1902.
May 18
(No 2)
  I have no doubt that the pair of Hummingbirds
which I have seen almost daily about the farm
house during the past week are the same birds
that nested in the big elm last year & reared
their brood in safety. As I was watching the
male this morning I was surprised to see him
visit a number of dandelion blossoms in succession
probing each with his bill as he poised just over it.
  It has never occurred to me until this
season that the listless, warbling song of the
Chestnut-sided Warbler, which we hear oftenest late
in June but occasionally at this season, is very
like the song of the Myrtle Warbler. I had several
opportunities a week or so ago to make direct
comparisons between the two and really I could
not certainly distinguish them.
  The House Wren was in full song early this
afternoon in the orchard near the brick schoolhouse
where he has apparently settled for the season.
  The conditions which govern the singing of
birds are a constant puzzle to me. Yesterday, as
I noted in this journal, they sang all the day through
while the concert in the Blueberry Pasture last evening
was something to long remember. To-day they sang
with equal freedom and spirit through the forenoon but
only fitfully & sparingly in the afternoon. I was in the
Blueberry Pasture from 6.30 to 7.30 and during the greater
part of this period it was as silent as the grave. Yet
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