328 WILD SCENES AND SONG BIKDS. 



minutes since, the soft twittering of the Blue Martin, under- 

 neath the eaves ; has been becoming more and more musically 

 discordant, as meek dark eyes are opened amidst the gabble. 

 Now, from the family tree that shadows the roof, the loud, 

 clear song of the Eobin awakes his brooding mate. Now 

 the Cat-Bird's limpid roundelay steals out from the garden 

 hedge; and, in low ^Eolian twitterings, the delicate Blue 

 Bird greets the morning while, from the swinging summit 

 of some oak bordering the forest, the bold pipe of the Cardi- 

 nal Grosbeak rings its shrill call, waking the startled echoes 

 like the tiny clarion of some Knight of Fairie. And now, 

 from some scented tuft of grasses, delicious as the voice of 

 all their aromas, a rounded glide of melody, like dew-drops 

 rolling from a rose's cheek, creeps sudden on the sense from 

 where the dainty Meadow Lark leans its dark breast against 

 the clover-tops and all at once the garrulous clatter of the 

 gay Orchard Oriole breaks in. Now hush ! hush ! the noble 

 Brown Thrush has mounted to the spire of yon young maple 

 his inspiration is upon him and lo ! the deep and won- 

 drous flow of sound I plaintive, mellow, wild, and wierd 

 hark ! the ecstatic measured limpid gushes ! The sultry, 

 drowsy trill of the Song Sparrow, on the fence-post below, 

 is scarcely noted, although he rises on tip-toe to it, in his 

 furious earnest to be heard. And now the full choir is 

 aroused; and in a mighty burst of harmony the Sun is 

 greeted as his burnished disk wheels up the Orient. And 

 now the Monarch of Earth's song, who, like other aristo- 

 crats, keeps late hours, and therefore is in no hurry to rise 

 in the morning, thinks it full time to give his noisy subjects a 

 new lesson in music, and soon his powerful song climbs to 

 the throne of sound, and all other notes are hushed in the 

 usurping splendors of his majestic minstrelsy ! 



Now, too, away in the wild forest, the Hunter-Naturalist, 

 bearded and brown, as he sits beside his solitary camp firef 

 hears a consoling minstrelsy, as cheerful, as soft, as sweet 

 as any in this neighboring choir. Here him tell how a 



