n8 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



gleaner, but his songs are from the topmost limbs of some 

 bush or tree near by where his mate is nesting. On my way 

 from the interurban station to Buzzard's Roost there stood a 

 very large oak in a field close by an osage orange fence. Many 

 times from the top of that tree have I heard a brown thrasher 

 singing, evidently for his mate who was nesting in the osage 

 orange bushes, and, 



" 'Twas a song that rippled and reveled and ran 

 Ever back to the note whence it began, 

 Rising and falling and never did stay, 

 Like a fountain that feeds on itself all day." 



Mr. Cheney in his Wood Notes Wild describes the man- 

 ner of his singing by saying: "On a fine morning in June, when 

 he rises to the branch of a wayside tree, on the top of a bush 

 at the. edge of the pasture, the first eccentric accent convinces 

 us that the spirit of song has fast hold on him. As the fervor 

 increases his long and elegant tail drops; all his feathers sep- 

 arate ; his whole plumage is lifted, it floats, trembles ; his head 

 is raised and his bill wide open; there is no mistake, it is the 

 power of the God. No pen can report him now ; we must wait 

 till the frenzy passes." 



At Somerleaze he sings from the top of a white oak which 

 stands upon the lawn, and up there, as Lucy Larcom says : 



"The brown thrush keeps singing, 'a nest do you see, 

 And five eggs hid by me in the juniper tree? 

 Don't meddle! don't touch! little girl, little boy, 

 Or the world will lose some of its joy! 

 Now I'm glad! now I'm free! 

 And always shall be, 

 If you never bring sorrow to me ' " 



