120 FRESH FIELDS 



"White names twenty-two species of birds that 

 sing in England during the spring and summer, 

 including the swallow in the list. A list of the 

 spring and summer songsters in New York and 

 New England, without naming any that are charac- 

 teristically wood-birds, like the hermit thrush and 

 veery, the two wagtails, the thirty or more war- 

 blers, and the solitary vireo, or including any of 

 the birds that have musical call-notes, and by some 

 are denominated songsters, as the bluebird, the 

 sandpiper, the swallow, the red- shouldered starling, 

 the pewee, the high-hole, and others, would embrace 

 more names, though perhaps no songsters equal to 

 the lark and nightingale, to wit: the robin, the 

 catbird, the Baltimore oriole, the orchard oriole, 

 the song sparrow, the w^ood sparrow, the vesper 

 sparrow, the social sparrow, the swamp sparrow, 

 the purple finch, the wood thrush, the scarlet tan- 

 ager, the indigo- bird, the goldfinch, the bobolink, 

 the summer yellowbird, the meadowdark, the house 

 wren, the marsh wren, the brown thrasher, the 

 chewink, the chat, the red-eyed vireo, the white- 

 eyed vireo, the Maryland yellow-throat, and the rose- 

 breasted grosbeak. 



The British sparrows are for the most part song- 

 less. What a ditty is that of our song sparrow, 

 rising from the garden fence or the roadside so 

 early in March, so prophetic and touching, with 

 endless variations and pretty trilling effects; or the 

 song of the vesper sparrow, full of the repose and 

 the wild sweetness of the fields; or the strain of 



