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. ]\Iy 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 



