134 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS. 



iant warblers, if we except the kinglets, which are 

 northern birds in summer, and the Kentucky warbler, 

 which is a southern bird ; but they probably do not 

 match the English blackcap, or white-throat, or gar- 

 den warbler, to say nothing of the nightingale, though 

 Audubon thought our large-billed water - thrush, or 

 wagtail, equaled that famous bird. It is certainly a 

 brilliant songster, but most provokingly brief; the 

 ear is arrested by a sudden joyous burst of melody 

 proceeding from the dim aisles along which some 

 wild brook has its way, but just as you say " Listen ! " 

 it ceases. I hear and see the bird every season, 

 along a rocky stream that flows through a deep 

 chasm amid a wood of hemlock and pine. As I sit 

 at the foot of some cascade, or on the brink of some 

 little dark eddying pool above it, this bird darts by 

 me, up or down the stream, or alights near me, upon 

 a rock or stone at the edge of the water. Its speckled 

 breast, its dark olive-colored back, its teetering, minc- 

 ing gait, like that of a sandpiper, and its sharp chit, 

 like the click of two pebbles under water, are char- 

 acteristic features. Then its quick, ringing song, 

 which you are sure presently to hear, suggests some- 

 thing so bright and silvery that it seems almost to 

 light up, for a brief moment, the dim retreat. If 

 this strain were only sustained and prolonged like 

 the nightingale's, there would be good grounds for 

 Audubon's comparison. Its cousin, the wood wag- 

 tail, or golden-crowned thrush of the older ornitholo. 

 gists, and golden-crowned accentor of the later, a 



