st like
that of our house wren, but, on the contrary, like that of our winter
wren. The theme is the same as the winter wren's, but the song did not
seem to me to be as brilliantly musical as that of the tiny singer of
the North Woods. The sedge warbler sang in the thick reeds a mocking
ventriloquial lay, which reminded me at times of the less pronounced
parts of our yellow-breasted chat's song. The cuckoo's cry was
singularly attractive and musical, far more so than the rolling, many
times repeated, note of our rain-crow.

We did not reach the inn at Brockenhurst until about nine o'clock, just
at nightfall, and a few minutes before that we heard a nightjar. It did
not sound in the least like either our whip-poor-will or our night-hawk,
uttering a long-continued call of one or two syllables, repeated over
and over. The chaffinch was very much in evidence, continually chaunting
its unimportant little ditty. I was pleased to see the bold, masterful
missel thrush, the stormcock as it is often called; but this bird breeds
and sings in the early spring, when the weather is still tempestuous,
and had long been silent when we saw it. The starlings, rooks, and
jackdaws did not sing, and their calls were attractive merely as the
calls of our grackles are attractive; and the other birds that we
heard sing, though they played their part in the general chorus, were
performers of no especial note, like our tree-creepers, pine warblers,
and chipping sparrows. The great spring chorus had already begun to
subside, but the woods and fields were still vocal with beautiful bird
music, the country was very lovely, the inn as comfortable as possible,
and the bath and supper very enjoyable after our tramp; and altogether I
passed no pleasanter twenty-four hours during my entire European trip.

Ten days later, at Sagamore Hill, I was among my own birds, and was much
interested as I listened to and looked at them in remembering the notes
and actions of the birds I had seen in England. On the evening of the
first day I sat in my rocking-chair on the broad veranda, looking across
the Sound towards the glory of the sunset. The thickly grassed hillside
sloped down in front of me to a belt of forest from which rose the
golden, leisurely chiming of the wood thrushes, chanting their vespers;
through the still air came the warble of vireo and tanager; and after
nightfall we heard the flight song of an ovenbird from the same belt
of timber. Overhead a