It is not unprecedented for a bird to depart thus 

 from its usual song and to improvise. You may 

 detedt even the jay in this mood, though it is 

 wholly imitative with him. The love-song of the 

 catbird and the autumn reverie of the song-spar- 

 row are perhaps the best instances. I am not yet 

 wholly familiar with the songs of the robin. It 

 appears he is still studying music, and adds a phrase 

 or varies a theme occasionally. He is the most 

 romantic of the thrushes; his song is more per- 

 sonal and less spiritual than the others. When, in 

 early spring, the robins sing together at sundown, 

 there is an exquisite tenderness in their notes which 

 accords with the sweet youthfulness of the year. 

 It is later in the season, when his mate sits upon 

 the nest, that the robin rises to the heights of lyric 

 beauty and pours out his soul from the top of the 

 tallest maple in the swamp, — a brave sweet love- 

 song, sung with dignity and without hesitation, 

 that all his world may hear. 



At dawn he is moved a little more to the rapt 

 and religious expression of the thrushes. Some- 

 thing there is in the solemnity of that hour which 

 touches the hearts of all little birds. What it is 

 we shall perhaps never know; shall never know 



45 



