72 BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



increasing emphasis, syllables that I have always 

 likened to see-saw four or five times repeated. 

 There is a clear, fife-like tone in the song that en- 

 ables you to hear it when the bird is a long way off, 

 and much is gained, too, by its being a song in the 

 woods. The surrounding trees and dense foliage 

 seem to rid it of a certain harshness that would be 

 very noticeable if heard in an open field. 



Comparatively few people, I suppose, have heard 

 that other occasional sunset song of the oven-bird, 

 when the fife is laid aside for the flute and the earnest- 

 ness of the ordinary song gives place to a frenzied 

 utterance that it is in vain to attempt to analyze. It 

 may be thought the acme of non-appreciation, but 

 this occasional burst of song is too much in the nature 

 of a sudden impulse is too rapid, intricate, and 

 loud to affect me as do the softer tones of a more 

 calm and contemplative songster. One detects, it is 

 true, here and there a note of matchless sweetness, 

 but as a whole the exaggeration of sound and the 

 bird's excessive action are to me far more curious 

 than musical, and when it ceases, the " good-night" 

 of a wood-pewee or the dreamy warble of a yellow- 

 throat is far more acceptable to my ears. De gus- 

 tibus holds good of the songs of birds as of other 

 matters in this world, and I cannot share in the 

 enthusiasm spread over pages of our ornithological 

 literature ; either this, or I have never heard the 

 genuine songs described, but only a feeble imitation 

 thereof. I do not accept this explanation of a friend. 

 Delightful as is bird-music and much as it is to me, 



