28 Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society. 
mellow notes; in catching, with favorable opportunity, the 
excited, tumultuous melody of the bobolink, suggestive of 
tinkling glass pendants, but never, to my mind, of anything 
resembling his name; and everywhere, along the roadside 
and in the fields, in hearing the soft, musical and happy 
strains of the song-sparrows. A pair of opera glasses and 
Grant’s little book, “Our Common Birds and How to Know 
Them,” have been valuable aids to this enjoyment. 
One Sunday afternoon last November, Wilbur’s Swamp, 
at the north end of Kay Street, was full of blackbirds, both 
the purple grackle and the red-wing. There were hundreds 
of them, to speak within bounds. The tops of the bushes 
and the ground near by seemed black with them. They 
were noisy and restless. Now and then a portion of them 
would suddenly start up and off, as if really away on their 
journey to the South, but invariably, after a short circling 
flight, with great whir of wings, they would come back and 
re-alight. All, however, was stir and excitement. What 
they talked about as they filled the air with their unmusical 
quonk-a-rees , why they made all of these false starts, whether 
they were waiting for cover of darkness or not, I could not 
tell, inasmuch as I was only a human being, and not a 
blackbird, and quite unable to understand their language. 
I left them there, but doubt not that by the morrow, guided 
by some mysterious knowledge of the ways of nature, they 
had all taken their flight, and left us to our winter silence. 
Some bright, comparatively mild morning, within the 
next three weeks, upon awakening early, amid the chirping 
of English sparrows your ear will perchance catch an un¬ 
usual note, which as you become fairly awake, resolves 
itself into the full, honest and hearty song of the robin. 
As you listen, another sound may greet you, and, like an 
echo to the louder voice of his larger brother, you hear the 
soft, melodious matins of the song-sparrow, and in thus 
hearing, you will realize that the opening of spring is at 
hand, and that the vanguard of some of the best and most 
welcome of our summer visitors has arrived. 
