beauty, says only ‘‘Sh-hush-hush-hush.”’ And do you know 
the faint lisp of the cedar bird, just a “t’sip”, or the Burr- 
r-r-r- of a grasshopper sparrow? Think of what a contrast 
these queer little cicada-like sounds are to the glorious hymn 
of a wood thrush! Songs that are the extremes of insignifi- 
cance or beauty are easy to learn. Yet a bird’s song is 
always more or less evasive. You begin to have a feeling of 
certainty about some songs when humiliating incidents occur 
which reveal your real ignorance. I remember asserting 
with great positiveness to a company of friends that a 
strange whistle we heard was a towhee bunting’s opening 
note, when a keener eyed person than myself spied a caged 
canary which hung on a neighboring porch in the very act 
of uttering that note! 
But I have said too much about the unusual songs. It is 
the common ones that I am most thankful for. Common I 
mean from the frequency with which we hear them. I have 
never heard a nightingale, but I wonder if it has one whit 
more glorious a song than our wood thrush, who pours out 
his full rich contralto notes from every group of trees. I have 
heard the exquisite lay of the hermit thrush as it floated down 
to me from a New England mountain side, and, remembering 
his reputation as being the finest singer among the American 
birds, I have tried to agree with the general judgment; but 
I secretly felt all the time he was singing that our own wood 
thrush was quite his equal. 
Do you know the song sparrow’s sweet tinkling notes? 
There are few birds I should be more loth to give up. Storms 
and cold do not depress his happy spirits and it puts new 
courage into me to hear his cheery song on some bleak 
March morning. He is one of ‘‘the little birds” that is worth 
knowing. If you can learn the round, melodious warble of 
the rose-breasted grosbeak, the martial fife of the handsome 
Baltimore oriole, the tremulous sweet whistle of the field 
sparrow, thesoft carol of the bluebird, and the liquid rush of a 
bobolink’s gay melody this year, you will have made a great 
addition to your fund of delights. Perhaps you already 
know all these and many more, but many people are not even 
sure of our own robin’s beautiful song, and I begin to think 
that the birds do not have many auditors, at least not human 
ones. Very few female birds can sing, but have you noticed 
how often the poets allude to a songster as the feminine 
gender? In the old lines, for example: 
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