Song Birds and Water Fowl 



tality beyond the sad and arduous limitations 

 of our earthly life. Let him be the delicate re- 

 minder, not of earthly accumulations, but of 

 lofty anticipations, which are not less powerful 

 than material comforts, to mitigate the miseries 

 of life. 



Late in March I discovered a rarity for this 

 latitude — a pair of crested titmice, allied to the 

 chickadee, and similar in habits, but larger. 

 Its crest gives it a jaunty air, but otherwise it 

 is plainly dressed, of a leaden hue throughout, 

 except chestnut sides. They first attracted my 

 attention by a peculiar hoarse sound, but soon 

 broke into a song whose snappy vigor and in- 

 flection is very much like that of the white-eyed 

 vireo. 



Besides those earliest species of birds that 

 announce themselves so conspicuously in song, 

 or by their friendly approach to human habita- 

 tion, there are a few others, which, although 

 not uncommon, are less abundant, and gener- 

 ally require more research to be discovered. 

 One of these is the meadow lark ; no connec- 

 tion of the shore lark, but belonging to the 

 starling family, a group that, so far as the 

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