fairly
begun, what a sweet, pleasing little mystery the silent old bank holds!

The song sparrow, whose nest I have been describing, displays a
more marked individuality in its song than any bird with which I am
acquainted. Birds of the same species generally all sing alike, but I
have observed numerous song sparrows with songs peculiarly their own.
Last season, the whole summer through, one sang about my grounds like
this: _swee-e-t, swee-e-t, swee-e-t, bitter._ Day after day, from May
to September, I heard this strain, which I thought a simple but very
profound summing-up of life, and wondered how the little bird had
learned it so quickly. The present season, I heard another with a song
equally original, but not so easily worded. Among a large troop of
them in April, my attention was attracted to one that was a master
songster,--some Shelley or Tennyson among his kind. The strain was
remarkably prolonged, intricate, and animated, and far surpassed
anything I ever before heard from that source.

But the most noticeable instance of departure from the standard song
of a species I ever knew of was in the case of a wood thrush. The bird
sang, as did the sparrow, the whole season through, at the foot of my
lot near the river. The song began correctly and ended correctly; but
interjected into it about midway was a loud, piercing, artificial note,
at utter variance with the rest of the strain. When my ear first caught
this singular note, I started out, not a little puzzled, to make, as
I supposed, a new acquaintance, but had not gone far when I discovered
whence it proceeded. Brass amid gold, or pebbles amid pearls, are
not more out of place than was this discordant scream or cry in the
melodious strain of the wood thrush. It pained and startled the ear. It
seemed as if the instrument of the bird was not under control, or else
that one note was sadly out of tune, and, when its turn came, instead of
giving forth one of those sounds that are indeed like pearls, it shocked
the ear with a piercing discord. Yet the singer appeared entirely
unconscious of the defect; or had he grown used to it, or had his
friends persuaded him that it was a variation to be coveted? Sometimes,
after the brood had hatched and the bird's pride was at its full, he
would make a little triumphal tour of the locality, coming from under
the hill quite up to the house, and flaunting his cracked instrument
in the face of whoever would listen. He did not ret