406 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



July 10, 1851. The swallows are improving this short 

 day, twittering as they fly, and the huckleberry-bird 1 

 repeats his jingling strain, and the song sparrow, more 

 honest than most. 



July 12, 1851. I hear that sort of throttled or chuck- 

 ling note as of a bird flying high, now from this side, 

 then from that. 2 ... I am startled by the rapid transit 

 of some wild animal across my path, a rabbit or a fox, — 

 or you hardly know if it be not a bird. Looking down 

 from the cliffs, the leaves of the tree-tops shine more 

 than ever by day. Here and there a lightning-bug shows 

 his greenish light over the tops of the trees. 



As I return through the orchard, a foolish robin 

 bursts away from his perch unnaturally, with the habits 

 of man. 



July 13, 1851. I hear, 4 p. M., a pigeon woodpecker 

 on a dead pine near by, uttering a harsh and scolding 

 scream, spying me. The chewink jingles on the tops of 

 the bushes, and the rush sparrow, 3 the vireo, and oven- 

 bird at a distance ; and- a robin sings, superior to all ; 

 and a barking dog has started something on the oppo- 

 site side of the river; and now the wood thrush sur- 

 passes them all. 



July 16, 1851. Now, at 4 p. m., I hear the pewee in 

 the woods, and the cuckoo reminds me of some silence 

 among the birds I had not noticed. The vireo (red- 

 eyed ?) sings like a robin at even, incessantly, — for I 



1 [The field sparrow. See pp. 299, 300.] 



a [Probably a cuckoo. See Mr. Gerald H. Thayer's account of the 

 nocturnal flights of the black-billed cuckoo in Bird-Lore, September- 

 October, 1903, vol. v, pp. 143-145.] 



3 [The field sparrow. See note on p. 299.] 



