70 WAKE-ROBIN 
at various points along the route after leaving Lake 
George. As I went out to the spring in the morn- 
ing to wash myself a purple finch flew up before 
me, having already performed its ablutions. I had 
first observed this bird the winter before in the 
Highlands of the Hudson, where, during several 
clear but cold February mornings, a troop of them 
sang most charmingly in a tree in front of my 
house. The meeting with the bird here in its 
breeding haunts was a pleasant surprise. During 
the day I observed several pine finches, —a dark 
brown or brindlish bird, allied to the common yel- 
lowbird, which it much resembles in its manner 
and habits. They lingered familiarly about the 
house, sometimes alighting in a small tree within 
a few feet of it. In one of the stumpy fields I 
saw an old favorite in the grass finch or vesper 
sparrow. It was sitting on a tall charred stub with 
food in its beak. But all along the borders of the 
woods and in the bushy parts of the fields there 
was a new song that I was puzzled in tracing to the 
author. It was most noticeable in the morning and 
at twilight, but was at all times singularly secret 
and elusive. I at last discovered that it was the 
white-throated sparrow, a common bird all through 
this region. Its song is very delicate and plaintive, 
—a thin, wavering, tremulous whistle, which dis- 
appoints one, however, as it ends when it seems 
only to have begun. If the bird could give us the 
finishing strain of which this seems only the pre- 
lude, it would stand first among feathered songsters. 
