92 ENGLISH BIRD LIFE 



amidst the opening leaves in the Uttle plantation by 

 the river, come the first true notes of spring : the 

 notes which have in them all the promise of the 

 nearing summer days : the song of the first Willow 

 Wren. 



The small yellow bird is not at all anxious to 

 evade attention. As we pause on the little grassy 

 path, we see it at once, moving on the outer boughs 

 of one of the nearest trees. A frail, delicate little 

 creature, it seems, to have braved the crossing of 

 continents and of seas. Now it sidles along the 

 bough, the pale yellowish-green of the newly burst- 

 ing foliage harmonizing with its plumes, and stand- 

 ing on tiptoe, with fluttering wings, it seizes an 

 insect from the leaf above its head. Now it rests 

 for a moment to utter again the warbling notes w'hich 

 we heard from the road. The song is not wanting 

 in volume and power — indeed, these are remarkable 

 in view of the size of the bird — but is none the less 

 sweet and restful, with something of the murmur of 

 the river in it, together with some sympathetically 

 human quality wdiich eludes definition. The 

 American naturalist, Burroughs, speaks of it as one 

 of the most melodious strains he heard in England, 

 exhibiting to the full the best qualities of the New 

 England singing-birds. " A long, tender, delicious 

 warble," he writes, " eminently pure and sw^eet — 

 the song of the Chaffinch refined and idealized : a 

 song, perhaps, in a minor key, feminine rather than 

 masculine, but which touches the heart. 



'That strain again : it had a dying fall.' 

 The song of the Willow Wren has a dying fall. 



