364 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



Monadnock-like one/ keeping up an exceedingly brisk 

 and lively strain. It was remarkable for its incessant 

 twittering flow. Yet we never got sight of the bird, 

 at least while singing, so that I could not identify it, 

 and my lameness ^ prevented my pursuing it. I heard 

 it afterward, even in the Franconia Notch, It was sur- 

 prising for its steady and uninterrupted flow, for when 

 one stopped, another appeared to take up the strain. 

 It reminded me of a fine corkscrew stream issuing with 

 incessant lisping tinkle from a cork, flowing rapidly, 

 and I said that he had pulled out the spile and left it 

 running.^ That was the rhythm, but with a sharper 

 tinkle of course. It had no more variety than that, but 

 it was more remarkable for its continuance and mo- 

 notonousness than any bird's note I ever heard. It evi- 

 dently belongs only to cool mountainsides, high up amid 

 the fir and spruce. I saw once flitting through the fir- 

 tops restlessly a small white and dark bird, sylvia-like, 

 which may have been it. Sometimes they appeared to 

 be attracted by our smoke. The note was so incessant 

 that at length you only noticed when it ceased. 



SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN 



Aug. 5, 1858. Just opposite this bay,* I heard a pe- 

 culiar note which I thought at first might be that of a 

 kingbird, but soon saw for the first time a wren within 



^ [On June 4 of the same year he had heard on Mt. Monadnock " a 

 very peculiar lively and interesting' strain from some bird," but had 

 been unable to see the singer.] 



^ [He had sprained his ankle the day before.] 



^ [The song described is evidently that of the winter wren.] 



* [Lily Bay in the Sudbury River and in the town of Sudbury.] 



