AMERIOAN ORNITHOLOGY. 41 



mer. I whistled and he replied with a soft twitter, as he had the season 

 before. On a branch a few feet from him sat a demure little mate, preening 

 her feathers, whom the dauntless cavalier had found somewhere in the sunny- 

 Southland, or had met on his journey thither. Early in April they began to 

 repair the forsaken nest of last year, brooded and reared their young un- 

 molested and with no mishap. As I look from my window a sunny morning 

 I often wonder if some bright spring morning I shall hear again the merry 

 notes of my little brown friend. 



Bertie M. Phillips^ 



Oxford, Maine. 



TWO BIRDS AND A GARDEN. 



Ten evergreens in a row, heavy of figure and foliage, deep and green in 

 the brightest sunlight. Place given to shrubberies, flower beds, with inter- 

 vening spaces of lawn — the garden wall, and beyond the usual surroundings 

 of a rural neighborhood. This is my garden. 



You may watch for a month amid the forest, or even in the cheerful and 

 well liked meadow resorts, and not see, nor hear, as many small birds as may- 

 be noted in a day from our open window overlooking a quarter of an acre 

 with the furnishings just described. 



The Chickadee's unchanging note, sounding out of the midst of a Febru- 

 ary snowstorm, the eerie voice of a stray Whip-poor-will, heard in the soft 

 darkness of a June night; the Meadow-larks long drawn note of chronic de- 

 spondency coming for the most part from the fields beyond the garden wall, 

 and sometimes nearer at hand; the Owl's ill-omened utterances from the 

 depths of the evergreens on a moonless November night ; the fairy-like utter- 

 ances of the Wren and Warbler tribe, — these and others go toward making 

 up the number of different sounds which may be counted upon surely. 



There are, however, included in this description, a half dozen or so, which, 

 imless some dire calamity befalls them, may be relied on to appear with as 

 much certainty as the grass and tree foliage, when times and conditions are 

 ready for them. Among these, always in the foreground of the recollection 

 is the garden's Robin. 



Just here it may be said, that when the early settlers gave this big Thrush 

 the name by which it has since been known, because of the brick-dust colored 

 bosom and partiality for the vicinity of dwelling houses brought to mind the 

 amiable songster they had left over the seas; it remained for a closer ac- 

 quaintance to show that this prominent feathered inhabitant of the New 

 World was interested chiefly in the advantages the newly ploughed fields 

 around the settlements aff"orded for his principal occupation of exhuming 



