78 ADIRONBAC. 



out to the spring in the morning to wash myself a pur- 

 ple finch flew up before me, having already performed 

 its ablutions. I had first observed this bird the winter 

 before in the Highlands of the Hudson, where during 

 several clear but cold February mornings a troop of 

 them sang most charmingly in a tree in front of my 

 house. The meeting with the bird here in its breeding 

 haunts was a pleasant surprise. During the clay I ob- 

 served several pine finches — a dark brown or brin- 

 dlish bird, allied to the common yellow-bird, which it 

 much resembles in its manner and habits. They lin- 

 gered familiarly about the house, sometimes alighting 

 in a small tree within a few feet of it. In one of the 

 stumpy fields I saw an old favorite in the grass finch 

 or vesper sparrow. It was sitting on a tall charred 

 stub with food in its beak. But all along the borders 

 of the woods and in the bushy parts of the fields there 

 was a new song that I was puzzled in tracing to the au- 

 thor. It was most noticeable in the morning and at 

 twilight, but was at all times singularly secret and 

 elusive. I at last discovered that it was the white- 

 throated sparrow, a common bird all through this re- 

 gion. Its song is very delicate and plaintive — a thin, 

 wavering, tremulous whistle, which disappoints one, 

 however, as it ends when it seems only to have begun. 

 If the bird could give us the finishing strain of which 

 this seems only the prelude, it would stand first among 

 feathered songsters. 



By a little trout-brook in a low part of the woods 



