56 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



birds knows the common chickadee, or black- 

 capped titmouse, as he was perhaps more commonly 

 called by our forefathers — the Parus atricapittus. 

 And to know him is to love him. " The nightingale 

 has a lyre of gold," the skylark pours out his melody 

 against the blue empyrean — both made famous by 

 generations of Old World poets. Our own hermit- 

 thrush, who is a much more skilled musician than 

 either, with a more exquisite timbre than even the 

 nightingale, has no classic background to sing 

 against, and because his song reaches its perfection 

 only in the depths of the Northern woods in June, 

 his incomparable melody is relatively unknown; 

 yet echoes of his prowess have reached us all. Our 

 minor poets have celebrated his inferior cousin, the 

 veery. The robin has almost ceased to be a bird, 

 and become a symbol. Edward Rowland Sill has 

 enshrined him in poetry, MacDowell in song — a 

 wistful song, quite unlike the buxom and ubiquitous 

 bird's own domineering melody. Yet, in spite of 

 all the poets have done, it is doubtful if any of us 

 who dwell in the northeastern section of the United 

 States, from Illinois to the sea, and even pretty well 

 south along the ridges of the Alleghanies, would 

 yield to any other bird the first place in our affec- 

 tions held by the little chickadee. 



Other birds go south in winter — the chickadee 

 remains. He, and he alone, is always present 

 either about our dwellings or in the woods, every day 

 in the year. Other birds are shy of man, save only 

 that pariah, the English sparrow, and even when 

 they build nests under our very eaves they avoid 

 human contact. But the chickadee will perch on 



