MIDSUMMER MELODIES. 113 



voluntaries almost every day at the border of the 

 woods until about the twentieth of August. Still 

 more lavish of his melody was the indigo-bird, which 

 on several occasions was the only songster, besides 

 the wood-pewee, heard during a long stroll through 

 the woods. An irrepressible minstrel, he is the most 

 cheery member of the midsummer chorus. My 

 notes say that the Maryland yellow-throat was sing- 

 ing in splendid voice on the first of August, but I 

 am positive I heard him later in the month, as he 

 is one of our most rolUcksome midsummer choralists. 

 The goldfinch sang cheerily on the first, eighteenth, 

 and nineteenth of August, and I cannot say how 

 often in July and August I heard the loud refrain 

 of the Carolina wren. 



On the tenth, twelfth, fourteenth, eighteenth, 

 and nineteenth of August, the Baltimore oriole piped 

 cheerily, though he had partly doffed his splendid 

 vernal robes, and was beginning to don his modest 

 autumnal garb. The cardinal bird fluted frequently 

 during July and August, and, besides, regaled me 

 with a vocal performance on the third of September. 

 The last record I have of the towhee bunting's 

 trill is the tenth of August; but before that date 

 he was quite lavish of his music. On many of 

 my tramps to the woods the sad minor whistle of 

 the black-capped chickadee pierced the solitudes, 

 making one dream of one's boyhood days, — 



" When birds and flowers and I were happy peers," 



as Lowell would phrase it. 



