Berkeley in May, 



seen through the bottom trom the 

 ground. The four eggs are of a dull, 

 greenish-blue color, heavily spotted with 

 brown. In spite of his unwieldly ap- 

 pearance and uninspiring song, I should 

 feel a sad lack in our summer days 

 should this 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 fastidi- 

 ously elegant as the oriole's, it is, never- 

 theless, 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 

 174 



