ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 69 



recovered his full powers of voice. On the twenty- 

 ninth the phcebe came with his burden of sweet song, 

 and the first of April brought Bewick's wren — sweet- 

 voiced Arion of the suburbs — and the chipping 

 sparrow, whose slender peal of song rang through 

 my study window. Here my record stops for the 

 present year ; but by reference to my last year's 

 notes (1891) it appears that Bewick's wren did not 

 then arrive until April tenth, and chippy not until 

 April twelfth. The difference in the seasons is 

 doubtless the primary cause of this divergence in 

 the time of arrival. April brings many other winged 

 pilgrims, — the white-throated and white-crowned 

 sparrows, the thrushes, the orioles, the tanagers, 

 the cat-birds, the swallows and swifts, and some of 

 the hardier warblers, while the great army of war- 

 blers delay their coming till the first and second 

 weeks in May. And all the while we are having bird 

 concerts, cantatas, oratorios, and opera festivals, 

 mingled with some tragedy and a great deal of 

 comedy, and there are love songs and cradle songs, 

 matins and vespers, and twitterings expressive of 

 every shade and variety of feeling. 



I yield to the temptation to add a brief article 

 entitled " Watching the Parade," which was pub- 

 lished in a New England journal in the summer of 

 1893, and contains a record of some observations 

 made during the previous spring. By comparison 

 with the preceding part of this chapter, it will indi- 

 cate the versatile character of bird study in the 



