EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 11 



No thrush song, however, will ever equal that first 

 one which I heard among the birch trees. Creeping 

 softly along the path that evening, I finally saw the 

 little singer on a branch against the darkening sky. 

 Again and again he sang, until at last I noticed that, 

 when the highest notes were reached and the song 

 ceased to my ears, the singer sang on still. Quiver- 

 ing in an ecstasy, with open beak and half-fluttering 

 wings, the thrush sang a strain that went beyond my 

 range. Like the love-song of the bat, perhaps the 

 best part of the song of the hermit thrush can never 

 be heard by any human ear. 



It was the morning of June twentieth. I stood at 

 the gate of the farm-house where three roads met, 

 and the air was full of bird-songs. For a long time I 

 stood there, and tried to note how many different 

 songs I could hear. Nearby were the alto joy-notes 

 of the Baltimore oriole. Up from the meadow where 

 the trout brook flowed, came the bubbling, gurgling 

 notes of the bobolink. Robins, wood thrushes, song 

 sparrows, chipping sparrows, blue-birds, vireos, gold- 

 finches, chebecs, indigo birds, flickers, phoebes, scar- 

 let tanagers, red-winged blackbirds, catbirds, house 

 wrens altogether, without moving from my place, 

 I counted twenty-three different bird-songs and 

 bird-notes. 



Nearby I saw a robin's nest, curiously enough built 

 directly on the ground on the side of the bank of one 

 of the roads, and lined with white wool, evidently 

 picked up in the neighboring sheep-pasture. This 



