AT NATURAL BRIDGE 275 



weeping willow, huge of girth, a very patri- 

 arch, yet still green as youth itself. Here 

 were good farm-loving birds, a pleasant soci- 

 ety. A pair of house wrens came at once 

 to look at the stranger, and one of them in- 

 terested rae by dusting itself in the road. 

 Two kingbirds were about the apple-trees 

 (apple-tree flycatchers would be my name 

 for them, if a name were in order), now sit- 

 ting quiet for a brief space, now scaling the 

 heavens, as if to see how nearly perpendicu- 

 lar a bird's flight could be made, and then 

 tumbling about ecstatically with rapid vocif- 

 erations, after the half -crazy manner of their 

 kind. The kingbird is plentifully endowed 

 not only with spirit, but with spirits. A 

 goldfinch sang and twittered in the softest 

 voice, and a catbird mewed. From a quince 

 bush, a little farther off, a wild bobolinkian 

 strain was repeated again and again, — an 

 orchard oriole, I thought most likely. I 

 went nearer (to the shade of a low cedar), 

 and soon had him in sight, — a young male 

 in yellow plumage, with a black throat- 

 patch. The song was extremely taking, and 

 the more I heard it, the more it seemed to 

 have the true bobolink ring. The quince 



