A DAY IN JUNE 81 



have a double portion of the delights of existence* 

 The song of the Veery, the churning, dashing, burst- 

 ing melody that reveals a spontaneous gladness, is 

 still heard among the leafy shades* Much has been 

 said and written of the Veery's song, but only to 

 reveal the poverty of words in its description* It is a 

 part of the gladness of nature, to be absorbed and 

 enjoyed in its own spirit* Other songsters, with their 

 own peculiar charms, are still carrying the spirit of 

 spring on into summer* Perhaps that is the mission 

 of all songsters* The Yellow Warbler still sings as 

 happily as in the days of his courtship, and his note 

 has a distinctness lent by the silence of so many of 

 his feathered relatives* The Oven Bird's penetrating 

 repetitions come along under the branches, and the 

 Brown Thrasher still sings to the sun from a lofty 

 perch* There is just enough melody through the 

 shady branches to make their quietness more 

 somnolent* 



A glimpse of yellow and white shows where a 

 Flicker curves and undulates through the open spaces 

 to the broken shaft of an old, dead Willow* The 

 brown-grey back, almost invisible against the bark, 

 disappears, and after a long, patient wait, with no 

 sign of the alert head on the other side, the temptation 

 becomes irresistible* There is a nest* Just below the 

 broken limb a hole has been picked in the decaying 



wood, but it is a false one* One would like to think it 



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