WAITING FOR THE MUSIC 105 



as I stepped out upon the piazza, a house wren 

 sang from a live-oak by the kitchen door. I re- 

 membered the date. " Good ! " said I to myself, 

 " the time of the singing of birds is come." But 

 I was too much in haste. Since then I have heard 

 plenty of wren chattering, but not another note 

 of wren music. 



Still the opening of the annual concert cannot 

 be much longer delayed. When I was in Florida 

 nine years ago, mockingbirds were in free song 

 at St. Augustine, before the middle of February ; 

 and at this point, three hundred miles and more 

 farther south, the season must be earlier rather 

 than later. 



Some of the more distinctively Southern of the 

 birds about me I am especially desirous of hear- 

 ing the Florida yellow-throats, for example, a 

 local race of the Maryland yellow-throat, so 

 called. They are everywhere in sight (the dark 

 brown of the flanks distinguishing them readily), 

 and as their music is said to be very unlike that 

 of their familiar Northern relative, I am natu- 

 rally desirous of adding it to my (memorized) 

 collection. It will be nothing great, presumably, 

 but it will be something new. 



Still more interesting will be the song of the 

 painted bunting, or nonpareil, a beauty of beau- 

 ties that I had never seen (a wild one, I mean) 



