ark.
The lining is often intermixed with horse hairs and feathers. Four
eggs of greenish-white or very pale bluish-green, speckled or spotted,
have usually been found in the nests.
The autumnal male Warblers resemble the female. They have two white
bands instead of one; the black stripes on the side are larger; under
parts yellowish; the throat yellowish, passing into purer yellow
behind. Few of our birds are more beautiful than the full plumaged
male of this lovely bird, whose glowing orange throat renders it a
conspicuous object among the budding and blossoming branches of the
hemlocks. Chapman says, coming in May, before the woods are fully
clad, he seems like some bright plumaged tropical bird who has lost
his way and wandered to northern climes. The summer is passed among
the higher branches in coniferous forests, and in the early fall the
bird returns to surroundings which seem more in keeping with its
attire.
Mr. Minot describes the Blackburnian Warbler's summer song as
resembling the syllables _wee-see-wee-see_, while in the spring its
notes may be likened to _wee-see-wee-see, tsee, tsee, tsee_, repeated,
the latter syllables being on ascending scale, the very last shrill
and fine.
THE LOST MATE.
Shine! Shine! Shine!
Pour down your warmth, great Sun!
While we bask--we two together.
Two together!
Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
Day come white, or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
If we two but keep together.
Till of a sudden,
May be killed, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest,
Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appeared again.
And thence forward, all summer, in the sound of the sea,
And at night, under the full of moon, in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from briar to briar by day,
I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one.
Blow! blow! blow!
Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore!
I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.
--WALT WHITMAN.
[Illustration: From col. F. M. Woodruff.
GOLDFINCH.
Copyrighted by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]
THE AMERICAN GOLDFINCH.
"Look, Mamma, look!" cried a little boy, as one day late in June my
mate
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