PEPACTON 



"A blackbird whistling overhead 

 Thrilled through my brain;" 



and again these from " The Fountain of Youth: " - 



" 'T is a woodland enchanted; 

 By no sadder spirit 

 Than blackbirds and thrushes 

 That whistle to cheer it, 

 All day in the bushes." 



The blackbird of the English poets is like our 

 robin in everything except color. He is familiar, 

 hardy, abundant, thievish, and his habits, manners, 

 and song recall our bird to the life. Our own native 

 blackbirds, the crow blackbird, the rusty grackle, 

 the cowbird, and the red-shouldered starling, are not 

 songsters, even in the latitude allowable to poets; 

 neither are they whistlers, unless we credit them 

 with a "split-whistle," as Thoreau does. The twc 

 first named have a sort of musical cackle and gurgle 

 in spring (as at times both our crow and jay have), 

 which is very pleasing, and to which Emerson aptly 

 refers in these lines from "May-Day:" 



"The blackbirds make the maples ring 

 With social cheer and jubilee" 



but it is not a song. The note of the starling in 

 the trees and alders along the creeks and marshes is 

 better calculated to arrest the attention of the casual 

 observer; but it is far from being a song or a whistle 

 88 



