74 NEW HAMPSHIRE 



them are gone, it is true, but many others are 

 left ; and wherever you take your walk you may 

 have joy of them. You will need to be blind and 

 deaf, or of a hopelessly sour temper, not to catch 

 a little of their cheeriness. Three days ago (it 

 was an anniversary with me, and I was early 

 abroad) I went into the kitchen garden before 

 breakfast, as I have been doing frequently of 

 late, to see what birds might be there. For a 

 month and more, as the coarse grasses and weeds 

 have ripened their crop (the garden, luckily for 

 me, having been allowed to go untended), the 

 place has been a favorite resort of sparrows. 

 There I saw the Lincoln finches in their time, — 

 on September 5 and subsequently, — and there 

 for a fortnight past I have always been able to 

 begin the day with a few white-crowns. 



Well, on the morning in question one of the 

 first things I heard was a brief, uncharacteristic, 

 autumnal-sounding ditty which, being too short 

 for a song sparrow's work, I at once credited to 

 a white-crown ; and, to be sure, when I looked 

 that way, there the bird stood on a top stone of 

 the wall, a young fellow, not yet " crowned," 

 practicing his first musical exercises. The morn- 

 ing was cool, — the ground had stiffened over- 

 night, — and every time he opened his mouth to 

 sing, a tiny cloud of vapor could be seen rising 



