VESPER SPARROW; BAY-WING 289 



credibly narrow views, live on the limits, and have no 

 recollection of absolute truth. Mushroom institutions 

 hedge me in. But suddenly, in some fortunate moment, 

 the voice of eternal wisdom reaches me, even in the 

 strain of the sparrow, and liberates me, whets and clar- 

 ifies my senses, makes me a competent witness. 



April 2, 1858. On the side of Fair Haven Hill I go 

 looking for bay-wings, turning my glass to each spar- 

 row on a rock or tree. At last I see one, which flies 

 right up straight from a rock eighty or one hundred 

 feet and warbles a peculiar long and pleasant strain, 

 after the manner of the skylark, methinks, and close by 

 I see another, apparently a bay-wing, though I do not 

 see its white in tail, and it utters while sitting the same 

 subdued, rather peculiar strain. 



April 15, 1859. The bay-wing now sings — the first 

 I have been able to hear — both about the Texas house 

 and the fields this side of Hayden's, both of them sim- 

 ilar dry and open pastures. I heard it just before noon, 

 when the sun began to come out, and at 3 P. M., sing- 

 ing loud and clear and incessantly. It sings with a pleas- 

 ing deliberation, contrasting with the spring vivacity 

 of the song sparrow, whose song many would confound 

 it with. It comes to revive with its song the dry uplands 

 and pastures and grass-fields about the skirts of vil- 

 lages. Only think how finely our life is furnished in all 

 its details, — sweet wild birds provided to fill its in- 

 terstices with song ! It is provided that while we are 

 employed in our corporeal, or intellectual, or other, ex- 

 ercises we shall be lulled and amused or cheered by 

 • the singing of birds. When the laborer rests on bis 



