24 TEA MPS WITH AN ENTHUSIAST. 



song of the former has been translated into a 

 word so unworthy as " peabody," and that the 

 name " peabody bird " has become fastened on 

 him in New England. Far more appropriate 

 the words applied by Elizabeth Akers Allen to 

 an unknown singer, — possibly this very bird, 

 — embodied in her beautiful poem " The Sun- 

 set Thrush." For whatever bird it was in- 

 tended, the syllables and arrangement corre- 

 s23ond to the white-throat's utterance, and the 

 words are, " Sweet ! sweet ! sweet ! Sorrowful ! 

 sorrowful ! sorrowful ! " 



A white-throat who haunted the neighborhood 

 of my farmhouse did not confine himself to the 

 family song ; which, by the way, varies less with 

 this species than with ajiy other I know. At 

 first, for some time, he entirely omitted the trip- 

 lets, making his song consist of four long notes, 

 the fourth being in place of the triplets. Then, 

 later, he dropped the last note a half tone below 

 the others, still omitting the triplets, which, in 

 fact, in three or four weeks of listening and 

 watching, I never once heard him utter. In 

 July of that year, in passing over the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway on my way West, I heard innu- 

 merable songs by this bird. Every time the 

 train stopped, white-throat voices rang out on 

 all sides, and with considerable variety. Many 

 dropped half a tone at the end, and some uttered 



