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Nature About Boston 
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BY RALPH HOFFMANN 
T HE Transcript must before long 
create an ornithological depart¬ 
ment and add a bird editor to 
its staff. The duties of this edi- I 
tor should be to keep thoroughly posted 
as to the arrival of every bird from the 
north or the south, and to publish his ob¬ 
servations so that the readers of the Trans¬ 
cript who are constantly in the held may 
have the satisfaction of writing to him 
and announcing that they have seen the 
birds he mentions a day or two earlier. 
It is true that at present the Listener 
cheerfully prints animal stories and ac¬ 
counts of apple blossoms in October, but he 
already has his hands full laying down the 
law on all social, religious, literary and 
artistic questions. No man is omniscient. 
The first duty of the bird editor would be to 
have a card printed to read as follows: 
Dear Madam—Your letter announcing the 
presence of a pewee in January has been 
i duly received. You say that you did not 
| see the bird, but that you are thoroughly 
j familiar with its note. We respectfully 
| suggest that the pew r ee has never been 
i known to occur in New England in the win- ^ 
i ter months, and that the chieadee utters 
' besides his usual notes a call which closely 
' resembles the syllables pee-wee. Do not be 
\ mortified at your mistake; you are the — tn 
up to date. 
Ornithological Editor. 
A large supply of these cards will be i 
needed and the blank can be filled out by j 
referring to the back files of the Tran¬ 
script. 
It may be some time, however, before 
this department is created. In the mean¬ 
time it may be of interest to record in a 
desultory fashion the observations of one 
who, by his very inability to keep constant¬ 
ly in the fields offers his readers an un¬ 
usual opportunity to pride themselves on 
getting ahead of him. 
Ornithologists, like the birds which they 
study, are creatures of habit. When I left 
the house on Saturday, March 10, I had 
no special destination; I wanted only to 
rejoice In the brilliant sunshine and to find 
whatever intimations of spring the season 
offered. I let my feet follow their wonted j 
paths, and almost before I knew where 
I they were taking me, I found myself on a i 
[ well-known hillside that ove. looks the broad 
basin in which the Fresh Pond marshes I 
lie. A little brook was hurrying down to jj 
the plain. Where I stood, it had been led j 
over a little waterfall into a sort of a ■ 
reservoir. The music of its voice as it fell j 
over the stones, and the play of the j 
shadowy reflections from the rippiing water 
on the walls of the reservoir were a strong 
temptation to linger; it needed only a song- 
sparrow on an alder spray to complete the 
assurance of spring. The slow drip of the 
melting snow from each stone in the wall 
explained the vigor and assurance with 
which the little stream came rushing down 
the hillside; it had made alliance with the 
sun, and was now receiving tribute from 
every snowy bank with a southern ex¬ 
posure. 
From the hills in which the brook is 
cradled, one can look north as well as east, 
and see the outlines of Monadnock and the 
Peterboro hills, and the dark masses of 
forest and the snow-covered pastures on 
their sides. But today i kept to the warm 
southern slope, knowing well that any blue¬ 
bird that might chance to be here, would 
be in some warm corner, sheltered from 
the keen northwest wind. It is a pity that 
one can not be a keen student of birds 
and still remain unprejudiced in his views 
of wind and weather. If you are only a 
human being or a mere lover of the open, 
you will rejoice in these early March days; 
the wind blowing over the snow fields of 
the northwest sets your blood flowing at 
a livelier pace. But if you are hungry for 
the first spring bird, you know that the 
search is almost hopeless while the north¬ 
west blows, and you welcome a morning 
when the warm south wind gradually veils 
the distant horizon with haze. 
Turning my back, therefore, on the 
north and its mountains, I looked out 
over the plain toward the multitude of 
buildings which have gradually spread 
out over every hill from the fells on the 
left to the Newtons on the right. From 
the lower mass of shining roofs rise i 
frequent taller towers, each a memorial 
of some phase of man’s activity or of 
some deep human interest — monuments 
to patriotic devotion, domes and spires 
of every creed from the oldest to the 
newest, and at present most advertised, 
seats of learning and of government, tall 
chimneys, grain elevators and water 
towers—all these catch the eye along 
the sky line. A history of our civiliza¬ 
tion in all its present complexity might 
be written with these towers as texts. 
At night they fade from the landscape, 
and only the myriad sparkling lights 
show where the cities lie. The eye no 
longer distinguishes the great buildings 
which mark the heights of human attain¬ 
ment. The multitude of lights suggest 
only a great community of human beings [ 
struggling through their daily round of : 
homely cares and sorrows, joys and fears. 
All this time no welcome “purity” had 
fallen from the blue sky; no flutter of 
blue wings had marked the end of the 
winter famine and the beginning of a 
season of new delights. But from a 
neighboring field came a sound that re¬ 
minded me that this year at least we 
have not suffered from a winter famine. 
The sweet, plaintive call of a red-poll 
linnet, separated, perhaps, from his flock, 
came across the fields and a little later 
the tchit-tchit of flying birds. A large 
flock of red-polls were rising from a 
forest of pigweed which lias been their 
granary and dining table for at least a 
month. There are two sides to this ques¬ 
tion of slovenly farming. I much prefer 
that some of my neighbors should leave 
their weeds standing; it is very Impor¬ 
tant that the red poll linnets should have 
every inducement to stay in this neigh¬ 
borhood. 
The little hornets rose in successive 
flocks from every corner of the field and 
flew chittering into some small wayside 
elms. There they began a concert which 
suggested the spring choruses of red- 
winged blackbirds. Besides the tchit- 
tchit, ‘ which is their ordinary call note, 
fin . the sweet canary-like call which the 
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