!O IN WINTER. 



by, not a chirp, but a short series of sweet notes, 

 that well repaid me for my recent labors. Then, 

 darting into the thicket, the wren was gone, but 

 I was not left alone. At the same moment, a 

 troop of tree- sparrows settled upon the clustered 

 water-birches, and their united voices rose to the 

 dignity of a bird's song, Such it evidently was 

 intended to be, for the chattering of birds, when 

 they merely chirp or twitter which is but their 

 conversation is never so softly modulated, but 

 pitched in a hundred different keys. This be- 

 came noticeable directly afterward, for the birds 

 scattered among the undergrowth, and the short, 

 quick utterances that I soon continually heard 

 bore no resemblance to the two or three notes, 

 which, before they had separated, they uttered in 

 concert. 



And as I returned home, while crossing a 

 wide meadow where the rank grasses afforded 

 excellent cover, I found many small brown birds 

 that ran through them as aimlessly as frightened 

 mice; they were titlarks, as it proved. None 

 sang until I was near at hand, when one after 

 the other rose a short distance from the ground, 

 flew a few feet, and uttered, while on the wing, a 

 sharp, but bell-like note that was truly musical. 

 Another and another started up, at almost every 

 step, but only to alight again directly. At 

 times there were four or five in sight at once, 



