BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



happy fellow be removed. When other songsters are silent he 

 still sings in his loud, warbling strains, troubled little by the 

 heat of the day; and if his plumage be not so fastidiously ele- 

 gant as the oriole's, it is, nevertheless, showy and gay. 



At sunset the cicada is sounding his high, palpitating love 

 call from the meadow, when suddenly, out of the sacred calm 

 of evening, full and rich and varied as the tones of an organ, 

 swells the song of a thrush. The most inspired singer of all, 

 with his rich, gurgling fulness of rapturous sound, has waited 

 until all the lesser minstrels have done their part in the day's 

 chorus, and now, from his bush in the thicket, as the shadows 

 darken around him, he becomes infused with the subtle delight 

 of the sunset sky, the sweet odors of the evening and the cool 

 air of the night. "Qui, qui, qui, quila, quila, quila," he sings, 

 with his little throat shaking and trembling with the resonant 

 quality of the sound. Well can he afford to be clad in olive 

 and brown, relieved only by the white speckled breast, with 

 such wealth of song at his command! His whole composition 

 is too delicately attuned to admit of showy colors. Notice his 

 large, bright eye, his long, slender legs and delicate beak, his 

 half-calm, half-timid manners as he stands upon a twig in the 

 obscurity of the foliage. He is a creature apart from the vulgar 

 throng that surround him, and the exclusiveness of his hours of 

 song show that he is not unconscious of his superiority. 



As the month of May advances, the landscape assumes 

 more and more the typical aspect of summer. The rains have 

 ceased for the season and already the well-traveled roads in 

 the country are growing dusty. 



From a bush by the road a vivacious, high-pitched song 

 issues. It is intricate, rapid and varied. At times we catch 



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