230 A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL. 



times when there were still people in the world 

 who loved darkness rather than light, because 

 their deeds were evil ; and whether, after all, 

 in this as in some other respects, we might not 

 wisely take pattern of the fowls of the air. 



Individually, the phcebes were almost as 

 noisy as the robins, but of course their numbers 

 were far less. They are models of persever- 

 ance. Were their voice equal to the nightin- 

 gale's they could hardly be more assiduous and 

 enthusiastic in its use. As a general thing they 

 are content to repeat the simple Phoebe, Phoebe 

 (there are moods in the experience of all of us, 

 I hope, when the repetition of a name is by it- 

 self music sufficient), but it is not uncommon 

 for this to be heightened to Phoebe, Phoebe ; 

 and now and then you will hear some fellow 

 calling excitedly, Phoebe, Phoebe-be-be-be-be, 

 a comical sort of stuttering, in which the diffi- 

 culty is not in getting hold of the first syllable, 

 but in letting go the last one. On the 15th I 

 witnessed a certain other performance of theirs, 

 one that I had seen two or three times the 

 season previous, and for which I had been on 

 the lookout from the first day of the month. I 

 heard a series of chips, which might have been 

 the cries of a chicken, but which, it appeared, 

 did proceed from a phrebe, who, as I looked up, 

 was just in the act of quitting his perch on the 



