of
the forest, and in the bushy pasture.

There is a peculiar wildness in the songs of this class of birds, that
awakens a delightful mood of mind, similar to that which is excited by
reading the figurative lyrics of a romantic age. This feeling is,
undoubtedly, to a certain extent, the effect of association. Having
always heard their notes in rude, wild, and wooded places, they never
fail to bring this kind of scenery vividly before the imagination, and
their voices affect us like the sounds of mountain-streams. There is a
little Sparrow which I often hear about the shores of unfrequented
ponds, and in their untrodden islets, and never in any other situations.
The sound of his voice, therefore, always enhances the sensation of rude
solitude with which I contemplate this wild and desolate scenery. We
often see him perched upon a dead tree that stands in the water, a few
rods from the shore, apparently watching our angling operations from his
leafless perch, where he sings so sweetly, that the very desolation of
the scene borrows a charm from his voice that renders every object
delightful. This bird I believe to be the _Fringilla palustris_ of
Wilson.

It is certain that the notes of the solitary birds, compared with those
of the Robin and Linnet, excite a different class of sensations. I can
imagine that there is a similar difference in the flavors of a cherry
and a cranberry. If the former is sweeter, the latter has a spicy zest
that is peculiar to what we call natural fruit. The effect is the same,
however, whether it be attributable to some intrinsic quality, or to
association, which is indeed the source of some of the most delightful
emotions of the human soul.

Nature has made all her scenes, and the sights and sounds that
accompany them, more lovely, by causing them to be respectively
suggestive of a certain class of sensations. The birds of the pasture
and forest are not frequent enough in cultivated places to be associated
with the garden or village inclosure. Nature has confined particular
birds and animals to certain localities, and thereby adds a poetic and a
picturesque attraction to their features. There are also certain flowers
that cannot be cultivated in the garden, as if they were designed for
the exclusive adornment of those secluded arbors which the spade and the
plough have never profaned. Here flowers grow which are too holy for
culture, and birds sing whose voices were never heard in the cage of