THE SONGS OF BIRDS 



each sparrow has his own set of songs. In the beech 

 and maple woods on a knoll above me I hear, day 

 after day, rain or shine, a scarlet tanager repeating 

 his song at almost all hours of the day, but without 

 the variations that the sparrow has. Sometimes he 

 comes down from his sylvan retreat and sings for a 

 few moments from the dry branch of an apple-tree 

 near us, delighting the eye with his scarlet coat more 

 than he does the ear with the burr in his voice. His 

 visits are brief. He is soon back to his maple retreat, 

 where his song is mellowed by distance. But from 

 the little sparrow on the old plum-tree there is no 

 escape. His persistent singing, early and late, in this 

 great country solitude becomes the dominant fact. 

 You cannot ignore it. It is as insistent as the clock. 

 He rings the changes of his five songs into your ears 

 over and over, ten times, a hundred times over, in 

 the morning before you are up. He reiterates them 

 tirelessly all the forenoon. They stand out sharply 

 upon the great silence. They challenge your atten- 

 tion almost to the verge of irritation. There is a 

 slight let-up in the afternoon, but "Mrs. Durkee" 

 is the last sound we hear as the twilight settles down. 

 There are no insect voices or other sounds, and the 

 little singer has the listening world all to himself. 



The question recurs to me, Does the feeling or 

 impulse which prompts the birds to sing correspond 

 at all to the feeling that prompts human beings to 

 sing? Does it give them or their mates pleasure? Is 



