UNDER THE MAPLES 



his plumage in the intervals. He sings several 

 hundred times a day and has been doing so for many 

 weeks. The house wren during the breeding-season 

 repeats his song thousands of times a day, while 

 the red-eyed vireo sings continuously from morning 

 till night for several months. How a conscious 

 effort like that would weary our human singers and 

 their hearers ! But the birds are quite unconscious, 

 in our sense, of what they are doing. 



When we pause to think of it, what a spectacle 

 this singing sparrow presents! A little wild bird 

 sitting on a dead branch and lifting up its voice 

 in song hour after hour, day after day, week after 

 week. 



In terms of science we say it is a secondary sexual 

 characteristic, but viewed in the light of the spirit 

 of the whole, what is it except a song of praise 

 and thanksgiving— joy in life, joy in the day, joy 

 in the mate and brood, joy in the paternal and 

 maternal instincts and solicitudes, a voice from the 

 heart of nature that the world is good, thanksgiving 

 for the universal beneficence without which you 

 and I and the little bird would not be here? In 

 foul weather as in fair, the bird sings. The rain and 

 the cold do not silence him. 



There are few or no pessimists among the birds. 

 One might think the call of the turtle-dove, which 

 sounds to us like "woe, woe, woe," a wail of 

 despair; but it is not. It really means *'love, love, 



86 



