182 MINOR SONGSTERS. 



He has discovered that men, bad as they are, 

 are less to be dreaded than hawks and weasels, 

 and so, after making sure that his wife is not 

 subject to sea-sickness, he swings his nest boldly 

 from a swaying shade-tree branch, in full view 

 of whoever may choose to look at it. Some 

 morning in May not far from the 10th you 

 will wake to hear him fifing in the elm before 

 your window. He has come in the night, and 

 is already making himself at home. Once I saw 

 a pair who on the very first morning had begun 

 to get together materials for a nest. His whistle 

 is one of the clearest and loudest, but he makes 

 little pretensions to music. I have been pleased 

 and interested, however, to see how tuneful he 

 becomes in August, after most other birds have 

 ceased to sing, and after a long interval of silence 

 on his own part. Early and late he pipes and 

 chatters, as if he imagined that the spring were 

 really coming back again forthwith. What the 

 explanation of this lyrical revival may be I have 

 never been able to gather ; but the fact itself is 

 very noticeable, so that it would not be amiss to 

 call the " golden robin " the bird of August. 



The oriole's dusky relatives have the organs 

 of song well developed ; and although most of 

 the species have altogether lost the art of music, 

 there are none of them, even now, that do not 

 betray more or less of the musical impulse. The 



