AN OCTOBER DIARY. 3iS 



the year round. Their song, lie adds, he has never lieard, 

 and quotes Nuttall's description. This does not do the 

 bird justice. The notes are more like those of a song- 

 sparrow than of the field-chippy, and have that liquid 

 character which is their greatest charm. The late Wil- 

 son Flagg does the swamp-sparrow justice, in remarking 

 that " he sings so sweetly that the very desolation of the 

 scene borrows a charm from his voice." But I can only 

 go part way with Mr. Flagg. How any one can call a 

 swamp desolate is indeed strange ! The mucky meadow 

 desolate ! Is it a scene of desolation, even in October, 

 to watch the waving of the tall reeds, as the breezes 

 gently sway them ; to hear the song of this sparrow, 

 of which I have said so much; to watch the broad- 

 winged harrier beat the grass, that frightened birds may 

 rise to, perhaps, their own destruction ; to mark the 

 mighty flocks of red-wings that, as a cloud, settle on the 

 reeds, and bend them to the water's edge ; to hear the 

 songs of half our winter birds, that now are coming from 

 their summer homes in the North ; to follow in their 

 flight, as, with all the grace of a fly-catcher, the blue- 

 birds sally over the reeds in pursuit of the few remain- 

 ing insects ? All this, and more, passed before me in the 

 course of my walk to-day, along the grassy margin of 

 the marsh ; and never would it occur to me to call such 

 a spot a scene of desolation. That spot is, to me, deso- 

 late, in proportion as man has eradicated nature's handi- 

 work. 



October 20. — A misty morning, at sunrise, withont 

 a trace of frost ; and all quiet, both in the fields and 



