MASS. (Middlesex Co.) [Middlesex County, Massachusetts]
Spring notes of Junco hyemalis 
Curious actions of a Certhia Am [Certhia americana]
1876.
(March 24 [March 24, 1876]) attention to this matter and it is a pity that
the effort is always abandoned in the end
for so far as it goes it is a very pretty little performance.
The usual trill is given, then come round
liquid little notes, then a barely attempted snatch
of ringing melody broken off suddenly by the
monotonous trill again. The effect of all 
this is to impress one with the idea of musical
ability of raw excellence of which this is the first
budding. Some of the fragmentary notes are
of exceeding sweetness and occasionally a 
performer will burst out in an impassioned
rapid gush of melody as if he had just
found the key to that which he had been seeking
& then as if ashamed of his impulsiveness
will break off suddenly in the best of it
and return to the conventional trill again. This 
is to me one of the strangest of Natures freaks
and either suggests, in the case of Junco, descent
from some more musical ancestor or promise
of better things in the future; the former
hypothesis I prefer: it is as if the bird were
trying to recollect some wonderfully sweet
melody: trying it again and again it 
nearly catches the chie at times, but failing
to quite accomplish this the mating season
comes and it [delete]will not[/delete] returns to the only
[delete]melody[/delete] song it feels sure of. What a pity it could
not commence practice sooner: perhaps then
it would be ready with its performance in
time and would astonish us all with notes
excelling even the hermit thrush or the fox sparrow.
Saw large numbers of robins, a few blackbirds
& some fox sparrows. Parus atricap [Parus atricapillus] still in flocks: 
Juncos migrating. Saw five Certhias & one of them
entered a shed on our place and crept up
[margin]one of the posts in search of insects, I also saw the same bird light among the exterior twigs of a lilac bush sitting with the body perpendicular the tail pressed down among them for support, the whole attitude in fact exactly as when ascending a tree trunk. I think the bird never sits crossways on a limb[/margin]