Song Birds and Water Fowl 
brings one where he finds several noticeable 
differences in the avifauna. 
One feels more of a sense of proprietorship 
in birds that come about his own hired door 
than in those he finds in public woods. Yet I 
felt that they were not on my rented premises 
by sufferance, but by virtue of a prior lease, 
which made them tenants of all the world at 
their own sweet will. Of about fifty species 
that are quite abundantly represented here- 
abouts, a large number were daily visitants in 
the orchard, and devoted their particular at- 
tention to a large mulberry-tree, whose ripened 
fruit hung among the branches like black rasp- 
berries, which it somewhat resembles in flavor 
also, but of which I hardly had a taste, so bold 
and ravenous were the orioles, catbirds, robins, 
and various smaller species that were on hand 
to pick the fruit as fast as it ripened. 
There is no other bird that has just the wavy, 
graceful, and buoyant motion of the downy 
woodpecker. A brisk, and perhaps business- 
like, cheerfulness is the characteristic mood of 
this species; and, while not ranked as a songster, 
its strong, rich note is quite consonant with its 
feelings. The term ‘‘ tone color,’’ which is a 
favorite one with musicians, expresses a truth 
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