“The nightingale alone 
She, poor bird, as all forlorn, 
Leaned her breast up — till a thorn 
And there sang the dolefullest ditty, 
That to hear it was great pity.” 
If each of us made lists of our most beloved songsters no 
doubt they would all be different. Mine would contain 
the wood thrush, robin, bluebird, rose-breasted grosbeak, fox, 
song, field, vesper, white-crowned, and white-throated 
sparrows, bobolink, warbling vireo, brown thrasher, ruby- 
crowned kinglet, and Maryland yellow-throat. 
The first time I ever heard a warbling vireo I was driving 
near a big cottonwood tree, when I noticed a lovely soft 
warble coming from one of the lower branches. It seemed 
to come from exactly the same spot each time, which was 
strange, as the vireos move about a great deal. Finally 
my glass revealed a charming little cup-shaped nest hanging 
from a leafy branch, and in this was seated the male vireo 
singing his sweet, meandering lay over and over, utterly 
unconscious, apparently, of the nearness of a listener. 
I feel quite sure that you know the song of the brown 
thrasher. He proclaims if from the house tops, as it were, 
and what a splendid, vigorous, challenging song it is! He 
seems to voice the very fullness of the spring. The catbird’s 
notes are a poor imitation of the thrasher’s, I think. He 
always seems to be playing second fiddle, and certainly the 
thrasher is the first violin! I have heard the catbird begin 
to sing in the dark stillness of a June morning at 2:30, and 
continue brokenly for an hour, as if it were half asleep, and 
sometimes at night I have heard the sandpiper’s piteous 
““weet-weet”’ as he winged his way along the dark lake shore 
on a stormy night. Have you ever gone out doors on still 
summer evenings and heard occasional faint peeps come from 
the thick trees? It makes one realize how these tiny crea- 
tures are sleeping close about us. 
People often say “Why name the birds? Enjoy them for 
their beauty and their song, and don’t try to tell them apart.” 
But I have not found that the people who can not tell them 
apart really enjoy them as much as those who can. If you 
know the name of a bird at once his whole life history is 
open to you and you can possess yourself of every interesting 
fact about him that has been recorded. Yes, indeed, if you 
study them at all do try to identify them accurately, though 
to do so you may have to decide in the short space of a few 
seconds whether your bird has white tail feathers or wing 
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