34 



BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



of the universe rested upon him. Best of all, the 

 chewink's taste in matters of locality is always excel- 

 lent. There must be water near. It detests our 

 usual late summer drought, and quits the neighbor- 

 hood at the earliest intimations of its coming ; but 

 given a cool, damp hollow 

 in the woods, a fern-hidden 

 cow-path through the thick-set 

 sproutland, an upland swamp 

 well grown with blueberries, or 

 some rocky ledge from which 

 trickles a little spring, 

 and there will be no hap- 

 pier occu- 

 pant of 

 the place 

 than the 

 chew ink. 

 Happy, if 

 a con- 

 stant, self- 

 contented chirping of chewink is evidence 

 thereof; and to this is added a sprightly song when the 

 bird leaves the ground for a moment and whistles so 

 that all may hear, chee-do, de de de de de. It is an 

 early song with us, heard often when the shad-blos- 

 soms begin to show, and sometimes earlier, as when 

 the first seekers of arbutus venture into the oak woods 

 and hear it in some shady hollow where the snow 

 perhaps still lingers. In May, when the chorus of 

 returning summer is sung in the orchard, I hear an 



Chewink. 



