MOTIF OF B1UD SONG. 73 



ennial piety? or does it make the tender pas- 

 sion unquenchably and constantly burn? I 

 have heard the crested titmouse utter its 

 slight song-sketch in mid-January on parallel 

 40 north when the thermometer indicated a 

 heavy dip below zero. On the other hand, I 

 have known fine male mocking-birds that re- 

 fused to sing for two weeks together in the 

 most golden period of a southern spring-time, 

 when the felicity of the mating and nesting 

 experience was at its highest height. I have 

 watched a lonely blue-jay, a mile removed 

 from his mate, sit on a bough and, with a 

 peculiar rhythmic motion of the body, give 

 forth a low, wheedling strain which could not 

 be heard more than ten or twenty yards 

 away. The indigo-bird has a very sweet, 

 twittering song, which is scarelyloud enough 

 Co be distinguished two rods from where he 

 sits, and yet he will pour it forth ecstatically 

 in the midst of a prairie, with none of his spe- 

 cies within the horizon. I have heard the 

 meadow-lark and the bluebird pipe their 

 dreamy scores in every month of the year, 

 regardless of the season of love. The cardinal 

 grossbeak does not wait for the time 



" Whan that Aprille with her showres swoote 

 The drought of March hath pierced to the roote," 



in order to begin his loud and cheery fluting 

 in the thickets, but will act as if December 

 were 



" as pleasant as May." 



Still, the larger fact is that spring is the 

 season when the volume of bird-song poured 

 round the world is incomparably stronger, 

 fuller, and sweeter than at any other; and 

 that, too, is the season of mating and of nest- 



