DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 31 



light night fifteen years before, a night far more terrible in its 

 heat than this had been, a night so hot that I think none of us 

 in the Green Springs Valley, westward of Baltimore, slept at all 

 from bedtime until sunrise. There was coolness in this Cat- 

 bird's voice ; his notes were cool tiames, the eastern ruddiness 

 transmuted into sound, cool flames that played up about the 

 dooryard thicket as lovelilj'- as Loki's fire-music in the Rhein- 

 gold. I suppose it was the ' ' morning redness ' ' that brought 

 Loki to my mind, and it was undoubtedly this that brought to 

 me thoughts of Jacob Boehme, I wondered had any of the Ger- 

 man immigrants to Pennsylvania, to whom Boehme was "a light 

 in this world's darkness", thought of him on like mornings two 

 hundred years ago, when they, too, were watching the "morn- 

 ing redness", perhaps with prayer on their lips and ecstasy in 

 their hearts. 



My Catbird sang long and when he did come to an end, what 

 I thought a new song set me hunting its singer, who turned out 

 to be, when I at length located him, a Baltimore Oriole. His 

 song was individual, but it was not beautiful, the only unbeau- 

 tiful Oriole song I ever heard among these hills. Bluebirds 

 warbled about the house all day, and Barn Swallows again and 

 again passed twittering, and the Solitary Vireo manj'- times 

 bubbled up his song from the patch of woods westward. Red- 

 eyes were as vociferous as could be, morning, noon and evening, 

 and Cedarbirds and Tanagers, respectively quiet and talkative, 

 came every few minutes to help the Robins and Chipping Spar- 

 rows strip the oxheart tree of its cherries. The day's end was 

 memorable for the two Wood Thrushes that sang from the trees 

 of the little place, their first visit here so far as I can remember. 



As soon as I began to resume my old walks all the birds so 

 familiar hereabouts were come upon again, in the very same 

 places as in former years ; for they are very local, as indeed are 

 the rarer birds everywhere, in my experience. The very frequent 

 hearing of Cuckoo voices was a feature of these walks, the cooing 

 of both the Yellowbill and the more mellow-voiced Blackbill 

 being very often heard. The Sloitary Vireos, too, had in- 

 creased. I never heard their songs so often before, and each 

 hearing of it increased my Hking for its full and delightful war- 



