BIRDS OF CHOCORUA 199 



white-throated sparrow that sings all day about 

 Chocorua. " Peabody bird " we call the white- 

 throat, from long custom, but to me his notes, 

 clear, sweet and infinitely refreshing, seem to 

 chant in accelerating diminuendo, " hap-pi-ness, 

 hap-pi-ness, happiness," till I lose the quivering 

 cadences in an infinity of distance where sight 

 and sound blend in the passing of dear dreams. 

 The white-throated sparrow comes to the hills 

 with the pink buds of the trailing arbutus, whose 

 blooms are nowhere else so white and fair, and 

 something of their fragrance seems always to 

 come from his song. In little nooks where the 

 early spring sunlight wells in pools of golden 

 warmth the perfumes of the arbutus blooms and 

 of the white-throat's song come first, and they 

 linger long into the summer where cool Northern 

 hillsides hold the spring in their shadows. Some- 

 times the autumn, too, gives us a rare reblooming 

 of the arbutus, and the white-throat sings his song 

 of pure contentment well into the mellow haze of 

 late September. 



Now that May is in the mountains one may 

 see the warblers budding from the twigs with the 



