70 WAKE-ROBIN 



at various points along the route after leaving Lake 

 George. As I went out to the spring in the morn- 

 ing to wash myself a purple finch flew up before 

 me, having already performed its ablutions. I had 

 first observed this bird the winter before in the 

 Highlands of the Hudson, where, durmg several 

 clear but cold February mornings, a troop of them 

 sang most charmingly in a tree in front of my 

 house. The meeting with the bird here in its 

 breeding haunts was a pleasant surprise. During 

 the day I observed several pine finches, — a dark 

 brown or brindlish bird, allied to the common yel- 

 lowbird, which it much resembles in its manner 

 and habits. They lingered familiarly about the 

 house, sometimes alighting in a small tree within 

 a few feet of it. In one of the stumpy fields I 

 saw an old favorite in the grass finch or vesper 

 sparrow. It was sitting on a tall charred stub with 

 food in its beak. But all along the borders of the 

 woods and in the bushy parts of the fields there 

 was a new song that I was puzzled in tracing to the 

 author. It was most noticeable in the morning and 

 at twilight, but was at all times singularly secret 

 and elusive. I at last discovered that it was the 

 white-throated sparrow, a common bird all through 

 this region. Its song is very delicate and plaintive, 

 — a thin, wavering, tremulous whistle, which dis- 

 appoints one, however, as it ends when it seems 

 only to have begun. If the bird could give us the 

 finishing strain of which this seems only the pre- 

 lude, it would stand first among feathered songsters. 



