I06 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER. 



Wilson Flagg, the pioneer of popular 

 ornithologists, writing some thirty years 

 ago, tells us that the voice of the quail or 

 bob-white is no longer heard in the land, — 

 that, being a permanent resident with us, 

 he is destroyed in vast numbers by the 

 severity of our winters, and now that 

 the taste of the epicure and the gun of the 

 fowler arc thrown into the scale against 

 him, the quail's speedy extermination is at 

 hand. My Worcester experience would 

 most certainly point to the verification of 

 Flagg's predictions, but here in Princeton 

 it is very different. '' Bob-zuhite'' or " More 

 wet,'' as it is sometimes translated, cheery 

 and strong, greets you from every pasture, 

 meadow, and hillside. It may be that 

 the past open winter explains this unu- 

 sual abundance of the toothsome quail, — 

 whereof all sportsmen and epicures take 

 notice ! 



The crow is more abundant here than in 

 Worcester, and seems even more wild, sav- 

 age, and unapproachable. According to 

 Thoreau, these birds embody the departed 



