AMERICAN ROBIN 389 



at once to the alders to reconnoitre us, the blackbirds, 

 the song sparrow, telling of expanding buds. But above 

 all the robin sings here too, I know not at what dis- 

 tance in the wood. " Did he sing thus in Indian days ?" 

 I ask myself ; for I have always associated this sound 

 with the village and the clearing, but now I do detect 

 the aboriginal wildness in his strain, and can im- 

 agine him a woodland bird, and that he sang thus when 

 there was no civilized ear to hear him, a pure forest 

 melody even like the wood thrush. Every genuine thing 

 retains this wild tone, which no true culture displaces. 

 I heard him even as he might have sounded to the 

 Indian, singing at evening upon the elm above his 

 wigwam, with which was associated in the red man's 

 mind the events of an Indian's life, his childhood. 

 Formerly I had heard in it only those strains which 

 tell of the white man's village life ; now I heard those 

 strains which remembered the red man's life, such as 

 fell on the ears of Indian children, — as he sang when 

 these arrowheads, which the rain has made shine so on 

 the lean stubble-field, were fastened to their shaft. 

 Thus the birds sing round this piece of water, some on 

 the alders which fringe, some farther off and higher up 

 the hills ; it is a centre to them. 



March 18, 1853. I stand still now to listen if I may 

 hear the note of any new bird, for the sound of my 

 steps hinders, and there are so few sounds at this sea- 

 son in a still afternoon like this that you are pretty 

 sure to detect one within a considerable distance. 

 Hark ! Did I not hear the note of some bird then ? 

 Methinks it could not have been my own breathing 



