368 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



warble almost in the face of the chickadee, as if it were 

 one of its kind. It was thus giving vent to the spring 

 within it. If I am not mistaken, it is what I have heard 

 in former springs or winters long ago, fabulously early 

 in the season, when we men had but just begun to anti- 

 cipate the spring, — for it would seem that we, in our 

 anticipations and sympathies, include in succession the 

 moods and expressions of all creatures. When only the 

 snow had begun to melt and no rill of song had 

 broken loose, a note so dry and fettered still, so inartic- 

 ulate and half thawed out, that you might (and would 

 commonly) mistake for the tapping of a woodpecker. 

 As if the young nuthatch in its hole had listened only 

 to the tapping of woodpeckers and learned that music, 

 and now, when it would sing and give vent to its spring 

 ecstasy, it can modulate only some notes like that. 

 That is its theme still. That is its ruling idea of 

 song and music, — only a little clangor and liquidity 

 added to the tapping of the woodpecker. It was the 

 handle by which my thoughts took firmly hold on 

 spring. 



[See also under General and Miscellaneous, pp. 415, 

 416.] 



CHICKADEE 



[Dated only 1838.] Sometimes I hear the veery's 

 silver clarion, or the brazen note of the impatient jay, 

 or in secluded woods the chickadee doles out her scanty 

 notes, which sing the praise of heroes, and set forth 

 the loveliness of virtue evermore. — Phe-be. 



iVew. 9, 1850. The chickadees, if I stand long enough, 

 hop nearer and nearer inquisitively, from pine bough 



