34 



Bird-Land Echoes. 



of the universe rested upon him. Best of all, the 

 chewink's taste in matters of locality is always excel- 

 lent. There must be water near. It detests our 

 usual late summer drought, and quits the neighbor- 

 hood at the earliest intimations of its coming ; but 

 given a cool, damp hollow 

 in the woods, a fern-hidden 

 cow-path through the thick-set 

 sproutland, an upland swamp 

 well grown with blueberries, or 

 some rocky ledge from which 

 trickles a little spring, 

 and there will be no hap- 

 pier occu- 



Chewink 



pant of 

 the place 

 than the 

 chew i n k. 

 Happy, if 

 a con- 

 stant, self- 

 contented chirping of chczvink is evidence 

 thereof; and to this is added a sprightly song when the 

 bird leaves the ground for a moment and whistles so 

 that all may hear, cJicc-do, de de dc — de dc. It is an 

 early song with us, heard often when the shad-blos- 

 soms begin to show, and sometimes earlier, as w^hen 

 the first seekers of arbutus venture into the oak woods 

 and hear it in some shady hollow w^here the snow 

 perhaps still lingers. In May, when the chorus of 

 returning summer is sung in the orchard, I hear an 



