ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS 127 



full spring fervor and delight. The wren, the 

 robin, and the wood-lark sing throughout the win- 

 ter, and in midsummer there are perhaps more 

 vocal throats than here. The heat and blaze of our 

 midsummer sun silence most of our birds. 



There are but four songsters that I hear with any 

 regularity after the meridian of summer is past, 

 namely, the indigo-bird, the wood or bush sparrow, 

 the scarlet tanager, and the red-eyed vireo, while 

 White names eight or nine August songsters, though 

 he spea^of the yellow-hammer only as persistent. 

 His dictum, that birds sing as long as nidification 

 goes on, is as true here as in England. Hence our 

 wood thrush will continue in song over into August 

 if, as frequently happens, its June nest has been 

 broken up by the crows or squirrels. 



The British songsters are more vocal at night 

 than ours. White says the grasshopper lark chirps 

 all night in the height of summer. The sedge-bird 

 also sings the greater part of the night. A stone 

 thrown into the bushes where it is roosting, after 

 it has become silent, will set it going again. Other 

 British birds, besides the nightingale, sing more or 

 less at night. 



In this country the mockingbird is the only regu- 

 lar night-singer we have. Other songsters break 

 out occasionally in the middle of the night, but so 

 briefly that it gives one the impression that they 

 sing in their sleep. Thus I have heard the hair- 

 bird, or chippie, the kingbird, the oven-bird, and 

 the cuckoo fitfully in the dead of the night, like a 

 schoolboy laughing in his dreams. 



