Bird-Songs Interpreted 



their songs, I have derived much help from 

 the somewhat whimsical translations that 

 have been made by naturalists of various 

 bird-songs into their corresponding English 

 phrases. For instance, after reading Mr. 

 Burroughs's charming description of the 

 oven-bird or golden-crowned thrush and its 

 song, I have never had the least difficulty 

 in naming it from that sweetly intense, 

 crescendo cry in the summer woods of 

 "Teacher, teacher, TEACHER!" as if the bird 

 were appealing with childish insistence to 

 some prim, unheeding preceptress of a 

 feathered school. 



A boy once asked me : "What is that bird 

 that sings so much in the summer, and goes, 

 Rickety-rickety-rickety?" I identified the 

 songster at once by the boy's literal render- 

 ing of its phrase, as the Maryland yellow- 

 throat, and have ever since been unable to 

 translate its song into any other English 

 equivalent. So, if you should chance to 

 catch, some summer, a rapid proclamation 

 of weak-jointedness in bird language, you 

 may jot down in your note-book that you 

 have heard a Maryland yellow-throat. 



The other morning I woke up at dawn 



79 



