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 one 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 



