Song Birds and Water Fowl 



brings one where he finds several noticeable 

 differences in the avifauna. 



One feels more of a sense of proprietorship 

 in birds that come about his own hired door 

 than in those he finds in public woods. Yet I 

 felt that they were not on my rented premises 

 by sufferance, but by virtue of a prior lease, 

 which made them tenants of all the world at 

 their own sweet will. Of about fifty species 

 that are quite abundantly represented here- 

 abouts, a large number were daily visitants in 

 the orchard, and devoted their -particular at- 

 tention to a large mulberry-tree, whose ripened 

 fruit hung among the branches like black rasp- 

 berries, which it somewhat resembles in flavor 

 also, but of which I hardly had a taste, so bold 

 and ravenous were the orioles, catbirds, robins, 

 and various smaller species that were on hand 

 to pick the fruit as fast as it ripened. 



There is no other bird that has just the wavy, 

 graceful, and buoyant motion of the downy 

 woodpecker. A brisk, and perhaps business- 

 like, cheerfulness is the characteristic mood of 

 this species; and, while not ranked as a songster, 

 its strong, rich note is quite consonant with its 

 feelings. The term "tone color," which is a 

 favorite one with musicians, expresses a truth 

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