84 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER. 



.the heat of the dog-days. I still hear him 

 singing as persistently as ever, whenever 

 my walk takes me to the high, open 

 pastures beyond Sunnyside. 



Thoreau writes in his journal, under 

 date of June 23, 1856: " To New Bedford 



with R . Baywings sang morning and 



evening about R 's house, often resting 



on a beanpole, and dropping down and 

 running and singing on the bare ground 

 amid the potatoes their note somewhat 

 like Come here, here there, there (then 

 three rapid notes) quick, quick, quick, 

 or I'm gone" 



The long, vibrating whistle of the field- 

 sparrow, or bush-sparrow, as John Bur- 

 roughs calls him, is one of the character- 

 istic sounds of midsummer on the bushy 

 hillside. Thoreau, writing of summer, 

 says : " Maybe the huckleberry-bird best 

 expresses the season, or the red-eye. 

 What subtile differences between one sea- 

 son and another ! " I was long in doubt 

 what bird Thoreau meant by the huckle- 

 berry-bird, but in view of this remark, and 



