Massachusetts Audubon Society 5 



one thousand feet. The whole performance usually occupies from three 

 to five minutes. 



I have heard many nightingales, at one time being within thirty 

 feet of two that were trying to outsing each other. The Victor grapho- 

 phone record of a nightingale gives an excellent suggestion of the song, 

 which is loud and carries far. The song is more commonly heard by day 

 than by night! Some of the phrases suggest imitations, but these are 

 doubtless only coincidental resemblances. I have heard perfect repro- 

 ductions of cardinal and Carolina wren phrases in the nightingale's song, 

 which would not, of course, have been actual imitations. 



The night-jar suggests a spinning-wheel. It gives a performance 

 that lasts several minutes without any apparent stop for breath. When 

 I first heard the "song" I though I was listening to many frogs in a pool. 

 The tone is not at all raucous, but is very pleasing to the ear, though ab- 

 solutely dry and without any approach to music. 



The cuckoo surprised me with the great, heavy character of its ut- 

 terance. The cuckoo-clock note, though a faithful reproduction, would 

 have to be much magnified in calibre to reproduce with exactness the 

 actual tone. It is like a snare drum compared with a bass drum. 



The robin is a prime favorite with me. Modest, tranquil, gentle, 

 unobtrusive, he is my best friend among the European birds, perhaps 

 I might say among all birds. In his singing of the two or three short 

 phrases, vibrant in tone and often carrying the quality of the veery's 

 song, though reduced in volume, he seems to be the unconscious instru- 

 ment through which the music of nature is pulsing. There is an inad- 

 vertence about his singing that relieves it of all self-consciousness. All 

 through the year these bits of Pan-music may be heard, the singer (or 

 rather instrument) poised motionless upon a lower twig of a sapling, the 

 orange-red breast perhaps gleaming amidst the complementary green of 

 foliage. Sidney Lanier is his counterpart in the poetical world, as op- 

 posed to Poe, Whitman, Milton and Shakespeare. 



Another great favorite with me is the handsome little stone-chat, 

 a chewink in miniature, though more gaily garbed. I remember a 

 grass-topped cliff beside the sea at Sainte Marguerite (near Saint Na- 

 zaire) where one or two pairs of stone-chats made their homes. When- 

 ever I came upon this high vantage point, these birds would ascend at 

 once to the tips of the low shrubs in which they lived and stand guard 

 silently, like well-trained and alert sentinels. And when I moved to the 

 edge of the cliff, they would follow me, always perched upon the top of 

 shrub, fence-post, or whatever other place of sentry duty they selected. 

 I have seen the brilliantly clad male mount guard on the top of a stake 

 not more than five feet from the point where I was resting on the grass, 

 enjoying the warmth of the sun to the body and the beauty and charm 

 of the ocean to both eye and ear. 



I have seen a few bulfinches, but, beyond their well-groomed ap- 

 pearance, I know little about them. The same is true of the goldfinch 

 and the linnet, but the yellowhammer I learned to know better. This is 

 the bird of whom the English say it says, "A little bit of bread and no 

 cheese!" 



I have been much interested in watching the jackdaws circling about 

 the towers of cathedrals or settling on the ledges with peculiar guttural 



