bird voices are silent as the grave and 

 summer reigns with undisputed sway. 

 The prince of woodland flycatchers, both 

 from point of coloring and attractive 

 personality, is the great crested ; his olive 

 brown back, whitish breast and sulphur- 

 yellow belly give hirn a more brilliant 

 appearance than the others just men- 

 tioned. His character, too, is better, for 

 he is neither as belligerent as the king- 

 bird or as gloomy as the Acadian and 

 wood pewee. His call is not unmelodi- 

 ous, though it would be misleading to 

 call it a song. 



April brings the orioles to play their 

 not insignificant part in the great color 

 scheme of Nature at this resurrection 

 season. I always associate the coming 

 of the orchard oriole with the opening 

 of the Chickasaw roses, and the arrival 

 of the Baltimore with the blooming of 

 the yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipi- 

 fera). For several seasons I caught my 

 first glimpse of the Baltimore's flame and 

 black in the top of a tall poplar, and 

 heard his cheery whistle as he dodged 

 in and out among the great cups, mak- 

 ing a breakfast on the insects whose 

 hum made the whole woods drowsy. A 

 few brief days of rest and pleasure in 

 this land of flowers and the orioles are 

 gone, except a few pairs that stay to 

 rear their families in these solitudes. 



A long, slim, brown body, a stealthy 

 way of sliding in and out among the 

 vines and limbs, and a shy, suspicious 

 air mark the black billed cuckoo or rain- 

 crow. He, too, stays but a few days. 

 When you see the raincrow it is time 

 to look for the Wilson's thrush ; but it 

 was never my privilege to hear him sing 

 in these forests. Perhaps he is tired out 

 with the long journey from the land of 

 eternal summer and wishes to be seen, 

 lUot heard. Writers tell us that this 

 thrush is very plentiful in certain locali- 

 ties, but in this section of the South I 

 saw only two specimens in four years. 



The musician of the thrush family, of 

 the whole woods for that matter, in some 

 points a successful rival of the mocking 

 bird, is the wood thrush. Dark cinna- 

 mon brown, of quite a uniform tint above 

 and white breast spotted with round, 

 black, or dark brown enable one to pick 

 him out easily from the rest of the 

 thrush familv. 



I remember hearing one 



o 



sing at a negro "baptizing" just at sun- 

 set of an April day. After the immer- 

 sion had taken place, as the ofiiciating 

 ''elder" led the candidate to the bank of 

 the pond, clear negro voices raised one 

 of the good old hymns. As the words 

 of the last verse died away on the eve- 

 ning air and the elder raised his hand 

 to pronounce the benediction, a wood 

 thrush in the nearby forest began his 

 vespers. Sweet, clear as a silver bell, 

 the notes arose, tinkling, reverberating, 

 tender but dignified, voicing in a half- 

 unconscious way the solemn emotions of 

 the hour. What is there in the singing 

 of even the best of trained choirs to com- 

 pare with this simple voice of Nature, 

 without affectation or conceit, arousing 

 the feelings and appealing to the noblest 

 instincts of our common nature. 



Birds crowd in upon us, bull bat, 

 chuck-wills-widow, turtle dove, gray- 

 cheeked thrush and titlark .come to see 

 us, some to stop and add their own indi- 

 vidual element to the local coloring, 

 others after a few hours of rest to con- 

 tinue their way northward. Multitudes 

 of sparrows, jays, thrashers, nuthatches, 

 titmice, woodpeckers, etc., that have en- 

 joyed our hospitality during the winter 

 and part of the spring pack up their 

 effects and leave, for summer is almost 

 here. 



The bird that to my mind is distinctly 

 the advance agent of summer has well 

 been called the summer tanager. He de- 

 lays his coming until straw hats and linen 

 suits appear; then what a dash of warm 

 color he brings. Seated on the topmost 

 bough of a tall oak, where the sun's 

 rays fall full upon him, he gives such 

 intense, palpitating color that one's eyes 

 are almost blinded looking at him. Rich 

 as is the red of the cardinal it appears 

 soiled and tarnished beside the summer 

 tanager. 



With a sigh we realize that the spring 

 migration is over for this year ; but there 

 is one consolation, only a part of its 

 music is hushed — the soul of Southern 

 bird life, the mocking bird, is left. In- 

 conspicuous by reason of his Quaker-gray 

 suit, he makes up in attractive manners 

 and variety of musical gifts what he lacks 

 in other respects. It is quite impossible 

 to do justice to this bird either in de- 

 scribinp- his bubbling^, effervescent life 



187 



