NEAR VIEWS OF WILD LIFE 



love." The plaint of the wood pewee, pensive and 

 like a human sigh, is far from pessimistic, although 

 in a minor key. The cuckoo comes the nearest to 

 being a pessimist, with his doleful call, and the 

 catbird and the jay, with their peevish and com- 

 plaining notes, might well be placed in that cate- 

 gory, were it not for their songs when the love pas- 

 sion makes optimists even of them. The strain of 

 the hermit thrush which floats down to me from the 

 wooded heights above day after day at all hours, 

 but more as the shades of night are falling what 

 does this pure, serene, exalted strain mean but 

 that, in Browning's familiar words, 



God's in his heaven 

 All's right with the world! 



The bird may sing for his mate and his brood alone, 

 but what puts it into his heart to do that? 

 Certainly it is good to have a mate and a 

 brood! 



A new season brings new experiences with the 

 same old familiar birds, or new thoughts about 

 them. This season I have had new impressions of 

 our cuckoos, which are oftener heard than seen. 

 Of the two species, the black-billed and the yellow- 

 billed, the former prevails in the latitude of New 

 England, and the latter farther south. We 

 cannot hail our black-billed as "blithe new- 

 comer," as Wordsworth does his cuckoo. "Doleful 



87 



