Song Birds and Water Fowl 



certainly never incur the curse pronounced 

 upon lukewarmness, for he looks simultane- 

 ously cold and hot, in the dead black and white 

 of the body, and the fiery orange of the head 

 and breast. The slender, neck-laced Canada 

 warbler was among the most abundant, and 

 singing his long and sprightly strain, of which, 

 however, he does not seem to have quite mas- 

 tered the rhythm. But the novelty of the day 

 was the yellow-breasted chat ; for I had never 

 had the good fortune, until this morning, to 

 hear the vocal antics of this oddity of genius, 

 this crooked stick in ornithology. I am sure 

 that Nature was in a merry, saucy mood 

 when she devised this fellow's numerous eccen- 

 tricities. Externally, indeed, she took great 

 pains with him, for he looks quite fit to be a 

 ladies' man, so unutterably immaculate and 

 elegant. But when she proceeded to fit him up 

 interiorly, she gave him vocalizing powers that 

 are decidedly on the slap-dash order ; and the 

 outcome is more incoherent and incongruous 

 than the medley of the catbird or the thrasher. 

 He whistles, and grunts, and bubbles so con- 

 fusedly, that the listener cannot but wonder 

 what droll vagary he will next perpetrate. His 

 accompanying gymnastics and wild careerings 



32 



