THE LIFE OF BIRDS 157 
ness, the Song Sparrow its changing pulsations 
of more positive and varied joy, and the Robin 
its cheery and superabundant vitality. The 
later birds of the season, suggesting no such 
fine-drawn sensations, yet identify themselves 
with their chosen haunts, so that we cannot 
think of the one without the other. In the 
meadows we hear the languid and tender drawl 
of the Meadowlark,— one of the most pecul- 
iar of notes, almost amounting to affectation 
in its excess of laborious sweetness. When we 
reach the thickets and wooded streams, there is 
no affectation in the Maryland Yellow-throat, 
that little restless busybody, with his eternal 
which-ts-it, which-ts-it, which-is-it, emphasizing 
each syllable at will, in despair of response. 
Passing into the loftier woods, we find them 
resounding with the loud proclamation of the 
Golden-crowned Thrush, — scheat, scheat, 
scheat, scheat, — rising and growing louder in 
its vigorous way. And penetrating to some yet 
lonelier place, we find it consecrated to that 
life-long sorrow, whatever it may be, which is 
made immortal in the plaintive cadence of the 
Pewee Flycatcher. 
There is one favorite bird, —the Chewink, 
or Ground Robin, — which I always fancied 
must have been known to Keats when he wrote 
those few words of perfect descriptiveness, — 
