4 INTRODUCTION. 



sonal information of the place and hour of 

 his concert, in listening for his vernal over- 

 ture, and appreciating the brightening 

 blessing of his season's farewell. 



" Come, hear this woman, she sings like 

 a nightingale." *' But I can hear the 

 nightingale." Not altogether wise in the 

 philosopher to reject the one, but how can 

 we excuse neglect of the other ? 



In the rural city where the writer of the 

 letters lived, it came to many as a matter 

 of surprise that there was so much to 

 study, so ample a source of gratification in 

 the birds about us. Filled as they are 

 with the enthusiasm of the true lover, the 

 letters served as a guide for others to 

 pleasures not before revealed. 



On the sixteenth of August, eighteen 

 hundred and eighty-nine, Harry Lever- 

 ETT Nelson, then hardly past the por- 

 tals of his professional career, was quietly 

 turned aside into that silent path which 

 leads we know not whither. Reflections 

 such as have here been imperfectly ex- 



