io8 Twelve Months With 



"And in the sultry garden-squares, 



Now thy flute notes are changed to coarse, 

 I hear thee not at all, or hoarse 

 As when a hawker hawks his wares." 



The usual raucous notes of the yellow-head are 

 not unlike a "hawker hawking his wares," rather 

 laborious and squeaky, yet with here and there an 

 agreeable whistle thrown in unexpectedly. 



Upon the occasion of this visit to the yellow- 

 heads, I alighted from the train at a bridge over a 

 small stream, near which I expected to find the 

 colony of blackbirds. Before I had gotten down 

 the embankment I caught sight of a female blue- 

 bird carrying a grub to a hole in an old elm stub 

 beside the stream while the male bird was 



"* * * shifting his light load of song 

 From post to post along the cheerless fence." 



as Lowell so beautifully and aptly describes the 

 fluttering flight and bubbling song of this "April 

 poem that God has dowered with wings." 



As the date was July first, this must have been 

 at least the third brood of young birds for this 

 pair, because they often begin nesting as early as 

 the first week in April. 



A little farther down the stream, as I sat down 

 under an elm to rest and enjoy the cool shade for 

 a moment, I observed a pair of red-headed wood- 

 peckers regularly visiting an old dead sycamore, 

 and, upon inspecting the opposite side of the stub, 



