MORNING IN SUMMER. 171 



that may be heard distinctly among the warbling host. 

 He is never found in cultivated grounds, but frequents 

 the wild pastures, and is the bird that warbles so sweetly 

 at midsummer, when the whortleberries are ripe, and the 

 fields are beautifully spangled with red lilies. There is 

 no confusion in the notes of his song, which consists of 

 one syllable rapidly repeated, but increasing in rapidity, 

 and rising to a higher key towards the conclusion. He 

 sometimes prolongs his strain, when his notes are 

 observed to rise and fall in succession. These plain- 

 tive and expressive notes are very loud and constantly 

 repeated, during the whole hour that precedes the rising 

 of the sun. A dozen. warblers of this species, singing 

 in concert, and distributed in different parts of the field, 

 form perhaps the most delightful part of the woodland 

 oratorio to which we have yet listened. 



As the woods are the residence of a tribe of musi- 

 cians that differ from those we hear in the open fields 

 and orchards, one must spend a morning in each of 

 these situations, to obtain a hearing of all the songsters 

 of daybreak. For this reason I have said nothing of 

 the thrushes, that sing chiefly in the woods and solitary 

 pastures, and are commonly more musical in the early 

 evening than in the morning. I have confined my 

 remarks chiefly to those birds that frequent the orchards 

 and gardens, and dwell familiarly near the habitations 

 of men. 



At sunrise, hardly a robin is to be heard in the whole 

 neighborhood, and the character of the performance has 

 completely changed during the last half hour. The 

 first part was more melodious and tranquillizing, the 

 last more brilliant and animating. The grassfinches, 

 the vireos, the wrens, and the linnets have joined their 

 voices to the chorus, and the bobolinks are loudest in 



