404 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



1850. In all my rambles I have seen no landscape 

 which can make me forget Fair Haven, I still sit on its 

 Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening 

 woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with 

 the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to 

 me as ever what this world is. Fair Haven Lake in the 

 south, with its pine-covered island and its meadows, the 

 hickories putting out fresh young yellowish leaves, and 

 the oaks light-grayish ones, while the oven-bird thrums 

 his sawyer-like strain, and the chewink rustles through 

 the dry leaves or repeats his jingle on a tree-top, and 

 the wood thrush, the genius of the wood, whistles for 

 the first time his clear and thrilling strain, — it sounds 

 as it did the first time I heard it. The sight of these 

 budding woods intoxicates me, — this diet drink. 



1850. Now, about the first of September, you will see 

 flocks of small birds forming compact and distinct 

 masses, as if they were not only animated by one spirit 

 but actually held together by some invisible fluid or film, 

 and will hear the sound of their wings rippling or fan- 

 ning the air as they flow through it, flying, the whole 

 mass, ricochet like a single bird, — or as they flow over 

 the fence. Their mind must operate faster than man's, 

 in proportion as their bodies do. 



Nov. 8, 1850. Everything stands silent and expectant. 

 If I listen, I hear only the note of a chickadee, — our 

 most common and I may say native bird, most identified 

 with our forests, — or perchance the scream of a jay, or 

 perchance from the solemn depths of these woods I hear 

 tolling far away the knell of one departed. Thought 

 rushes in to fill the vacuum. As you walk, however, the 



