjacent twig, dropped his load, and returned. 
 This he did over and over (the end of the stub 
 was perhaps ten feet above my head), and once 
 he let fall a beakful of chips plump in my face. 
 They were light, and I did not resent the liberty. 
 
 Two mornings later I found him at his task 
 again, toiling in good earnest. In and out he 
 went, taking care to bring away the shavings 
 at every trip, as before, and generally sounding 
 a note or two (keeping the tally, perhaps) be- 
 fore he dropped them. For the fifteen minutes 
 or so that I remained, his mate was- perched in 
 another branch of the same tree, not once shift- 
 
240 A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 
 
 ing her position, and doing nothing whatever 
 except to preen her feathers a little. She paid 
 no attention to her husband, nor did he to her. 
 It was a revelation to me that a chickadee could 
 possibly sit still so long. 
 
 Eight days after this they were both at work, 
 spelling each 'other, and then going off in com- 
 pany for a brief turn at feeding. 
 
 So far they had never manifested the least an- 
 noyance at my espionage ; but the next morn- 
 ing, as I stood against the tree, one of them 
 seemed slightly disturbed, and flew from twig 
 to twig about my head, looking at me from all 
 directions with his shining black eyes. The re- 
 connoissance was satisfactory, however ; every- 
 thing went on as before, and several times the 
 chips rattled down upon my stiff Derby hat. 
 The hole was getting deep, it was plain ; I 
 could hear the little carpenter hammering at 
 the bottom, and then scrambling up the walls 
 on his way out. One of the pair brought a 
 black tidbit from a pine near by, and offered it 
 to the other as he emerged into daylight. He 
 took it from her bill, said chit, - chickadese for 
 thank you, and hastened back into the mine. 
 
 Finally, on the 27th, after watching their op- 
 erations a while from the ground, I swung my- 
 self into the tree, and took a seat with them. 
 To my delight, the work proceeded without 
 
A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 241 
 
 interruption. Neither bird made any outcry, 
 although one of them hopped round me, just 
 out of reach, with evident curiosity. He must 
 have thought me a queer specimen. When I 
 drew my overcoat up after me and put it on, 
 they flew away; but within a minute or two 
 they were both back again, working as merrily 
 as ever, and taking no pains not to litter me 
 with their rubbish. Once the female (I took 
 it to be she from her smaller size, not from this 
 piece of shiftlessness) dropped her load with- 
 out quitting the stub, a thing I had not seen 
 either of them do before. Twice one brought 
 the other something to eat. At last the male 
 took another turn at investigating my charac- 
 ter, and it began to look as if he would end 
 with alighting on my hat. This time, too, I 
 am proud to say, the verdict was favorable. 
 
 Their confidence was not misplaced, and un- 
 less all signs failed they reared a full brood of 
 tits. May their tribe increase ! Of birds so 
 innocent and unobtrusive, so graceful, so merry- 
 hearted, and so musical, the world can never 
 have too many. 
 
 16 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, 
 
 And what the Swede intends, and what the French. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 MY trip to Lake Memphremagog was by the 
 way, and was not expected to detain me for 
 more than twenty-four hours ; but when I went 
 ashore at the Owl's Head Mountain-House, and 
 saw what a lodge in the wilderness it was, I 
 said to myself, Go to, this is the place ; Mount 
 Mansfield will stand for another year at least, 
 and I will waste no more of my precious fort- 
 night amid dust and cinders. Here were to be 
 enjoyed many of the comforts of civilization, 
 with something of the wildness and freedom 
 of a camp. Out of one of the windows of my 
 large, well-furnished room I could throw a stone 
 into the trackless forest, where, any time I 
 chose, I could make the most of a laborious 
 half-hour in traveling half a mile. The other 
 two opened upon a piazza, whence the lake was 
 to be seen stretching away northward for ten or 
 fifteen miles, with Mount Orford and his sup- 
 porting hills in the near background ; while I 
 had only to walk the length of the piazza to 
 
246 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 look round the corner of the house at Owl's 
 Head itself, at whose base we were. The hotel 
 had less than a dozen guests and no piano, and 
 there was neither carriage - road nor railway 
 within sight or hearing. Yes, this was the 
 place where I would spend the eight days 
 which yet remained to me of idle time. 
 
 Of the eight days five were what are called 
 unpleasant ; but the unseasonable cold, which 
 drove the stayers in the house to huddle about 
 the fire, struck the mosquitoes with a torpor 
 which made strolling in the woods a double 
 luxury ; while the rain was chiefly of the show- 
 ery sort, such as a rubber coat and old clothes 
 render comparatively harmless. Not that I 
 failed to take a hand with my associates in 
 grumbling about the weather. Table-talk 
 would speedily come to an end in such circum- 
 stances if people were forbidden to criticise the 
 order of nature ; and it is not for me to boast 
 any peculiar sanctity in this respect. But when 
 all was over, it had to be acknowledged that I, 
 for one, had been kept in-doors very little. In 
 fact, if the whole truth were told, it would 
 probably appear that my fellow boarders, see- 
 ing my persistency in disregarding, the inclem- 
 ency of the elements, soon came to look upon 
 me as decidedly odd, though perhaps not abso- 
 lutely demented. At any rate, I was rather 
 
AN OWDS HEAD HOLIDAY. 247 
 
 glad than otherwise to think so. In those long 
 days there must often have been a dearth of 
 topics for profitable conversation, no matter 
 how outrageous the weather, and it was a 
 pleasure to believe that this little idiosyncracy 
 of mine might answer to fill here and there a 
 gap. For what generous person does not re- 
 joice to feel that even in his absence he may be 
 doing something for the comfort and well-being 
 of his brothers and sisters ? As Seneca said, 
 " Man is born for mutual assistance." 
 
 According to Osgood's " New England," the 
 summit of Owl's Head is 2,743 feet above the 
 level of the lake, and the path to it is a mile 
 and a half and thirty rods in length. It may 
 seem niggardly not to throw off the last petty 
 fraction ; and indeed we might well enough let 
 it pass if it were at the beginning of the route, 
 if the path, that is, were thirty rods and a 
 mile and a half long. But this, it will be ob- 
 served, is not the case ; and it is a fact per- 
 fectly well attested, though perhaps not yet 
 scientifically accounted for (many things are 
 known to be true which for the present cannot 
 be mathematically demonstrated), that near the 
 top of a mountain thirty rods are equivalent to 
 a good deal more than four hundred and ninety- 
 five feet. Let the guide-book's specification 
 stand, therefore, in all its surveyor-like exact- 
 
248 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 ness. After making the climb four times in 
 the course of eight days, I am not disposed to 
 abate so much as a jot from the official figures. 
 Rather than do that I would pin my faith to 
 an unprofessional-looking sign-board in the rear 
 of the hotel, on which the legend runs, " Sum- 
 mit of Owl's Head 2 miles." For aught I 
 know, indeed (in such a world as this, uncer- 
 tainty is a principal mark of intelligence), 
 for aught I know, both measurements may be 
 correct ; which fact, if once it were established, 
 would easily and naturally explain how it came 
 to pass that I myself found the distance so 
 much greater on some days than on others ; al- 
 though, for that matter, which of the two would 
 be actually longer, a path which should rise 
 2,743 feet in a mile and a half, or one that 
 should cover two miles and a quarter in reach- 
 ing the same elevation, is a question to which 
 different pedestrians would likely enough re- 
 turn contradictory answers. 1 
 
 Yet let me not be thought to magnify so 
 small a feat as the ascent of Owl's Head, a 
 mountain which the ladies of the Appalachian 
 Club may be presumed to look upon as' hardly 
 better than a hillock. The guide-book's " thirty 
 
 1 The guide-book allows two hours for the mile and a half on 
 Owl's Head, while it gives only an hour and a half for the three 
 miles up Mount Clinton from the Crawford House. 
 
AN OWVS HEAD HOLIDAY. 249 
 
 rods " have betrayed me into saying more than 
 I intended. It would have been enough had 
 I mentioned that the way is in many places 
 steep, while at the time of my visit the con- 
 stant rains kept it in a muddy, treacherous con- 
 dition. I remember still the undignified and 
 uncomfortable celerity with which, on one oc- 
 casion, I took my seat in what was little better 
 than the rocky bed of a brook, such a place as 
 I should by no means have selected for the pur- 
 pose had I been granted even a single moment 
 for deliberation. 
 
 " Hills draw like heaven " (as applied to 
 some of us, it may be feared that this is rather 
 an under -statement), and it could not have 
 been more than fifteen minutes after I landed 
 from the Lady of the Lake the " Old Lady," 
 as one of the fishermen irreverently called her 
 before I was on my way to the summit. 
 
 I was delighted then, as I was afterwards, 
 whenever I entered the woods, with the ex- 
 traordinary profusion and variety of the ferns. 
 Among the rest, and one of the most abun- 
 dant, was the beautiful Cystopteris bulbifera; its 
 long, narrow, pale green, delicately cut, Dick- 
 sonia-like fronds bending toward the ground at 
 the tip, as if about to take root for a new 
 start, in the walking-fern's manner. Some of 
 these could not have been less than four feet in 
 
250 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 length (including the stipe), and I picked one 
 which measured about two feet and a half, and 
 bore twenty-five bulblets underneath. Half a 
 mile from the start, or thereabouts, the path 
 skirts what I should call the fernery ; a cir- 
 cular space, perhaps one hundred and fifty feet 
 in diameter, set in the midst of the primeval 
 forest, but itself containing no tree or shrub 
 of any sort, nothing but one dense mass of 
 ferns. In the centre was a patch of the sensi- 
 tive fern (Onoclea sensibilis*), while around this, 
 and filling nearly the entire circle, was a mag- 
 nificent thicket of the ostrich fern {Onoclea 
 struthiopteris), with sensibilis growing hidden 
 and scattered underneath. About the edge 
 were various other species, notably Aspidium 
 Goldianum, which I here found for the first 
 time, and Aspidium aculeatum, var. Braunii. 
 All in all, it was a curious and pretty sight, 
 this tiny tarn filled with ferns instead of water, 
 one worth going a good distance to see, and 
 sure to attract the notice of the least observant 
 traveler. 1 
 
 Ferns are mostly of a gregarious habit. Here 
 at Owl's Head, for instance, might be -seen in 
 
 1 To bear out what has been said in the text concerning the 
 abundance of ferns at Owl's Head, I subjoin a list of the species 
 observed ; premising that the first interest of my trip was not 
 botanical, and that I explored but a very small section of the 
 woods : 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 251 
 
 one place a rock thickly matted with the com- 
 mon polypody ; in another a patch of the 
 maiden-hair ; in still another a plenty of the 
 Christmas fern, or a smaller group of one of 
 the beech ferns (^Phegopteris polypodioides or 
 Phegopteris Dryopteris). Our grape- ferns or 
 moonworts, on the other hand, covet more 
 elbow-room. The largest species (Botrychium 
 Virginianurn), although never growing in any- 
 thing like a bed or tuft, was nevertheless com- 
 mon throughout the woods ; you could gather 
 a handful almost anywhere; but I found only 
 one plant of Botrychium lanceolatum^ and only 
 two of Botrychium matricaricefolium (and these 
 a long distance apart), even though, on account 
 of their rarity and because I had never before 
 seen the latter, I spent considerable time, first 
 and last, in hunting for them. What can these 
 
 Polypodium vulgare. A. aculeatum, var. Braunii. 
 
 Adiantum pedatum. Cystopteris bulbifera. 
 
 Pteris aquilina. C. fragilis. 
 
 Asplenium Trichomanes. Onoclea struthiopteris. 
 
 A. thelypteroides. 0. sensibilis. 
 
 A. Filix-fczmina. Woodsia Ilvensis. 
 
 Phegopteris polypodioides. Dicksonia punctilobula. 
 
 P. Dryopteris. Osmunda regalis. 
 
 Aspidium marginale. 0. Claytoniana. 
 A. spinulosum, variety undeter- 0. dnnamomea. 
 
 mined. Botrychium lanceolatum. 
 A, spinulosum, var. dilatatum. B. matricaricefolium. 
 
 A. Goldianum. B. ternatum. 
 
 A. acrostichoides. B. Virginianum. 
 
252 AN OWU8 HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 diminutive hermits have ever done or suffered, 
 that they should choose thus to live and die, 
 each by itself, in the vast solitude of a moun- 
 tain forest ? 
 
 It was already the middle of July, so that I 
 was too late for the better part of the wood 
 flowers. The oxalis (Oxalis aceto sella), or 
 wood-sorrel was in bloom, however, carpeting 
 the ground in many places. I plucked a blos- 
 som now and then to admire the loveliness of 
 the white cup, with its fine purple lines and 
 golden spots. If each had been painted on 
 purpose for a queen, they could not have been 
 more daintily touched. Yet here they were, 
 opening by the thousand, with no human eye 
 to look upon them. Quite as common (Words- 
 worth's expression, " Ground flowers in flocks," 
 would have suited either) was the alpine en- 
 chanter's night-shade ( Circcea alpina) ; a most 
 frail and delicate thing, though it has little 
 other beauty. Who would ever mistrust, to 
 see it, that it would prove to be connected in 
 any way with the flaunting willow-herb, or fire- 
 weed ? But such incongruities are not confined 
 to the " vegetable kingdom." The wood-nettle 
 was growing everywhere; a juicy-looking but 
 coarse weed, resembling our common roadside 
 nettles only in its blossoms. The cattle had 
 found out what I never should have surmised, 
 
AN OWDS HEAD HOLIDAY. 253 
 
 having had a taste of its sting, that it is 
 good for food ; there were great patches of it, 
 as likewise of the pale touch-me-not (Impatiens 
 pallida), which had been browsed over by 
 them. It seemed to me that some of the ferns, 
 the hay-scented for example, ought to have 
 suited them better ; but they passed these all 
 by, as far as I could detect. About the edges 
 of the woods, and in favorable positions well 
 up the mountain-side, the flowering raspberry 
 was flourishing; making no display of itself, 
 but offering to any who should choose to turn 
 aside and look at them a few blossoms such as, 
 for beauty and fragrance, are worthy to be, as 
 they really are, cousin to the rose. On one of 
 my rambles I came upon some plants of a 
 strangely slim and prim aspect; nothing but 
 a straight, erect, military-looking, needle-like 
 stalk, bearing a spike of pods at the top, and 
 clasped at the middle by two small stemless 
 leaves. By some occult means (perhaps their 
 growing with Tiarella had something to do with 
 the matter) I felt at once that these must be 
 the mitre-wort (Mitella diphylla). My pro- 
 phetic soul was not always thus explicit and in- 
 fallible, however. Other novelties I saw, about 
 which I could make no such happy impromptu 
 guess. And here the manual afforded little 
 assistance ; for it has not yet been found prac- 
 
254 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 ticable to " analyze," and so to identify plants 
 simply by the stem and foliage, although I 
 remember to have been told, to be sure, of a 
 young lady who professed that at her college 
 the instruction in botany was so thorough that 
 it was possible for the student to name any 
 plant in the world from seeing only a single 
 leaf ! But her college was not Harvard, and 
 Professor Gray has probably never so much as 
 heard of such an admirable method. 
 
 On the whole, it is good to have the curios- 
 ity piqued with here and there a vegetable 
 stranger, its name and even its family rela- 
 tionship a mystery. The leaf is nothing ex- 
 traordinary, perhaps, yet who knows but that 
 the bloom may be of the rarest beauty? Or the 
 leaf is of a gracious shape and texture, but how 
 shall we tell whether the flower will correspond 
 with it ? No ; we must do with them as with 
 chance acquaintances of our own kind. The 
 man looks every inch a gentleman ; his face 
 alone seems a sufficient guaranty of good-breed- 
 ing and intelligence ; but none the less, and 
 not forgetting that charity thinketh no evil, 
 we shall do well to wait till we have heard him 
 talk and seen how he will behave, before we put 
 a final label upon him. Wait forHhe blossom 
 and the fruit (the blossom is the fruit in its 
 first stage) ; for the old rule is still the true 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 255 
 
 one, alike in botany and in morals, " By 
 their fruits ye shall know them." 
 
 What a world within a world the forest is ! 
 Under the trees were the shrubs, knee-high 
 rock -maples making the ground verdant for 
 acres together, or dwarf thickets of yew, now 
 bearing green acorn-like berries ; while below 
 these was a variegated carpet, oxalis and the 
 flower of Linnaeus, ferns and club-mosses (the 
 glossy Lycopodium lucidulum was especially 
 plentiful), to say nothing of the true mosses 
 and the lichens. 
 
 Of all these things I should have seen more, 
 no doubt, had not my head been so much of 
 the time in the tree-tops. For yonder were the 
 birds ; and how could I be expected to notice 
 what lay at my feet, while I was watching in- 
 tently for a glimpse of the warbler that flitted 
 from twig to twig amid the foliage of some beech 
 or maple, the very lowest branch of which, 
 likely enough, was fifty or sixty feet above the 
 ground. It was in this way (so I choose to be- 
 lieve, at any rate) that I walked four or five 
 times directly over the acute-leaved hepatica 
 before I finally discovered it, notwithstanding it 
 was one of the plants for which I had all the 
 while been on the lookout. 
 
 I said that the birds were in the tree-tops ; 
 but of course there were exceptions. Here and 
 
256 AN OWDS HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 there was a thrush, feeding on the ground ; or 
 an oven-bird might be seen picking his devious 
 way through the underwoods, in paths of his 
 own, and with a gait of studied and " sanctimo- 
 nious " originality. In the list of the lowly 
 must be put the winter wrens also ; one need 
 never look skyward for them. For a minute or 
 two during my first ascent of Owl's Head I 
 had lively hopes of finding one of their nests. 
 Two or three of the birds were scolding ear- 
 nestly right about my feet, as it were, and 
 their cries redoubled, or so I imagined, when I 
 approached a certain large, moss-grown stump. 
 This I looked over carefully on all sides, put- 
 ting my fingers into every possible hole and 
 crevice, till it became evident that nothing 
 was to be gained by further search. (What 
 a long chapter we could write, any of us who 
 are ornithologists, about the nests we did not 
 find!) It dawned upon me a little later that 
 I had been fooled ; that it was not the nest 
 which had been in question at all. That, wher- 
 ever it was, had been forsaken some days before ; 
 and the birds were parents and young, the for- 
 mer distracting my attention by their outcries, 
 while at the same moment they \^ere ordering 
 the youngsters to make off as quickly as possible, 
 lest yonder hungry fiend should catch and de- 
 vour them. If wrens ever laugh, this pair must 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 257 
 
 have done so that evening, as they recalled to 
 each other my eager fumbling of that innocent 
 old stump. This opinion as to the meaning of 
 their conduct was confirmed in the course of a 
 few days, when I came upon another similar 
 group. These were at first quite unaware of my 
 presence ; and a very pretty family picture they 
 made, in their snuggery of overthrown trees, 
 the father breaking out into a song once in a 
 while, or helping his mate to feed the young, 
 who were already able to pick up a good part 
 of their own living. Before long, however, one 
 of the pair caught sight of the intruder, and then 
 all at once the scene changed. The old birds 
 chattered and scolded, bobbing up and down in 
 their own ridiculous manner (although, consid- 
 ered by itself, this gesture is perhaps no more 
 laughable than some which other orators are 
 applauded for making), and soon the place was 
 silent and to all appearance deserted. 
 
 Notwithstanding Owl's Head is in Canada, 
 the birds, as I soon found, were not such as 
 characterize the " Canadian Fauna." Olive- 
 backed thrushes, black-poll warblers, crossbills, 
 pine linnets, and Canada jays, all of which I 
 had myself seen in the White Mountains, were 
 none of them here ; but instead, to my surprise, 
 were wood thrushes, scarlet tanagers, and wood 
 pewees, the two latter species in comparative 
 
 17 
 
258 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 abundance. My first wood thrush was seen for 
 a moment only, and although he had given me a 
 plain sight of his back, I concluded that my eyes 
 must once more have played me false. But 
 within a day or two, when half-way down the 
 mountain path, I heard the well-known strain 
 ringing through the woods. It was unquestion- 
 ably that, and nothing else, for I sat down upon 
 a convenient log and listened for ten minutes or 
 more, while the singer ran through all those 
 inimitable variations which infallibly distinguish 
 the wood thrush's song from every other. And 
 afterward, to make assurance doubly sure, I 
 again saw the bird in the best possible position, 
 and at short range. On looking into the sub- 
 ject, indeed, I learned that his being here was 
 nothing wonderful ; since, while it is true, as far 
 as the sea-coast is concerned, that he seldom 
 ventures north of Massachusetts, it is none the 
 less down in the books that he does pass the 
 summer in Lower Canada, reaching it, probably, 
 by way of the valley of the St. Lawrence. 
 
 A few robins were about the hotel, and I saw 
 a single veery in the woods, but the only mem- 
 bers of the thrush family that were present in 
 large numbers were the hermits. These sang 
 everywhere and at all hours. On the summit, 
 even at mid-day, I was invariably serenaded by 
 them. In fact they seemed more abundant 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 259 
 
 there than anywhere else ; but they were often 
 to be heard by the lake-side, and in our apple 
 orchard, and once at least one of them sang at 
 some length from a birch-tree within a few feet 
 of the piazza, between it and the bowling alley. 
 As far as I have ever been able to discover, the 
 hermit, for all his name and consequent reputa- 
 tion, is less timorous and more approachable 
 than any other New England representative of 
 his " sub-genus." 
 
 On this trip I settled once more a question 
 which I had already settled several times, the 
 question, namely, whether the wood thrush or 
 the hermit is the better singer. This time my 
 decision was in favor of the former. How the 
 case would have turned had the conditions been 
 reversed, had there been a hundred of the wood 
 thrushes for one of the hermits, of course I can- 
 not tell. So true is a certain old Latin proverb, 
 that in matters of this sort it is impossible for 
 a man to agree even with himself for any long 
 time together. 
 
 The conspicuous birds, noticed by everybody, 
 were a family of hawks. The visitor might 
 have no appreciation of music ; he might go up 
 the mountain and down again without minding 
 the thrushes or the wrens, for there is nothing 
 about the human ear more wonderful than its 
 ability not to hear ; but these hawks passed a 
 
260 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 good part of every day in screaming, and were 
 bound to be attended to by all but the stone- 
 deaf. A native of the region pointed out a 
 ledge, on which, according to his account, they 
 had made their nest for more than thirty years. 
 " We call them mountain hawks," he said, in 
 answer to an inquiry. The keepers of the hotel, 
 naturally enough, called them eagles ; while a 
 young Canadian, who one day overtook me as 
 I neared the summit, and spent an hour there 
 in my company, pronounced them fish-hawks. 
 I asked him, carelessly, how he could be sure 
 of that, and he replied, after a little hesitation, 
 " Why, they are all the time over the lake ; and 
 besides, they sometimes dive into the water and 
 come up with a fish." The last item would have 
 been good evidence, no doubt. My difficulty 
 was that I had never seen them near the lake, 
 and what was more conclusive, their heads were 
 dark-colored, if not really black. A few min- 
 utes after this conversation I happened to have 
 my glass upon one of them as he approached 
 the mountain at some distance below us, when 
 my comrade asked, " Looking at that bird ? " 
 " Yes," I answered ; on which he continued, in 
 a matter-of-fact tone, "That 's a crow; " plainly 
 thinking that, as I appeared to be slightly in- 
 quisitive about such matters, it would be a kind- 
 ness to tell me a thing or two. I made bold to 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 261 
 
 intimate that the bird had a barred tail, and 
 must, I thought, be one of the hawks. He did 
 not dispute the point ; and, in truth, he was a 
 modest and well-mannered young gentleman. 
 I liked him in that he knew both how to con- 
 verse and how to be silent ; without which latter 
 qualification, indeed, not even an angel would be 
 a desirable mountain-top companion. He gave 
 me information about the surrounding country 
 such as I was very glad to get ; and in the case 
 of the hawks my advantage over him, if any, 
 was mainly in this, that my lack of knowledge 
 partook somewhat more fully than his of the na- 
 ture of Lord Bacon's " learned ignorance, that 
 knows itself." 
 
 Whatever the birds may have been, " moun- 
 tain hawks," " fish-hawks," or duck-hawks, their 
 aerial evolutions, as seen from the summit, were 
 beautiful beyond description. One day in par- 
 ticular three of them were performing together. 
 For a time they chased each other this way 
 and that at lightning speed, screaming wildly, 
 though whether in sport or anger I could not 
 determine. Then they floated majestically, high 
 above us, while now and then one would set his 
 wings and shoot down, down, till the precipitous 
 side of the mountain hid him from view ; only 
 to reappear a minute afterward, soaring again, 
 with no apparent effort, to his former height. 
 
262 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 One of these noisy fellows served me an ex- 
 cellent turn. It was the last day of my visit, 
 and I had just taken my farewell look at the 
 enchanting prospect from the summit, when I 
 heard the lisp of a brown creeper. This was 
 the first of his kind that I had seen here, and I 
 stopped immediately to watch him, in hopes he 
 would sing. Creeper-like he tried one tree after 
 another in quick succession, till at last, while he 
 was exploring a dead spruce which had toppled 
 half-way to the ground, a hawk screamed loudly 
 overhead. Instantly the little creature flattened 
 himself against the trunk, spreading his wings 
 to their very utmost and ducking his head until, 
 though I had been all the while eying his mo- 
 tions through a glass at the distance of only a 
 few rods, it was almost impossible to believe 
 that yonder tiny brown fleck upon the bark was 
 really a bird and not a lichen. He remained in 
 this posture for perhaps a minute, only putting 
 up his head two or three times to peer cautiously 
 round. Unless I misjudged him, he did not 
 discriminate between the screech of the hawk 
 and the ank, ank of a nuthatch, which followed 
 it ; and this, with an indefinable something in 
 his manner, made me suspect him of being a 
 young bird. Young or old, however, he had 
 learned one lesson well, at all events, one which 
 I hoped would keep him out of the talons of his 
 enemies for long days to come. 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 263 
 
 It was pleasant to see how cheerfully he re- 
 sumed work as soon as the alarm was over. 
 This danger was escaped, at any rate ; and why 
 should he make himself miserable with worry- 
 ing about the next ? He had the true philoso- 
 phy. We who pity the birds for their number- 
 less perils are ourselves in no better case. Con- 
 sumption, fevers, accidents, enemies of every 
 name are continually lying in wait for our de- 
 struction. We walk surrounded with them ; 
 seeing them not, to be sure, but knowing, all 
 the same, that they are there ; yet feeling, too, 
 like the birds, that in some way or other we 
 shall elude them a while longer, and holding 
 at second hand the truth which these humble 
 creatures practice upon instinctively, " Suffi- 
 cient unto the day is the evil thereof." 
 
 Not far from this spot, on a previous occa- 
 sion, I had very unexpectedly come face to face 
 with another of the creeper's blood-thirsty per- 
 secutors. It happened that a warbler was sing- 
 ing in a lofty birch, and being in doubt about 
 the song (which was a little like the Nash- 
 ville's, but longer in each of its two parts and 
 ending with a less confused flourish), I was of 
 course very desirous to see the singer. But 
 to catch sight of a small bird amid thick foli- 
 age, fifty feet or more above you, is not an easy 
 matter, as I believe I have already once re- 
 
264 AN OWDS HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 marked. So when I grew weary of the at- 
 tempt, I bethought myself to try the efficacy of 
 an old device, well known to all collectors, and 
 proceeded to imitate, as well as I could, the 
 cries of some bird in distress. My warbler was 
 imperturbable. He had no nest or young to be 
 anxious about, and kept on singing. But pretty 
 soon I was apprised of something in the air, 
 coming toward me, and looking up, beheld a 
 large owl who appeared to be dropping straight 
 upon my head. He saw me in time to avoid 
 such a catastrophe, however, and, describing a 
 graceful curve, alighted on a low branch near 
 by, and stared at me as only an owl can. Then 
 away he went, while at the same instant a jay 
 dashed into the thicket and out again, shouting 
 derisively, "I saw you ! I saw you!" Evi- 
 dently the trick was a good one, and moderately 
 well played ; in further confirmation of which 
 the owl hooted twice in response to some pecul- 
 iarly happy efforts on my part, and then actu- 
 ally came back again for another look. This 
 proved sufficient, and he quickly disappeared ; 
 retiring to his leafy covert or hollow tree, to 
 meditate, no doubt, on the strange, creature 
 whose unseasonable noises had disturbed his 
 afternoon slumbers. Likely enough he could 
 not readily fall asleep again for wondering how 
 I could possibly find my way through the woods 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 265 
 
 in the darkness of daylight. So difficult is it, 
 we may suppose, for even an owl to put himself 
 in another's place and see with another's eyes. 
 
 This little episode over, I turned again to 
 the birch-tree, and fortunately the warbler's 
 throat was of too fiery a color to remain long 
 concealed ; though it was at once a pleasure 
 and an annoyance to find myself still unac- 
 quainted with at least one song out of the 
 Blackburnian's repertory. In times past I had 
 carefully attended to his music, and within only 
 a few days, in the White Mountain Notch, I 
 had taken note of two of its variations ; but 
 here was still another, which neither began 
 with zillup, zillup, nor ended with zip, zip, 
 notes which I had come to look upon as the 
 Blackburnian's sign-vocal. Yet it must have 
 been my fault, not his, that I failed to recognize 
 him ; for every bird's voice has something char- 
 acteristic about it, just as every human voice 
 has tones and inflections which those who are 
 sufficiently familiar with its owner will infalli- 
 bly detect. The ear feels them, although words 
 cannot describe them. Articulate speech is but 
 a modern invention, as it were, in comparison 
 with the five senses ; and since practice makes 
 perfect, it is natural enough that every one of 
 the five should easily, and as a matter of course, 
 perceive shades of difference so slight that Ian- 
 
266 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 guage, in its present rudimentary state, cannot 
 begin to take account of them. 
 
 The other warblers at Owl's Head, as far as 
 they came under my notice, were the black-and- 
 white creeper, the blue yellow-backed warbler, 
 the Nashville, the black-throated green, the 
 black - throated blue, the yellow - rumped, the 
 chestnut -sided, the oven-bird (already spoken 
 of), the small-billed water thrush, the Maryland 
 yellow-throat, the Canadian flycatcher, and the 
 redstart. 
 
 The water thrush (I saw only one individual) 
 was by the lake-side, and within a rod or two of 
 the bowling alley. What a strange, composite 
 creature he is! thrush, warbler, and sandpiper 
 all in one ; with such a bare-footed, bare-legged 
 appearance, too, as if he must always be ready 
 to wade ; and such a Saint Vitus's dance ! His 
 must be a curious history. In particular, I 
 should like to know the origin of his teetering 
 habit, which seems to put him among the beach 
 birds. Can it be that such frequenters of shal- 
 low water are rendered less conspicuous by this 
 wave-like, up-and-down motion, and have actu- 
 ally adopted it as a means of defense, jus.t as they 
 and many more have taken on a color harmoniz- 
 ing with that of their ordinary surroundings? 1 
 
 1 This bird (Siurus ncevius) is remarkable for the promptness 
 with which he sets out on his autumnal journey, appearing in 
 Eastern Massachusetts early in August. Last year (1884) one was 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 267 
 
 The black-throated blue warblers were com- 
 mon, and like most of their tribe were waiting 
 upon offspring just out of the nest. I watched 
 one as he offered his charge a rather large in- 
 sect. The awkward fledgeling let it fall three 
 times ; and still the parent picked it up again, 
 only chirping mildly, as if to say, " Come, come, 
 my beauty, don't be quite so bungling." But 
 even in the midst of their family cares, they 
 still found leisure for music ; and as they and 
 the black-throated greens were often singing to- 
 gether, I had excellent opportunities to compare 
 the songs of the two species. The voices, while 
 both very peculiar, are at the same time so 
 nearly alike that it was impossible for me on 
 hearing the first note of either strain to tell 
 whose it was. With the voice the similarity 
 ends, however ; for the organ does not make 
 the singer, and while the blue seldom attempts 
 more than a harsh, monotonous kree, kree, kree, 
 the green possesses the true lyrical gift, so that 
 
 in my door-yard on the morning of the 7th. I heard his loud chip, 
 and looking out of the window, saw him first on the ground and 
 then in an ash-tree near a crowd of house sparrows. The latter 
 were scolding at him with their usual cordiality, while he, on his 
 part, seemed under some kind of fascination, returning again and 
 again to walk as closely as he dared about the blustering crew. 
 His curiosity was laughable. Evidently he thought, considering 
 what an ado the sparrows were making, that something serious 
 must be going on, something worth any bird's while to turn aside 
 for a moment to look into. The innocent recluse ! if he had lived 
 where I do he would have grown used to such " windy congresses." 
 
268 AN OWDS HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 few of our birds have a more engaging song than 
 his simple Trees, trees, murmuring trees, or if 
 you choose to understand it so, Sleep, sleep, 
 pretty one, sleep. 1 
 
 I saw little of the blue yellow-backed war- 
 bler, but whenever I took the mountain path I 
 was certain to hear his whimsical upward-run- 
 ning song, broken off at the end with a smart 
 snap. He seemed to have chosen the neighbor- 
 hood of the fernery for his peculiar haunt, a 
 piece of good taste quite in accord with his gen- 
 eral character. Nothing could well be more 
 beautiful than this bird's plumage ; and his 
 nest, which is " globular, with an entrance on 
 \ one side," is described as a wonder of elegance ; 
 while in grace of movement not even the tit- 
 mouse can surpass him. Strange that such an 
 exquisite should have so fantastic a song. 
 
 I have spoken of the rainy weather. There 
 were times when the piazza was as far out-of- 
 doors as it was expedient to venture. But even 
 then I was not without excellent feathered 
 society. Red-eyed vireos (one pair had their 
 
 1 After all that has been said about the ''pathetic fallacy," so 
 called, it remains true that Nature speaks to us according to our 
 mood. With all her "various language" she " cannot talk and 
 find ears too." And so it happens that somg, listening to the 
 black-throated green warbler, have brought back a report of 
 " Cheese, cheese, a little more cheese" Prosaic and hungry 
 souls ! This voice out of the pine-trees was not for them. They 
 have caught the rhythm but missed the poetry. 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 269 
 
 nest within twenty feet of the hotel), chippers, 
 song sparrows, snow-birds, robins, waxwings, 
 and phcebes were to be seen almost any mo- 
 ment, while the hermit thrushes, as I have be- 
 fore mentioned, paid us occasional visits. The 
 most familiar of our door-yard friends, however, 
 to my surprise, were the yellow-rumped war- 
 blers. Till now I had never found them at 
 home except in the forests of the White Moun- 
 tains ; but here they were, playing the rdle 
 which in Massachusetts we are accustomed to 
 see taken by the summer yellow-birds, and by 
 no others of the family. At first, knowing that 
 this species was said to build in low evergreens, 
 I looked suspiciously at some small spruces 
 which lined the walk to the pier ; but after a 
 while I happened to see one of the birds flying 
 into a rock-maple with something in his bill, and 
 following him with my eye, beheld him alight 
 on the edge of his nest. "About four feet 
 from the ground," the book said (the latest 
 book, too) ; but this lawless pair had chosen a 
 position which could hardly be less than ten 
 times that height, considerably higher, at all 
 events, than the eaves of the three-story house. 
 It was out of reach in the small topmost 
 branches, but I watched its owners at my leis- 
 ure, as the maple was not more than two rods 
 from my window. At this time the nestlings 
 
270 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 were nearly ready to fly, and in the course of a 
 day or two I saw one of them sitting in a tree in 
 the midst of a drenching rain. On my offering 
 to lay hold of him he dropped into the grass, 
 and when I picked him up both parents began 
 to fly about me excitedly, with loud outcries. 
 The male, especially, went nearly frantic, enter- 
 ing the bowling alley where I happened to be, 
 and alighting on the floor ; then, taking to the 
 bole of a tree, he fluttered helplessly upon it, 
 spreading his wings and tail, seeming to say as 
 plainly as words could have done, " Look, you 
 monster ! here 's another young bird that can't 
 fly ; why don't you come and catch him ? " 
 The acting was admirable, all save the spread- 
 ing of the tail ; that was a false note, for the 
 youngster in my hand had no tail feathers at 
 all. I put the fellow upon a tree, whence he 
 quickly flew to the ground (he could fly down 
 but not up), and soon both parents were again 
 supplying him with food. The poor thing had 
 not eaten a morsel for possibly ten minutes, a 
 very long fast for a bird of his age. I hoped he 
 would fall into the hands of no worse enemy 
 than myself, but the chances seemed against 
 him. The first few days after quitting the nest 
 must be full of perils for such helpless inno- 
 cents. 
 
 For the credit of my own sex I was pleased 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 271 
 
 to notice that it was the father-bird who man- 
 ifested the deepest concern and the readiest 
 wit, not to say the greatest courage ; but I am 
 obliged in candor to acknowledge that this fea- 
 ture of the case surprised me not a little. 
 
 In what language shall I speak of the song of 
 these familiar myrtle warblers, so that my praise 
 may correspond in some degree with the gracious 
 and beautiful simplicity of the strain itself ? 
 For music to be heard constantly, right under 
 one's window, it could scarcely be improved ; 
 sweet, brief, and remarkably unobtrusive, with- 
 out sharpness or emphasis ; a trill not altogether 
 unlike the pine-creeping warbler's, but less mat- 
 ter-of-fact and business-like. I used to listen 
 to it before I rose in the morning, and it was 
 to be heard at intervals all day long. Occasion- 
 ally it was given in an absent-minded, medi- 
 tative way, in a kind of .half-voice, as if the 
 happy creature had no thought of what he was 
 doing. Then it was at its best, but one needed 
 to be near the singer. 
 
 In a clearing back of the hotel, but sur- 
 rounded by the forest, were always a goodly 
 company of birds, among the rest a family of 
 yellow-bellied woodpeckers ; and in a second 
 similar place were white - throated sparrows, 
 Maryland yellow - throats, and chestnut -sided 
 warblers, the last two feeding their young. 
 
272 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 Immature warblers are a puzzling set. The 
 birds themselves have no difficulty, I suppose ; 
 but seeing young and old together, and noting 
 how unlike they are, I have before now been 
 reminded of Launcelot Gobbo's saying, " It is 
 a wise father that knows his own child." 
 
 While traversing the woods between these 
 two clearings I saw, as I thought, a chimney 
 swift fly out of the top of a tree which had been 
 broken off at a height of twenty-five or thirty 
 feet. I stopped, and pretty soon the thing was 
 repeated ; but even then I was not quick enough 
 to be certain whether the bird really came from 
 the stump or only out of the forest behind it. 
 Accordingly, after sounding the trunk to make 
 sure it was hollow, I sat down in a clump of 
 raspberry bushes, where I should be sufficiently 
 concealed, and awaited further developments. 
 I waited and waited, while the mosquitoes, 
 seeing how sheltered I was from the breeze, 
 gathered about my head in swarms. A win- 
 ter wren at my elbow struck up to sing, going 
 over and over with his exquisite tune ; and a 
 scarlet tanager, also, not far off, did what he 
 could which was somewhat less than the 
 wren's to relieve the tedium of my situation. 
 Finally, when my patience was well-nigh ex- 
 hausted, for the afternoon was wearing away 
 and I had some distance to walk, a swift flew 
 
AN OWDS HEAD HOLIDAY. 273 
 
 past me from behind, and, with none of that 
 poising over the entrance such as is commonly 
 seen when a swift goes down a chimney, went 
 straight into the trunk. In half a minute or 
 less he reappeared without a sound, and was 
 out of sight in a second. Then I picked up my 
 rubber coat, and with a blessing on the wren 
 and the tanager, and a malediction on the mos- 
 quitoes (so unjust does self-interest make us), 
 started homeward. 
 
 Conservatives and radicals ! Even the swifts, 
 it seems, are divided into these two classes. 
 " Hollow trees were good enough for our fa- 
 thers ; who are we that we should assume to 
 know more than all the generations before us ? 
 To change is not of necessity to make progress. 
 Let those who will, take up with smoky chim- 
 neys ; for our part we prefer the old way." 
 
 Thus far the conservatives ; but now comes 
 the party of modern ideas. " All that is very 
 well," say they. " Our ancestors were worthy 
 folk enough ; they did the best they could in 
 their time. But the world moves, and wise 
 birds will move with it. Why should we make 
 a fetish out of some dead forefather's example ? 
 We are alive now. To refuse to take advan- 
 tage of increased light and improved condi- 
 tions may look like filial piety in the eyes of 
 some : to us such conduct appears nothing better 
 
 18 
 
274 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 
 
 than a distrust of the Divine Providence, a sub- 
 tle form of atheism. What are chimneys for, 
 pray ? And as for soot and smoke, we were 
 made to live in them. Otherwise, let some of 
 our opponents be kind enough to explain why 
 we were created with black feathers." 
 
 So, in brief, the discussion runs ; with the 
 usual result, no doubt, that each side convinces 
 itself. 
 
 We may assume, however, that these old- 
 school and new-school swifts do not carry their 
 disagreement so far as actually to refuse to hold 
 fellowship with one another. Conscience is but 
 imperfectly developed in birds, as yet, and they 
 can hardly feel each other's sins and errors of 
 belief (if indeed these things be two, and not 
 one) quite so keenly as men are accustomed to 
 do. 
 
 After all, it is something to be grateful for, 
 this diversity of habit. We could not spare 
 the swifts from our villages, and it would be 
 too bad to lose them out of the Northern for- 
 ests. May they live and thrive, both parties 
 of them. 
 
 I am glad, also, for the obscurity which at- 
 tends their annual coming and going." Whether 
 they hibernate or migrate, the secret is their 
 own ; and for my part, I wish them the wit to 
 keep it. In this age, when the world is in such 
 
AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 275 
 
 danger of becoming omniscient before the time, 
 it is good to have here and there a mystery in 
 reserve. Though it be only a little one, we may 
 well cherish it as a treasure. 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 And now >t was like all instruments, 
 Now like a lonely flute ; 
 And now it is an angel's song, 
 That makes the heavens be mute. 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 THE morning of May-day was bright and 
 spring-like, and should have been signalized, it 
 seemed to me, by the advent of a goodly num- 
 ber of birds ; but the only new-comer to be found 
 was a single black-and-white creeper. Glad as 
 I was to see this lowly acquaintance back again 
 after his seven months' absence, and natural as 
 he looked on the edge of Warbler Swamp, bob- 
 bing along the branches in his own unique, end- 
 for-end fashion, there was no resisting a sensa- 
 tion of disappointment. Why could not the 
 wood thrush have been punctual? He would 
 have made the woods ring with an ode worthy 
 of the festival. Possibly the hermits who 
 had been with us for several days in silence 
 divined my thoughts. At all events, one of them 
 presently broke into a song the first Hylo- 
 cichla note of the year. Never was voice more 
 beautiful. Like the poet's dream, it " left my 
 after-morn content." 
 
 It is too much to be expected that the wood 
 
280 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 thrush should hold himself bound to appear at 
 a given point on a fixed date. How can we 
 know the multitude of reasons, any one of which 
 may detain him for twenty-four hours, or even 
 for a week ? It is enough for us to be assured, 
 in general, that the first ten days of the month 
 will bring this master of the choir. The pres- 
 ent season he arrived on the 6th the veery 
 with him ; last year he was absent until the 
 8th ; while on the two years preceding he as- 
 sisted at the observance of May-day. 
 
 All in all, I must esteem this thrush our great- 
 est singer ; although the hermit might dispute 
 the palm, perhaps, but that he is merely a semi- 
 annual visitor in most parts of Massachusetts. 
 If perfection be held to consist in the absence 
 of flaw, the hermit's is unquestionably the more 
 nearly perfect song of the two. Whatever he 
 attempts is done beyond criticism ; but his range 
 and variety are far less than his rival's, and, for 
 my part, I can forgive the latter if now and then 
 he reaches after a note lying a little beyond his 
 best voice, and withal is too commonly wanting 
 in that absolute simplicity and ease which lend 
 such an ineffable charm to the performance of 
 the hermit and the veery. Shakespeare is not a 
 faultless poet, but in the existing state of public 
 opinion it will hardly do to set Gray above him. 
 
 In the course of the month about which I am 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 281 
 
 now writing (May, 1884) I was favored with 
 thrush music to a quite unwonted degree. With 
 the exception of the varied thrush (a New-Eng- 
 lander by accident only) and the mocking-bird, 
 there was not one of our Massachusetts repre- 
 sentatives of the family who did not put me in 
 his debt. The robin, the brown thrush, the cat- 
 bird, the wood thrush, the veery, and even the 
 hermit (what a magnificent sextette !) so 
 many I counted upon hearing, as a matter of 
 course ; but when to these were added the Arc- 
 tic thrushes the olive-backed and the gray- 
 cheeked I gladly confessed surprise. I had 
 never heard either species before, south of the 
 White Mountains ; nor, as far as I then knew, 
 had anybody else been more fortunate than 
 myself. Yet the birds themselves were seem- 
 ingly unaware of doing anything new or note- 
 worthy. This was especially the case with the 
 olive-backs ; and after listening to them for three 
 days in succession I began to suspect that they 
 were doing nothing new, that they had sung 
 every spring in the same manner, only, in the 
 midst of the grand May medley, my ears had 
 somehow failed to take account of their contri- 
 bution. Their fourth (and farewell) appear- 
 ance was on the 23d, when they sang both morn- 
 ing and evening. At that time they were in a 
 bit of swamp, among some tall birches, and as 
 
282 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 I caught the familiar and characteristic notes 
 a brief ascending spiral I was almost ready 
 to believe myself in some primeval New Hamp- 
 shire forest ; an illusion not a little aided by the 
 frequent lisping of black-poll warblers, who 
 chanced just then to be remarkably abundant. 
 
 It was on the same day, and within a short dis- 
 tance of the same spot, that the Alice thrushes, 
 or gray-cheeks, were in song. Their music was 
 repeated a good many times, but unhappily it 
 ceased whenever I tried to get near the birds. 
 Then, as always, it put me in mind of the 
 veery's effort, notwithstanding a certain part 
 of the strain was quite out of the veery's man- 
 ner, and the whole was pitched in decidedly 
 too high a key. It seemed, also, as if what I 
 heard could not be the complete song ; but I 
 had been troubled with the same feeling on 
 previous occasions, and a friend whose oppor- 
 tunities have been better than mine reports a 
 similiar experience ; so that it is perhaps not 
 uncharitable to conclude that the song, even at 
 its best, is more or less broken and amorphous. 
 
 In their Northern homes these gray-cheeks 
 are excessively wild and unapproachable ; but 
 while traveling they are little if ftt all worse 
 than their congeners in this respect, taking 
 short flights when disturbed, and often doing 
 nothing more than to hop upon some low perch 
 to reconnoitre the intruder. 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 283 
 
 At the risk of being thought to reflect upon 
 the acuteness of more competent observers, I am 
 free to express my hope of hearing the music of 
 both these noble visitors again another season. 
 For it is noticeable how common such things 
 tend to become when once they are discovered. 
 An enthusiastic botanical collector told me that 
 for years he searched far and near for the adder 's- 
 tongue fern, till one day he stumbled upon it in 
 a place over which he had long been in the habit 
 of passing. Marking the peculiarities of the 
 spot he straightway wrote to a kindred spirit, 
 whom he knew to have been engaged in the 
 same hunt, suggesting that he would probably 
 find the coveted plants in a particular section 
 of the meadow back of his own house (in Con- 
 cord) ; and sure enough, the next day's mail 
 brought an envelope from his friend, inclosing 
 specimens of Ophioglossum vulgatum, with the 
 laconic but sufficient message, Eureka ! There 
 are few naturalists, I suspect, who could not 
 narrate adventures of a like sort. 
 
 One such befell me during this same month, 
 in connection with the wood wagtail, or golden- 
 crowned thrush. Not many birds are more 
 abundant than he in my neighborhood, and I 
 fancied myself pretty well acquainted with his 
 habits and manners. Above all, I had paid 
 attention to his celebrated love-song, listening 
 
284 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 to it almost daily for several summers. Thus 
 far it had invariably been given out in the after- 
 noon, and on the wing. To my mind, indeed, 
 this was by far its most interesting feature (for 
 in itself the song is by no means of surpassing 
 beauty), and I had even been careful to record 
 the earliest hour at which I had heard it three 
 o'clock P. M. But on the 6th of May aforesaid 
 I detected a bird practicing this very tune in 
 the morning, and from a perch ! I set the fact 
 down without hesitation as a wonder, a purely 
 exceptional occurrence, the repetition of which 
 was not to be looked for. Anything might hap- 
 pen once. Only four days afterwards, however, 
 at half-past six in the morning, I had stooped 
 to gather some peculiarly bright-colored anem- 
 ones (I can see the patch of rosy blossoms at 
 this moment, although I am writing by a blaz- 
 ing fire while the snow is falling without), when 
 my ear caught the same song again ; and keep- 
 ing my position, I soon descried the fellow step- 
 ping through the grass within ten yards of me, 
 caroling as he walked. The hurried warble, 
 with the common Weechee, weechee, weechee 
 interjected in the midst, was reiterated' perhaps 
 a dozen times, the full evening -strain, but in 
 a rather subdued tone. He was under no excite- 
 ment, and appeared to be entirely by himself ; 
 in fact, when he had made about half the cir- 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 285 
 
 cuit round me he flew into a low bush and pro- 
 ceeded to dress his feathers listlessly. Probably 
 what I had overheard was nothing more than a 
 rehearsal. Within a week or two he would need 
 to do his very best in winning the fair one of 
 his choice, and for that supreme moment he had 
 already put himself in training. The wise- 
 hearted and obliging little beau ! I must have 
 been the veriest churl not to wish him his pick 
 of all the feminine wagtails in the wood. As 
 for the pink anemones, they had done me a 
 double kindness, in requital for which I could 
 only carry them to the city, where, in their 
 modesty, they would have blushed to a down- 
 right crimson had they been conscious of one- 
 half the admiration which their loveliness called, 
 forth. 
 
 Before the end of the month (it was on the 
 morning of the 18th) I once more heard the 
 wagtail's song from the ground. This time the 
 affair was anything but a rehearsal. There" 
 were two birds, a lover and his lass, and 
 the wooing waxed fast and furious. For that 
 matter, it looked not so much like love-making 
 as like an aggravated case of assault and battery. 
 But, as I say, the male was warbling, and not 
 improbably (so strange are the ways of the 
 world), if he had been a whit less pugnacious in 
 his addresses, his lady-love, who was plainly well 
 
286 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 able to take care of herself, would have thought 
 him deficient in earnestness. At any rate, the 
 wood wagtail is not the only bird whose court- 
 ship has the appearance of a scrimmage ; and I 
 believe there are still tribes of men among whom 
 similar practices prevail, although the greater 
 part of our race have learned, by this time, to 
 take somewhat less literally the old proverb, 
 " None but the brave deserve the fair." Love, 
 it is true, is still recognized as one of the pas- 
 sions (in theory at least) even among the most 
 highly civilized peoples ; but the tendency is 
 more and more to count it a tender passion. 
 
 While I am on the subject of marriage I may 
 as well mention the white-eyed vireo. It had 
 come to be the 16th of the month, and as yet 
 I had neither seen nor heard anything of this 
 obstreperous genius ; so I made a special pil- 
 grimage to a certain favorite haunt of his 
 Woodcock Swamp to ascertain if he had ar- 
 - rived. After fifteen minutes or more of wait- 
 ing I was beginning to believe him still absent, 
 when he burst out suddenly with his loud and 
 unmistakable Chip -a- wee -o. " Who are you, 
 now?" the saucy fellow seemed to say, "Who 
 are you, now ? " Pretty soon a pair of the 
 birds appeared near me, the male protesting his 
 affection at a frantic rate, and the female re- 
 pelling his advances with a snappish determina- 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 287 
 
 tion which might have driven a timid suitor 
 desperate. He posed before her, puffing out his 
 feathers, spreading his tail, and crying hysteri- 
 cally, Yip, yip, yaah, the last note a down- 
 right whine or snarl, worthy of the cat-bird. 
 Poor soul ! he was well-nigh beside himself, and 
 could not take no for an answer, even when the 
 word was emphasized with an ugly dab of his 
 beloved's beak. The pair shortly disappeared 
 in the swamp, and I was not privileged to wit- 
 ness the upshot of the battle ; but I consoled 
 myself with believing that Phyllis knew how 
 far she could prudently carry her resistance, 
 and would have the discretion to yield before 
 her adorer's heart was irremediably broken. 
 
 In this instance there was no misconceiv- 
 ing the meaning of the action ; but whoever 
 watches birds in the pairing season is often at 
 his wit's end to know what to make of their 
 demonstrations. One morning a linnet chased 
 another past me down the road, flying at the 
 very top of his speed, and singing as he flew ; 
 not, to be sure, the full and copious warble such 
 as is heard when the bird hovers, but still a 
 lively tune. I looked on in astonishment. It 
 seemed incredible that any creature could sing 
 while putting forth such tremendous muscular 
 exertions ; and yet, as if to show that this was 
 a mere nothing to him, the finch had no sooner 
 
288 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 struck a perch than he broke forth again in his 
 loudest and most spirited manner, and contin- 
 ued without a pause for two or three times the 
 length of his longest ordinary efforts. " What 
 lungs he must have ! " I said to myself ; and at 
 once fell to wondering what could have stirred 
 him up to such a pitch of excitement, and 
 whether the bird he had been pursuing was 
 male or female. He would have said, perhaps, 
 if he had said anything, that that was none of 
 my business. 
 
 What I have been remarking with regard to 
 the proneness of newly discovered things to be- 
 come all at once common was well illustrated 
 for me about this time by these same linnets, 
 or purple finches. One rainy morning, while 
 making my accustomed rounds, enveloped in 
 rubber, I stopped to notice a blue-headed vireo, 
 who, as I soon perceived, was sitting lazily in 
 the top of a locust-tree, looking rather discon- 
 solate, and ejaculating with not more than half 
 his customary voice and emphasis, Mary Ware ! 
 Mary Ware ! His indolence struck me as 
 very surprising for a vireo ; still I had no ques- 
 tion about his identity (he sat between me and 
 the sun) till I changed my position, when be- 
 hold 1 9 the vireo was a linnet. A strange per- 
 formance, indeed ! What could have set this 
 fluent vocalist to practicing exercises of such an 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 289 
 
 inferior, disconnected, piecemeal sort ? Within 
 the next week or two, however, the same game 
 was played upon me several times, and in dif- 
 ferent places. No doubt the trick is an old one, 
 familiar to many observers, but to me it had all 
 the charm of novelty. 
 
 There are no birds so conservative but that 
 they will now and then indulge in some unex- 
 pected stroke of originality. Few are more art- 
 less and regular in their musical efforts than 
 the pine warblers ; yet I have seen one of these 
 sitting at the tip of a tree, and repeating a trill 
 which toward the close invariably declined by 
 an interval of perhaps three tones. Even the 
 chipping sparrow, whose lay is yet more mo- 
 notonous and formal than the pine warbler's, is 
 not absolutely confined to his score. I once 
 heard him when his trill was divided into two 
 portions, the concluding half being much higher 
 than the other unless my ear was at fault, 
 exactly an octave higher. This singular refrain 
 was given out six or eight times without the 
 slightest alteration. Such freaks as these, how- 
 ever, are different from the linnet's Mary Ware, 
 inasmuch as they are certainly the idiosyncra- 
 sies of single birds, not a part of the artistic 
 proficiency of the species as a whole. 
 
 During this month I was lucky enough to 
 close a little question which I had been hold- 
 
 19 
 
290 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 ing" open for a number of years concerning our 
 very common and familiar black-throated green 
 warbler. This species, as is well known, has 
 two perfectly well-defined tunes of about equal 
 length, entirely distinct from each other. My 
 uncertainty had been as to whether the two are 
 ever used by the same individual. I had lis- 
 tened a good many times, first and last, in hopes 
 to settle the point, but hitherto without success. 
 Now, however, a bird, while under my eye, de- 
 livered both songs, and then went on to give 
 further proof of his versatility by repeating one 
 of them minus the final note. This abbrevia- 
 tion, by the way, is not very infrequent with 
 Dendroeca virens ; and he has still another vari- 
 ation, which I hear once in a while every sea- 
 son, consisting of a grace note introduced in 
 the middle of the measure, in such a connec- 
 tion as to form what in musical language is de- 
 nominated a turn. At my first hearing of this 
 I looked upon it as the private property of the 
 bird to whom I was listening, an improve- 
 ment which he had accidentally hit upon. But 
 it is clearly more than that ; for besides hear- 
 ing it in different seasons, I have noticed it in 
 places a good distance apart. Perhaps, after 
 the lapse of ten thousand years, more or less, 
 the whole tribe of black-throated greens will 
 have adopted it ; and then, when some ornithol- 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 291 
 
 ogist chances to fall in with an old-fashioned 
 specimen who still clings to the plain song as 
 we now commonly hear it, he will fancy that 
 to be the very latest modern improvement, and 
 proceed forthwith to enlighten the scientific 
 world with a description of the novelty. 
 
 Hardly any incident of the month interested 
 me more than a discovery (I must call it such, 
 although I am almost ashamed to allude to it 
 at all) which I made about the black-capped 
 titmouse. For several mornings in succession 
 I was greeted on waking by the trisyllabic 
 minor whistle of a chickadee, who piped again 
 and again not far from my window. There 
 could be little doubt about its being the bird 
 that I knew to be excavating a building site in 
 one of our apple-trees ; but I was usually not 
 out-of-doors until about five o'clock, by which 
 time the music always came to an end. So one 
 day I rose half an hour earlier than common 
 on purpose to have a look at my little matuti- 
 nal serenader. My conjecture proved correct. 
 There sat the tit, within a few feet of his ap- 
 ple-branch door, throwing back his head in the 
 truest lyrical fashion, and calling Hear, hear 
 me, with only a breathing space between the 
 repetitions of the phrase. He was as plainly 
 singing, and as completely absorbed in his work, 
 as any thrasher or hermit thrush could have 
 
292 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 been. Heretofore I had not realized that these 
 whistled notes were so strictly a song, and as 
 such set apart from all the rest of the chicka- 
 dee's repertory of sweet sounds ; and I was de- 
 lighted to find my tiny pet recognizing thus 
 unmistakably the difference between prose and 
 poetry. 
 
 But we linger unduly with these lesser lights 
 of song. After the music of the Alice and the 
 Swainson thrushes, the chief distinction of May, 
 1884, as far as my Melrose woods were con- 
 cerned, was the entirely unexpected advent of a 
 colony of rose-breasted grosbeaks. For five sea- 
 sons I had called these hunting-grounds my own, 
 and during that time had seen perhaps about 
 the same number of specimens of this royal spe- 
 cies, always in the course of the vernal migra- 
 tion. The present year the first comer was ob- 
 served on the 15th solitary and, except for an 
 occasional monosyllable, silent. Only one more 
 straggler, I assumed. But on the following 
 morning I saw four others, all of them males in 
 full plumage, and two of them in song. To one 
 of these I attended for some time. According 
 to my notes " he sang beautifully, although not 
 with any excitement, nor as if he were doing his 
 best. The tone was purer and smoother than 
 the robin's, more mellow and sympathetic, and 
 the strain was especially characterized by a drop- 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 293 
 
 ping to a fine contralto note at the end." The 
 next day I saw nothing of my new friends till 
 toward night. Then, after tea, I strolled into 
 the chestnut grove, and walking along the path, 
 noticed a robin singing freely, remarking the 
 fact because this noisy bird had been rather 
 quiet of late. Just as I passed under him, how- 
 ever, it flashed upon me that the voice and song 
 were not exactly the robin's. They must be 
 the rose-breast's then ; and stepping back to 
 look up, I beheld him in gorgeous attire, perched 
 in the top of an oak. He sang and sang, while 
 I stood quietly listening. Pretty soon he re- 
 peated the strain once or twice in a softer voice, 
 and I glanced up instinctively to see if a female 
 were with him ; but instead, there were two 
 males sitting within a yard of each other. They 
 flew off after a little, and I resumed my saunter. 
 A party of chimney swifts were shooting hither 
 and thither over the trees, a single wood thrush 
 was chanting not far away, and in another di- 
 rection a tanager was rehearsing his chip-cherr 
 with characteristic assiduity. Presently I be- 
 gan to be puzzled by a note which came now 
 from this side, now from that, and sounded like 
 the squeak of a pair of rusty shears. My first 
 conjecture about the origin of this hie it would 
 hardly serve my reputation to make public ; but 
 I was not long in finding out that it was the 
 
294 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 grosbeaks' own, and that, instead of three, there 
 were at least twice that number of these bril- 
 liant strangers in the grove. Altogether, the 
 half hour was one of very enjoyable excitement ; 
 and when, later in the evening, I sat down to 
 my note-book, I started off abruptly in a hor- 
 tatory vein, " Always take another walk ! " 
 
 In the morning, naturally enough, I again 
 turned my steps toward the chestnut grove. 
 The rose-breasts were still there, and one of them 
 earned my thanks by singing on the wing, fly- 
 ing slowly half-hovering, as it were and 
 singing the ordinary song, but more continu- 
 ously than usual. That afternoon one of them 
 was in tune at the same time with a robin, af- 
 fording me the desired opportunity for a direct 
 comparison. "It is really wonderful," my rec- 
 ord says, " how nearly alike the two songs are ; 
 but the robin's tone is plainly inferior, less 
 mellow and full. In general, too, his strain is 
 pitched higher ; and, what perhaps is the most 
 striking point of difference, it frequently ends 
 with an attempt at a note which is a little out 
 of reach, so that the voice breaks." (This last 
 defect, by the bye, the robin shares with his 
 cousin the wood thrush, as already* remarked.) 
 A few days afterwards, to confirm my own im- 
 pression about the likeness of the two songs, I 
 called the attention of a friend with whom I was 
 
A MONTH'S MUSIC. 295 
 
 walking, to a grosbeak's notes, and asked him 
 what bird's they were. He, having a good ear 
 for matters of this kind, looked somewhat dazed 
 at such an inquiry, but answered promptly, 
 " Why, a robin's, of course." As one day after 
 another passed, however, and I listened to both 
 species in full voice on every hand, I came to 
 feel that I had overestimated the resemblance. 
 With increasing familiarity I discerned more 
 and more clearly the respects in which the songs 
 differed, and each came to have to nay ear an 
 individuality strictly its own. They were alike, 
 doubtless, as the red-eyed vireo's and the 
 blue-head's are, and yet they were not alike. 
 Of one thing I grew better and better assured : 
 the grosbeak is out of all comparison the finer 
 musician of the two. To judge from my last- 
 year's friends, however, his concert season is 
 very short the more 's the pity. 
 
 I begin to perceive (indeed it has been dawn- 
 ing upon me for some time) that our essay is 
 not to fulfill the promise of its caption. In- 
 stead of the glorious fullness and variety of the 
 month's music (for May, in this latitude, is the 
 musical month of months) the reader has been 
 put off with a few of the more exceptional fea- 
 tures of the carnival. He will overlook it, I 
 trust ; and as for the great body of the chorus, 
 who have not been honored with so much as a 
 
296 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 mention, they, I am assured, are far too amia- 
 ble to take offense at any such unintentional 
 slight. Let me conclude, then, with transcribing 
 from my note-book an evening entry or two. 
 Music is never so sweet as at the twilight hour ; 
 and the extracts may serve at least as a con- 
 venient and quasi-artistic ending for a paper 
 which, so to speak, has run away with its 
 writer. The first is under date of the 19th : 
 
 " Walked, after dinner, in the Old Road, as I have 
 done often of late, and sat for a while at the entrance 
 to Pyrola Grove. A wood thrush was singing not 
 far off, and in the midst a Swainson thrush vouchsafed 
 a few measures. I wished the latter would continue, 
 but was thankful for the little. A tanager called ex- 
 citedly, Chip-cherr, moving from tree to tree mean- 
 while, once to a birch in full sight, and then into the 
 pine over my head. As it grew dark the crowd of 
 warblers were still to be seen feeding busily, making 
 the most of the lingering daylight. A small-billed 
 water thrush was teetering along a willow-branch, 
 while his congeners, the oven-birds, were practicing 
 their aerial hymn. One of these went past me as I 
 stood by the roadside, rising very gradually into the 
 air and repeating all the way, Chip, chip, chip, chip, 
 till at last he broke into the warble, which was a full 
 half longer than usual. He was evidently doing his 
 prettiest. No vireos sang after sunset. A Maryland 
 yellow-throat piped once or twice (he is habitually an 
 evening musician), and the black-throated greens were 
 
A MONTff'S MUSIC. 297 
 
 in tune, but the rest of the warblers were otherwise 
 engaged. Finally, just as a distant whippoorwill be- 
 gan to call, a towhee sang once from the woods ; and 
 a moment later the stillness was broken by the sudden 
 outburst of a thrasher. ' Now then/ he seemed to 
 say, ' if the rest of you are quite done, I will see what 
 /can do.' He kept on for two or three minutes in 
 his best manner, and at the same time a pair of cat- 
 birds were whispering love together in the thicket. 
 Then an ill-timed carriage came rattling along the 
 road, and when it had passed, every bird's voice was 
 hushed. The hyla's tremulous cry was the only mu- 
 sical sound to be heard. As I started away, one of 
 these tree-frogs hopped out of my path, and I picked 
 him up at the second or third attempt. What did he 
 think, I wonder, when I turned him on his back to 
 look at the disks at his finger-tips ? Probably he 
 supposed that his hour was come ; but I had no evil 
 designs upon him, he was not to be drowned in alco- 
 hol at present. Walking homeward I heard the rob- 
 in's scream now and again ; but the thrasher's was 
 the last song, as it deserved to be." 
 
 Two days later I find the following : 
 
 " Into the woods by the Old Road. As I approached 
 them, a little after sundown,, a chipper was trilling, 
 and song sparrows and golden warblers were sing- 
 ing, as were the black-throated greens also, and 
 the Maryland yellow-throats. A wood thrush called 
 brusquely, but offered no further salute to the god of 
 day at his departure. Oven-birds were taking to wing 
 
298 A MONTH'S MUSIC. 
 
 on the right and left. Then, as it grew dark, it grew 
 silent, except for the hylas, till suddenly a field 
 sparrow gave out his sweet strain once. After that 
 all was quiet for another interval, till a thrasher from 
 the hillside began to sing. He ceased, and once more 
 there was stillness. All at once the tanager broke 
 forth in a strangely excited way, blurting out his 
 phrase two or three times and subsiding as abruptly 
 as he had commenced. Some crisis in his love-mak- 
 ing, I imagined. Now the last oven-bird launched 
 into the air and let fall a little shower of melody, and 
 a whippoorwill took up his chant afar off. This 
 should have been the end ; but a robin across the 
 meadow thought otherwise, and set at work as if de- 
 termined to make a night of it. Mr. Early-and-late, 
 the robin's name ought to be. As I left the wood the 
 whippoorwill followed ; coming nearer and nearer, 
 till finally he overpassed me and sang with all his 
 might (while I tried in vain to see him) from a tree 
 or the wall, near the big button wood. He too is an 
 early riser, only he rises before nightfall instead of 
 before daylight." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 BLACKBIRD, crow, 17 ; red- winged, 
 
 183 ; rusty, 216. 
 
 Bluebird, 14, 72, 160, 184, 214, 217. 
 Blue-gray gnatcatcher, 152. 
 Bobolink, 16, 78. 
 Bunting, bay-winged, 27, 174, 234 ; 
 
 snow, 190, 195; townee, 25, 39, 
 
 62, 178. 
 Butcher-bird, 5, 11, 66, 208. 
 
 Cat-bird, 3, 72, 114. 
 Cedar-bird, 26, 50, 126, 269. 
 Chat, yellow-breasted, 69, 152, 153. 
 Chewink, 25, 39, 62, 178. 
 Chickadee, 27, 58, 158, 202, 215, 237, 
 
 291. 
 
 Chimney swift, 23, 96, 272. 
 Cowbird, 183. 
 Creeper, brown, 20, 161, 205, 227, 
 
 262; black-and-white, 21, 266, 
 
 279. 
 Crow, common, 26, 78, 209; fish, 
 
 154, 209. 
 Cuckoo, black-billed, 18. 
 
 Finch, grass, 27, 174, 234 ; purple, 
 27, 119, 173, 199, 217, 287 ; pine, 
 206. 
 
 Flicker, 25, 121, 232. 
 
 Flycatcher, great - crested, 152 ; 
 least, 26, 36, 231 ; phoebe, 26, 215, 
 230, 2G9 ; wood pewee, 36, 231, 
 257; yellow-bellied, 91. 
 
 Goldfinch, 16, 19, 60, 173, 188, 190, 
 
 193, 236. 
 Grosbeak, cardinal, 27, 37, 152, 173 ; 
 
 pine, 197 ; rose-breasted, 173, 292. 
 
 Humming-bird, ruby-throated, 21. 
 Indigo-bird, 177. 
 
 Jay, blue, 26, 65, 208, 264 ; Canada, 
 
 Kingbird, 26, 78, 231. 
 Kingfisher, 26, 154. 
 Kinglet, golden -crested, 21, 203; 
 ruby-crowned, 21, 235. 
 
 Lark, western meadow, 40, 41 ; 
 
 shore, 206. 
 Linnet, 27, 119, 173, 199, 217, 287 ; 
 
 red-poll, 27, 190, 192. 
 
 Maryland yellow-throat, 9, 21, 85, 
 
 166, 266, 296. 
 Mocking-bird, 27. 
 
 Night-hawk, 27, 183. 
 Nuthatch, red-bellied, 25 ; white- 
 bellied, 24. 
 
 Oriole, Baltimore, 16, 181 ; orchard, 
 
 154. 
 Oven-bird, 21, 42, 86, 124, 136, 256, 
 
 283,296. 
 
 Pewee, wood, 36, 231, 257. 
 Phoebe, 26, 215, 230, 269. 
 
 Red-poll linnet, 27, 190, 192 
 Redstart, 21, 86, 135. 
 Robin, 15, 16, 35, 38, 111, 131, 160, 
 202, 229, 294, 298. 
 
 Sandpiper, spotted, 123. 
 
 Scarlet tanager, 125, 153, 171, 257, 
 
 296, 298. 
 
 Shrike, 5, 11, 66, 208. 
 Small-billed water thrush, 21, 86, 
 
 Snow-bird, 90, 176, 208, 214, 221, 
 269. 
 
300 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Snow bunting, 190, 195. 
 
 Sparrow, chipping, 10, 16, 126, 173, 
 233, 289; field, 27, 40, 173, 233; 
 fox-colored, 17, 173, 176, 215, 217, 
 218; house (or "English"), 14, 
 17, 20, 22, 45, 110 ; savanna, 27, 
 49, 78 ; song, 15, 40, 173, 174, 200, 
 214, 217, 219; swamp, 27; tree, 
 27, 215; white -throated, 16, 80, 
 207, 271. 
 
 Swallow, barn, 23 ; white-bellied, 23, 
 228. 
 
 Swift, chimney, 23, 96, 272. 
 
 Tanager, scarlet, 125, 153, 171, 257, 
 
 Thrush, brown, 16, 61, 117, 158, 184, 
 234, 297 ; gray-cheeked (or Alice's), 
 17, 140, 141, 281 ; golden-crowned, 
 21, 42, 86, 124, 136, 256, 283, 296 ; 
 hermit, 20, 71, 86, 140, 234; 258, 
 279 ; olive-backed (or Swainson's), 
 20, 86, 88, 140, 281; small-billed 
 water, 21, 86, 266 ; Wilson's (or 
 veery), 25, 71, 138 : wood, 38, 112, 
 140, 258, 279. 
 
 Titmouse, black - capped, 27, 58, 
 158, 202, 215, 237, 291 ; tufted, 
 151. 
 
 Towhee bunting, 25, 39, 62, 178. 
 
 Veery, 25, 71, 138. 
 
 Vireo (or greenlet), blue -headed, 
 
 167, 168; red-eyed, 16, 167, 268; 
 solitary, 167, 168 ; yellow-throated, 
 27, 167 ; warbling, 16, 167, 168 ; 
 white-eyed, 40, 41, 69, 148, 167, 
 170, 286. 
 
 Warbler, bay - breasted, 85, 166 ; 
 Blackburnian, 86, 165,265; black- 
 and-yellow, 85; black-poll, 21, 85, 
 165; black-throated blue, 21, 41, 
 86, 164, 267 ; black-throated green, 
 21, 41, 86, 137, 164, 267, 290 ; blue 
 golden-winged, 42, 145, 164 ; blue 
 yellow-backed, 21, 86, 164, 268; 
 Canada, 21, 85, 266 ; chestnut- 
 sided, 42, 266, 271 ; golden, 21, 
 164 ; golden-crowned wagtail, 21, 
 
 42, 86, 124, 136; mourning, 85; 
 Nashville, 98, 266 ; pine-creeping, 
 166, 228, 237, 289; prairie, 165; 
 summer yellow -bird, 21, 164; 
 worm-eating, 152 ; yellow red- 
 poll, 234 ; yellow-rumped, 21, 42, 
 
 43, 86, 269. 
 
 Waxwing, 26, 50, 126, 269. 
 
 Whippoorwill, 183, 298. 
 
 Woodcock, 27, 222. 
 
 Woodpecker, downy, 25 ; golden- 
 winged, 25, 121, 232 ; red-bellied, 
 152; red-headed, 150. 205; yel- 
 low-bellied, 8, 26, 271.' 
 
 Wren, great Carolina, 152 ; winter. 
 88, 146, 225, 256, 272. 
 
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 WOODS. STORIES OF THE SEA. 3 vols., $1.00 each; the 
 
 set, $3.00. 
 
 CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
 
 Down the Ravine. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25. 
 
THOMAS DAT. 
 
 Sandford and Merton. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe. Illustrated by NAST, etc. $1.00. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 A Child's History of England. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 The Parent's Assistant. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 SAMUEL ELIOT (editor). 
 *Poetry for Children. Illustrated. 80 cents net. 
 *Six Stories from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated. 48 
 cents net. 
 
 ABRAHAM FIRTH (editor). 
 Voices for the Speechless. 75 cents. 
 
 JEAN IE T. GOULD. 
 Marjorie's Quest. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 WILHELM HAUFF. 
 
 Arabian Days* Entertainments. Illustrated by HOPPIN. 
 $1.50. 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 True Stories from History and Biography. Illustrated. 
 
 $1.50. 
 "Little Classic" Edition. $1.00. 
 
 Wonder Book for Girls and Boys. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 "Little Classic" Edition. $1.00. 
 
 The Same. Illustrated by CHURCH. $2.50. 
 
 Tanglewood Tales. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 "Little Classic" Edition. $1.00. 
 
 The Snow Image. Illustrated in colors. 75 cents. 
 Grandfather's Chair. Paper, 15 cents. 
 
 AUGUSTUS HOPPIN. 
 
 Recollections of Auton House. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 Two Compton Boys. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 THOMAS HUGHES. 
 
 Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby. Illustrated. $1.00 ; 
 
 half calf, $2.50. 
 Tom Brown at Oxford. $1.25; half calf, $3.00. 
 
S AR AH ORNE JEWETT. 
 
 Play Days. $1.50. 
 
 CHARLES AND MART LAMB. 
 
 Tales from Shakespeare. " Little Classic " Edition. $1.00. 
 The Same. Handy-Volume Edition $1.25. 
 The Same. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 The Same. Carefully prepared for use in Boston Schools. 
 Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 LUCY LARCOM. 
 
 Childhood Songs. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 HENRY CABOT LODGE (editor). 
 
 *Six Popular Tales. First Series. Illustrated. Paper, 16 
 
 cents net. 
 *Six Popular Tales. Second Series. Illustrated. Paper, 
 
 16 cents net. 
 *Selected Popular Tales. Illustrated. Paper, 16 cents net. 
 
 BARONESS DE MONTOLIEU and J. R. WYSS. 
 
 Swiss Family Kobinson. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 MOTHER GOOSE'S MELODIES FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 Illustrated, and with music. 4to, $2.00. 
 
 REV. THEODORE T. MUNGER. 
 On the Threshold. $1.00. 
 Lamps and Paths. $1.00. 
 
 JAMES PARTON. 
 Captains of Industry. With Portraits. $1.25. 
 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELP8. 
 Tho Trotty Book. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 Trotty's Wedding Tour and Story Book. Illustrated. 
 $1.25. 
 
 PILPAY. 
 Fables. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 ABBY SAGE RICHARDSON. 
 Stories from Old English Poetry. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 HORACE E. SC UDDER. 
 
 The Bodley Books. First Series. Each volume, $1.50. 
 The set, 5 vols., $7.50. 
 
 1. Doings of the Bodley Family in Town and Country. Illus- 
 trated. 
 
 2. The Bodleys Telling Stories. Illustrated. 
 
 3. The Bodleys on Wheels. Illustrated. 
 4 The Bodleys Afoot. Illustrated. 
 
 6. Mr. Bodley Abroad. Illustrated. 
 
The Bodley Books. Second Series. Each volume, $1.50. 
 The set, 3 vols., $4.50. 
 
 1. The Bodley Grandchildren. Illustrated. 
 
 2. The English Bodley Family. Illustrated. 
 
 3. The Viking Bodleys. Illustrated. 
 Dream Children. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 Seven Little People. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 Stories from my Attic. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 The Children's Book. Illustrated. $3.50 ; boards, $2.75. 
 Boston Town. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 HARRIET BEE CHER STOWE. 
 
 Little Pussy Willow. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 A Dog's Mission. Illustrated. SI. 25. 
 Queer Little People. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 CELIA THAXTER. 
 
 Poems for Children. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 TREASURY OF PLEASURE BOOKS. 
 
 For Young People. Illustrated in colors. 75 cents. 
 CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 
 
 Being a Boy. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 MRS. A. Z>. T. WHITNEY. 
 
 Faith Gartney's Girlhood. $1.50. 
 
 Hitherto. $1.50. 
 
 Patience Strong's Outings. $1.50. 
 
 The Gayworthys. $1.50. 
 
 A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 We Girls. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 Keal Folks. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 The Other Girls. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 Sights and Insights. 2 vols. $3.00. 
 
 Odd, or Even? $1.50. 
 
 Boys at Chequassett. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (editor). 
 Child Life. Illustrated. $2.00 ; half calf, $4.00. 
 Child Life in Prose. Illustrated. $2.00; half calf, $4.00. 
 2 vols., half calf, $7.50. 
 
 *#** For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, postpaid, oft receipt of 
 price by the Publishers, 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., 
 4 PARK ST., BOSTON; 11 E. 17TH ST., NEW YORK.