124 FRESH FIELDS 



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, mincing gait, 

 like that of a sandpiper, and its sharp chit, like the 

 click of two pebbles under water, are characteristic 

 features. Then its quick, ringing song, which you 

 are sure presently to hear, suggests something 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 nightin- 

 gale's, there would be good grounds for Audubon's 

 comparison. Its cousin, the wood wagtail, or golden- 

 crowned thrush of the older ornithologists, and 

 golden-crowned accentor of the later, a common 

 bird in all our woods, has a similar strain, which 

 it delivers as it were surreptitiously, and in the 

 most precipitate manner, while on the wing, high 

 above the treetops. It is a kind of wood-lark, prac- 

 ticing and rehearsing on the sly. When the modest 



