BIRD NOTES. 71 
There are few happier, more unmistakable, transcripts from 
bird notes than in that line of Emerson’s: 
“The redwing flutes his ‘O ka lee.’” 
In this brief transcript have we not an epitome of the sentinel- 
starling, scarlet epaulets, sable uniform, precious magazine of spot- 
ted eggs and all? In the “ Conk-a-ree” so often found among 
the pages of Thoreau’s spring notes we have an equally felicitous 
reminiscence of this tenant of the bog. Such is the challenge 
that comes to you across the spatter-docks, the tussocks, and the 
alders almost any day in May. With either key you will find 
your bird; and yet I am satisfied from dearly bought experience 
that a closer intimacy with the source of the sound reveals a cer- 
tain subtle, soggy, boggy regurgitation which is missed in both of 
them—echoes caught from a safe distance. There is more of the 
gurgle and the wet ooze in it—‘‘Gl-oogl-eee” is the distinct, un- 
colored utterance with which patience in a sheltered, knee-deep 
mud-hole will reward you after the “quit, quit” has subsided 
among the cat-tails and the willows. 
Who could not name the Maryland yellow-throat from the 
challenge caught by Burroughs as he loitered in the bushy retreat 
of the bird —“ Which way, sir? which way, sir? which way, sir?” 
or his “ Teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher” of the woods, known 
else as the oven-bird; or his bluebird, whose warble he calls “ the 
violet of sound,” and which says “Purity, purity” to him and ever- 
more to us all? But, alas! how are our senses attuned to our 
moods! or is this “drearily, drearily” among the flying leaves of 
November in truth the same song which we heard in April? 
Among these incessant spring roundels you certainly have not 
failed to note that occasional piercing shaft of song which seems 
to cleave the air straight from the hill-side meadow beyond—“ I 
see; I see you.” Who needs to prowl among fence-rails to dis- 
cover that black crescent breast and tapering bill of the meadow- 
lark, the young sportsman’s tempting target, and the playful 
“cache, cache” of the little French folk of our Acadian country? 
