FAIR ORMOND 139 



white-throats, and chickadees. One of a bird- 

 loving man's strangest sensations at Miami is 

 the absence of chickadees and tufted titmice. 

 I had never been in such a place before. (For 

 eight weeks, let me say in passing, I have seen 

 no English sparrows. Unfortunately I have not 

 yet forgotten how they look.) 



In my two days here I have counted but fifty 

 kinds of birds. A goodly number that I know 

 to be present, and even common, I have so far 

 happened to miss. But in the middle of March 

 even fifty birds make something like a festival. 

 Mockers, cardinals, and Carolina wrens the 

 great Southern trio are tuneful, of course. 

 Even as I write, a wren is whistling an accom- 

 paniment to my pencil. If I could only put the 

 music on the paper ! If it would only " modulate 

 my periods ! " as Charles Lamb said. When I 

 sit in the shade of a moss-hung live-oak, letting 

 the sea breeze fan me, and listen to an assembly 

 of red-winged blackbirds rehearsing their breezy 

 conkaree among the reeds along the Halifax 

 (though it is not a simple conkaree^ either, but 

 conkaree-dah, the old tune with a new coda), 

 I think of swamps in far Massachusetts where 

 on this very 12th of March other redwings are 

 opening the musical season in a very different 

 atmosphere. 



