246 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



and when he lifted it out, the notes fell like bubbles 

 from the trembling strings. Methinks they are the most 

 liquidly sweet and melodious sounds I ever heard. 

 They are refreshing to my ear as the first distant tin- 

 kling and gurgling of a rill to a thirsty man. Oh, never 

 advance farther in your art, never let us hear your full 

 strain, sir. But away he launches, and the meadow is 

 all bespattered with melody. His notes fall with the 

 apple blossoms, in the orchard. The very divinest part 

 of his strain dropping from his overflowing breast sin- 

 gultim, in globes of melody. It is the foretaste of such 

 strains as never fell on mortal ears, to hear which we 

 should rush to our doors and contribute all that we 

 possess and are. Or it seemed as if in that vase full of 

 melody some notes sphered themselves, and from time 

 to time bubbled up to the surface and were with diffi- 

 culty repressed. 



June 2, 1857. That bobolink's song affected me as if 

 one were endeavoring to keep down globes of melody 

 within a vase full of liquid, but some bubbled up irre- 

 pressible, — kept thrusting them down with a stick, but 

 they slipped and came up one side. 



June 26, 1857. I must be near bobolinks' nests many 

 times these days, — in E. Hosmer's meadow by the 

 garlic and here in Charles Hubbard's, — but the birds 

 are so overanxious, though you may be pretty far off, 

 and so shy about visiting their nests while you are there, 

 that you watch them in vain. The female flies close past 

 and perches near you on a rock or stump and chirps 

 whit tit, whit tit, whit it tit tit te incessantly. 



Aiif/. 18, 1858. Miss Caroline Pratt saw the white 



