SLATE-COLORED SNOWBIRD; JUNCO 303 



many sparrows are flitting past amid the birches and 

 sallows. They are chiefly Fringilla hyemalis. How 

 often they may be seen thus flitting along in a strag- 

 gling manner from bush to bush, so that the hedgerow 

 will be all alive with them, each uttering a faint cJiip 

 from time to time, as if to keep together, bewildering 

 you so that you know not if the greater part are gone 

 by or still to come ! One rests but a moment on the 

 tree before you and is gone again. You wonder if they 

 know whither they are bound, and how their leader is 

 appointed. 



Those sparrows, too, are thoughts I have. They come 

 and go; they flit by quickly on their migrations, utter- 

 ing only a faint chip, I know not whither or why ex- 

 actly. One will not rest upon its twig for me to scruti- 

 nize it. The whole copse will be alive with my rambling 

 thoughts, bewildering me by their very multitude, but 

 they will be all gone directly without leaving me a 

 feather. My loftiest thought is somewhat like an eagle 

 that suddenly comes into the field of view, suggesting 

 great things and thrilling the beholder, as if it were 

 bound hitherward with a message for me ; but it comes no 

 nearer, but circles and soars away, growing dimmer, dis- 

 appointing me, till it is lost behind a cliff or a cloud. 



May 20, 1858. The note of the F. hyemalis, ov chill- 

 lill, is a jingle, with also a shorter and drier crachling 

 or shuffling chip as it flits by. 



June 2, 1858. Some forty or fifty rods below the very 

 apex southeast, or quite on the top of the mountain,' I 

 ^ [Mt. Monadnock.] 



