58 BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



elms, or explored the mazes of the underbrush, or 

 played at bopeep in the shrubbery of our little 

 door-yards. And seldom are they silent. There 

 may be nothing uttered worthy of being called a 

 song, yet not the simplest twitter but has an earnest- 

 ness, an assurance of great happiness, that should 

 find an echo in our hearts. Hide, as I have often 

 done, in some thick-set bushes, and let the warblers 

 come very near you. Let the black-throated blue, 

 or the spotted, or the chestnut-sided, or any one of 

 the well-nigh endless series flit by, perchance stop 

 an instant and look you straight in the eyes, and 

 then salute you with a simple tzit-tzit-tzit See 

 these passing warblers in some such simple way, 

 see in them one of the chiefest of merits of this 

 magical May-day, and you have gathered some- 

 thing of the bird-life about you that will always 

 be remembered with delight. Perhaps, more than 

 all birds and buds and blossoms combined, they 

 make up the charm of this beautiful May-day ; cer- 

 tainly, by their numbers alone, they exert an influ- 

 ence readily recognized but not so easily ana- 

 lyzed. Warblers open the season, announce the 

 beginning of the long melodrama of summer, and 

 nowhere else in this wide world is mankind blessed 

 with more lovable heralds bringing good tidings to 

 one and all. 



Happily not all the warblers pass us by. Even in 

 the most artificial and therefore forbidding gardens 

 there are one or more kinds that we are quite sure to 

 see. A yellow summer warbler or an orange and 



