WHAT BIRDS SAY AND SING 235 



place chimneys, seeming to pay not the shghtest 

 attention to the smoke of occasional summer fires 

 on chilly evenings. With neither rhyme nor reason 

 and with no particular musical tone nor inflection, 

 they cry above us: "Chip, chip, chip, chippy, 

 chip, chip!" They are beautiful birds of tireless 

 wing and invaluable insecticides. 



Another familiar bird of ours which invades 

 the verandas of the Cabin, north, and hunts sweets 

 over the wall-pockets and big jardinieres of wild 

 flowers on the broad stone copings, is the ruby- 

 throated hummingbird. These birds come to us 

 surrounded by the humming of their invisible 

 wings so that we know of their presence by their 

 hum and their passage through the air near to or 

 over our heads. With squeaks of delight, they 

 greet masses of blood-red Oswego tea, lavender 

 bergamot, and deep yellow butterfly flower. I 

 have heard hummingbirds, with open bill and dis- 

 tended throat, perching on an ash limb above a 

 widely spreading bed of Oswego tea, sing an amus- 

 ing murmuring continuous sound that I think 

 undoubtedly they intended for song; but it is 

 even more hopeless of translation than the song 

 of the wren. 



Without fail, under the boat-house, under the 

 dock, on the logs of the Cabin, north, and through 

 the woods, every year we have Phoebe birds. 

 The male begins early in the morning, and an un- 

 believable number of times to the minute for 



