TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 303 



robins, as I do not see the latter hustling them 

 about any more. Probably they want to stand 

 well with their neighbors, anc« so go away from 

 home to commit their robberies. 



IV 



If a new bird appears in my neighborhood, 

 my eye or ear reports it at once. One April 

 several of those rare thrushes, —Bicknell's or 

 Slide Mountain thrush — stopped for two days 

 in my currant-patch. How did I know? I 

 heard their song as I went about the place, a fine 

 elusive strain unlike that of any other thrush. 

 To locate it exactly I found very difficult. 

 It always seemed to be much farther off than it 

 actually was. There is a hush and privacy 

 about its song that makes it unique. _ It has 

 a mild, fluty quality, very sweet, but m a sub- 

 dued key. It is a bird of remote northern 

 mountain- tops, and its song seems adjusted to 

 the low, thick growths of such localities. 



The past season a solitary Great Carolina 

 wren took up its abode in a bushy land near 

 one corner of my vineyard. It came late m the 

 season, near the end of August, the only one I 

 had ever heard north of the District of Colum- 

 bia. During my Washington days, many years 

 ago, this bird was one of the most notable song- 

 st'ers observed in my walks. His loud, rolling 

 whistle and warble, his jocund calls and saluta- 

 tions — how closely they were blended with all 

 my associations with nature on the Potomac. 



