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 the}^ will do nothing more than fly from 

 tree to tree, or out of one clump of shrubbery 

 into another. Once in a great Avhile, 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- 



