IN THE HEMLOCKS 53 



Yet in this the half is not told. He has a far rarer 

 song, which he reserves for some nymph whom he 

 meets in the air. Mounting by easy nights to the 

 top of the tallest tree, he launches into the air with 

 a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like certain 

 of the finches, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy of 

 song, clear, ringing, copious, rivaling the gold- 

 finch' s in vivacity, and the linnet's in melody. 

 This strain is one of the rarest bits of bird melody 

 to be heard, and is oftenest indulged in late in the 

 afternoon or after sundown. Over the woods, hid 

 from view, the ecstatic singer warbles his finest 

 strain. In this song you instantly detect his rela- 

 tionship to the water- wagtail, erroneously called 

 water- thrush, whose song is likewise a sudden 

 burst, full and ringing, and with a tone of youthful 

 joyousness in it, as if the bird had just had some 

 unexpected good fortune. For nearly two years this 

 strain of the pretty walker was little more than a 

 disembodied voice to me, and I was puzzled by it 

 as Thoreau by his mysterious night- warbler, which, 

 by the way, I suspect was no new bird at all, but 

 one he was otherwise familiar with. The little bird 

 himself seems disposed to keep the matter a secret, 

 and improves every opportunity to repeat before you 

 his shrill, accelerating lay, as if this were quite 

 enough and all he laid claim to. Still, I trust I 

 am betraying no confidence in making the matter 

 public here. I think this is preeminently his love- 

 song, as I hear it oftenest about the mating season. 

 I have caught half-suppressed bursts of it from two 



