A BIRD-LOVER'’S APRIL. 237 
noon, — the 27th, — and in a small grove of tall 
pitch-pines. _How many birds there were | 
could form little estimate, but when fifteen flew 
away for a minute or two the chorus was not 
perceptibly diminished. All were singing, twit- 
tering, and calling together; some of them di- 
rectly over my head, the rest scattered through- 
out the wood. No one voice predominated in 
the least ; all sang softly, and with an inde- 
scribable tenderness and beauty. Any who do 
not know how sweet the goldfinch’s note is may 
get some conception of the effect of such a con- 
cert if they will imagine fifty canaries thus en- 
gaged out-of-doors. I declared then that I had 
never heard anything so enchanting, and I am 
not certain even now that I was over-enthusi- 
astic. 
A pine-creeping warbler, I remember, broke 
in upon the choir two or three times with his 
loud, precise trill. Foolish bird! His isa pretty 
song by itself, but set in contrast with music so 
full of imagination and poetry, it sounded pain- 
fully abrupt and prosaic. 
I discovered the first signs of nest-building on 
the 13th, while investigating the question of a 
bird’s ambi-dexterity. It happened that I had 
just been watching a chickadee, as he picked 
chip after chip from a dead branch, and held 
them fast with one claw, while he broke them in 
