Sel ee yO BON 3 UI BEN 7 
writes: “‘The song is a rather slow, monotonous trill; the key varies 
much, being sometimes lower than that of any other warbler song with 
which I am familiar and always lower than that of the Worm-eating 
Warbler, which it somewhat resembles in other respects.” 
It was over twenty years ago that I first met the Pine Warbler and I 
can recall the incident vividly: I see again the white sand; the wagon 
tracks winding among the huckleberry bushes; the rank upon rank of 
blossoming Mountain Laurel and the snowy plumes of the Turkey 
Beard; against the sky the dark top of a pitch pine and there, clinging to 
the edge of a needle-clump is a little greenish looking bird that pauses 
in his tour of inspection and sings a little trill. That was the first meeting 
and during the following week that monotonous little trill was to be 
indelibly stamped upon my memory for our route lay among the pines 
and Pine Warblers were ever near us. I returned from that trip feeling 
that I had learned to know a new bird for which a birdlover is ever 
thankful. 
That first trip among the New Jersey pines was followed by numerous 
others, both afoot and by canoe, during which the Pine Warbler’s song 
was ever a feature of the landscape. Later I heard that same song in the 
Maine woods and more recently along the Gulf Coast in southern 
Mississippi and Louisiana—that same monotonous little trill—the same 
little bird singing the same little song in the February woods of Louisiana 
or the August woods of Maine. And I have come to the conclusion that 
it was not a new bird that I learned to know on that June day twenty 
years ago. Rather it was a bird’s song that I learned so well among those 
New Jersey pines. To me this little bird is a voice. It is the Pine 
Warbler’s song that stands for something in the background of my 
memory. 
After all, bird songs mean much or little according to the mood of the 
hearer. A Song Sparrow’s cheery notes on a gray March morning may 
sound better to us than the exquisite flute of a Wood Thrush on a lovely 
June evening. It is not the beauty of a bird’s song that finds the deepest 
response in our hearts. Rather it is the associations surrounding a bird’s 
song that gives it first place in our affections. And that is how it was 
with the Pine Warbler’s song that February day in Arkansas for it 
called to mind memories of many happy days afield among the pines— 
happy, carefree days when my world was young. 
