MIDSUMMER MELODIES. Ill 



repay the closest attention. Some birds are almost 

 as active wiien thie mercury is wrestling with the 

 nineties as on the fairest day of May, and those 

 are the ones to be studied in midsummer. 



My special investigations began about the middle 

 of July. It is true that at that time what are usually 

 regarded as the songsters of the first class — the 

 brown thrashers, wood-thrushes, cat-birds, and bobo- 

 links — had gone into a conspiracy of silence, not 

 a musical note coming from their throats, although 

 some of them always remain in this latitude until 

 far into September. But when the first-class min- 

 strels are mute, one appreciates the minor vocalists 

 all the more. Yet I must not omit to say that on 

 the thirtieth of July I caught. a fragment of a wood- 

 thrush's song, the last I heard for the season. 



Let me recall one day in particular. It was the 

 tenth of August, and the weather was broiling, — hot 

 enough to drive the thermometer into hysterics, 

 just the day to see how the heat would affect the 

 feathered tenants of the groves ; and so, overcoming 

 my physical inertia as best I could, I stalked to 

 the woods in the afternoon in quest of bird lore. 

 With the perspiration running from every pore, I 

 trudged about for some time without seeing or hear- 

 ing a single bird. Were the books correct, after all? 

 Was I to be deprived of the pleasure of proving 

 them in error? It began to appear as if such 

 might be the case. Presently, however, as I pushed 

 out into a gap at one side of the woods, an uneasy 

 chirping in the clumps of bushes and brambles near 



