PREFACE. 



Undoubtedly the thing we love and cherish most 

 about the little wild-wood singer is his song. The 

 music from the Robin sitting alone and apparently 

 cheerless on the bare branch of the elm beside the road 

 is at least a most welcome message with the true ring of 

 springtime about it, even though the meadow is bare of 

 any green thing, and the sky too dull and gray to sug- 

 gest the advent of the gentler season. The calendar 

 says it is March, but as far as appearances go it might 

 just as well be grim November except for the presence 

 of the Robin. But fortunately appearances are dis- 

 counted in a country where the poet has most aggra- 

 vatingly sung : 



" The spring comes slowly up this way." 



As though we did not know that without being told as 

 much in verse! The fact is, it really does not come at all 

 as the poets would have it, either early or late. That 

 familiar line of the old English poet, 



" Come, gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come"; 



is entirely unrelated to the order of things in the 

 northern United States ; here our spring is mostly made 

 up of sentiment connected with extended lists of sing- 

 ing birds and of hurriedly blooming wild flowers; all the 

 rest is weather and plenty of it! January thaws, 

 February snow-flurries, March gales, July heat, Decem- 

 ber frosts, August thunder-showers, and November 

 skies! All is out of order except the birds; they come 

 in regular procession, and sing, day in and day out, in 

 spite of the weather and apparently without a thought 

 of the preposterous disagreements of the climate and 

 the weather bureau! 



But the songs, what of them! why is the singer re- 

 corded in all the books, but never or hardly ever his 

 song? Well, the question is a difficult one to answer 

 without finding fault with some one, so it would be best 

 to make this little volume furnish the response. Here 



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