190 5-^, t'O r 
The Passincj of the Birds, 
[August, 
THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS. 
“ The Bird of Time has hut a little \Vay 
To flutter — and the Bird is on the Wing'.” 
Omak Khayyam. 
By the first of August the bird-lov¬ 
er’s year is already on tlie wane. In 
the chestnut grove, where a mouth ago 
the wood thrush, the rose-hreasted gros¬ 
beak, and the scarlet tauager Avere sing¬ 
ing, the loiterer now hears nothing hut 
the wood pewee’s pensive whistle and 
the sharp monotony of the red-eyed 
\dreo. The thrasher is silent in the 
berry pasture, and the bobolink in the 
meadow. The season of jollity is over. 
Orioles, to be sure, after a month of 
silence, again have fits of merry fifing. 
’Die field sparrow and the song sparrow 
are still in tune, and the meadow lark 
whistles, though rarely. Catbirds still 
practice their feeble improvisations and 
mimicries in the thickets along: the 
hrooksides as evening comes on, and of 
the multitudes of robins a feAv are cer¬ 
tain to be heard warbling before the 
day is over. Goldfinches have gi’own 
suddenly numerous, or so it seems, and 
not infrecpiently one of them breaks 
out in musical canary-like twitterings. 
On moonlight evenings the tremulous, 
haunting cry of the screech-oAvl comes 
to your ears, always from far away; 
and if you walk tlirough the chestnut 
grove aforesaid in the daytime you may 
chance to catch his faint, vibratory, 
tree-frog Avhistle. For myself, I never 
enter the grove without glancing into 
the dry top of a certain tall tree, to see 
whether the little rascal is sitting in 
his open door. More than half the 
time he is there, and always with his 
eye on me. What an air he has! — 
like a judge on the bench! If I were 
half as Avise as he looks, these essays 
of mine Avould never more he dull. For 
his and all other late-sunnner music let 
us he thankful; hut it is true, never¬ 
theless, that the year is Avaning. Hoav 
short it has been! Only the other day 
the concert ojjened, and already the per¬ 
formers are uneasy to he gone. They 
have crowded so much into so brief a 
space, — the jAassion of a lifetime into 
the quarter of a year! They are im¬ 
patient to he gone, I say; hut who knoAvs 
hoAv many of them are gone already ? 
Where are tlie blue golden-winged Avai'- 
hlers that sang daily on the edge of the 
Avood opposite my AvindoAvs, so that I 
listened to them at my work? I have 
heard nothing of their rough dsee, dsee 
since the 21 st of June, and in all that 
time have seen them hut once, — a 
single bird, a youngling of the present 
year, stumbled upon by accident Avhile 
pushing my way through a troublesome 
thicket on the first day of August. 
Who knows, I say, hoAV many such sum¬ 
mer friends have already left us? An 
odd coincidence, hoAvever, Avarns me at 
this very moment that too much is not 
to be made of merely negative experi¬ 
ences ; for even AAdiile I Avas penciling 
the foregoing sentence about the blue 
golden-Aving there came through the 
open windoAV the hoarse upward-sliding 
chant of his close neighbor, the prairie 
Avai-bler. I have not heard that sound 
since the Cth of July, and it is noAv 
the 22 d of August. Tlie singers had 
not gone, I kneAv; I saAv seA^eral of 
them (and beautiful creatures they 
are!) a few days ago among the pitch 
pines; but Avhy did that felloAv, after 
being dumb for six or seA^en Aveeks, pipe 
up at that precise moment, as if to 
punctuate my ruminations Avith an in¬ 
terrogation point ? Does he like this 
dog-day morning, Avith its alternate 
shower and sunshine, and its constant 
stickiness and heat? In any case I 
was glad to hear him, though I cannot 
in the spirit of veracity call him a good 
singer. Whist! There goes an oriole, 
a gorgeous creature, flashing from one 
