272 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



which observers tell us does not sing. I am not able to contradict this 

 statement, for I only heard him call a faint, gentle /^-<? .' but I wish I 

 could, for a thrush without a song seems as unnatural as an azalea bush 

 without blossoms. 



From the beginning of March unto the middle of July our woods 

 and fields overflow with music. Our first comer, the shore-iark, tinkles 

 his low song by the road-side in February. The bluebird comes long be- 

 fore the blue violets. His soft ka-wet ! drops out of the softening March 

 skies, and in a few days he is warbling around the bird houses and wood- 

 peckers' old holes in the woods. The robin is our first-coming thrush ; 

 his music is martial, but its triumph is sometimes mingled with sadness. 

 Our thrushes are our best singers. We have no finer songster here than 

 the wood thrush. His silver irill-i-dee is the solo of the woods. Last 

 summer I heard the hermit thrush in his own retreats among the high 

 hills of the East, and I have never heard his strain surpassed. It is pure 

 and ethereal as the hill-land air, and serene as the depths of the pine and 

 beech woods where it is sung. The Wilson's thrush, or veery, which 

 occupies lower grounds in the same region, has a short, ringing song, 

 which, when heard from many throats along the edge of the woodlands, 

 sounds like a chime of bells. Our own brown thrush comes in late April, 

 overrunning with music. He practices it for hours at a time during May, 

 on the tall tree-tops. The cat-bird, another thrush, keeps the low, moist 

 thickets throbbing with his quaint, proud songs. The syllables used in 

 the songs of all, or nearly all the thrushes, are full of liquid, flowing 

 sounds, like the soft language of Southern Europe. 



Next to the thrushes our sparrows are among our best musicians. 

 The rich, tremulous warble of the rose-breasted grosbeck, which lives in 

 the woods and groves beside our creeks and rivers, is hardly equaled by 

 any other bird of my acquaintance. The pure, happy notes of the song 

 sparrow may be heard every day, except a fevi^ in August, from his com- 

 ing in the latter days of March, until his departure in November. Some 

 of the finest sparrow singers are only passing visitors in Northern Illinois. 

 In small flocks the lovely purple finch goes north in spring, and returns 

 in autumn. He gives an occasional hint of a warble, but I never knew 

 how fine his warbling was until I heard it among the pines and hemlocks 

 last summer. Our May and October are sweetened by the hymns of the 

 white-throated sparrow. His er pe — -pe — pe — pe-d-de pe-d-de pe-d-de .' 

 is a little snatch of sacred song from the northern land. Then there is 

 the fox-colored sparrow, with plumage like an autumn leaf, and a half- 

 sung song in his throat. To no other family are we so much indebted for 

 the music and joy of nature all the year as to the modest sparrows. With 

 most of our birds the period of full song is short, but the sparrows sing 

 the cool, fresh songs of spring amid the fainting heats of mid-summer, 

 and I have heard the tree sparrow tinkle his strain in January — e-chee- 

 chiv-chiv-chiv-a-wait-wait-wait ! 



The shrike and vireo family has several fine singers. The sweet, 

 cheerful song of the red-eyed vireo, the slow, meditative strain of the 

 yellow-throated vireo, are heard in all our woods, and the liquid. 



