Song Birds and Water Fowl 
tality beyond the sad and arduous limitations 
of our earthly life. Let him be the delicate re- 
minder, not of earthly accumulations, but of 
lofty anticipations, which are not less powerful 
than material comforts, to mitigate the miseries 
of life. 
a 
Late in March I discovered a rarity for this 
latitude—a pair of crested titmice, allied to the 
chickadee, and similar in habits, but larger. 
Its crest gives it a jaunty air, but otherwise it 
is plainly dressed, of a leaden hue throughout, 
except chestnut sides. They first attracted my 
attention by a peculiar hoarse sound, but soon 
broke into a song whose snappy vigor and in- 
flection is very much like that of the white-eyed 
vireo. 
Besides those earliest species of birds that 
announce themselves so conspicuously in song, 
or by their friendly approach to human habita- 
tion, there are a few others, which, although 
not uncommon, are less abundant, and gener- 
ally require more research to be discovered. 
One of these is the meadow lark; no connec- 
tion of the shore lark, but belonging to the 
starling family, a group that, so far as the 
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