356 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIKDS 



jingle rings through the wood at short intervals, as if, 

 like an electric shock, it imparted a fresh spring life to 

 them. You hear the same bird, now here now there, as 

 .it incessantly flits about, commonly invisible and utter- 

 ing its simple jingle on very different keys, and from 

 time to time a companion is heard farther or nearer. 

 This is a peculiarly summer-like sound. Go to a warm 

 pine wood-side on a pleasant day at this season after 

 storm, and hear it ring with the jingle of the pine warbler. 



OVEN-BIRD; GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH; 

 " NIGHT- WARBLER " ^ 



June 11, 1851. I hear the night-warbler breaking 

 out as in his dreams, made so from the first for some 

 mysterious reason. 



June 29, 1851. The night- warbler sings the same 

 strain at noon. 



May 10, 1853. P. M. — Hear the night-warbler now 

 distinctly. It does not soon repeat its note, and disap- 

 pears with the sound. 



June 19, 1853. Heard my night-warbler on a soli- 

 tary white pine in the Heywood Clearing by the Peak. 

 Discovered it at last, looking like a small piece of 

 black bark curving partly over the limb. No fork to 

 its tail. It appeared black beneath ; was very shy, not 

 bigger than a yellowbird, and very slender. 



^ [Practically all of Thoreau's references, however slight, to his mys- 

 terious " night-warbler " are here printed. He never satisfied himself 

 as to the identity of the bird, but the accumulated evidence makes it 

 clear that the night-warbler's song was no other than the flight-song of 

 the oven-bird, though the somewhat similar aerial song of the Mary- 

 land yellow-throat deceived him on one occasion.] 



