and after a long interval of silence on his own
part. Early and late he pipes and chatters, as if he imagined that the
spring were really coming back again forthwith. What the explanation of
this lyrical revival may be I have never been able to gather; but the
fact itself is very noticeable, so that it would not be amiss to call
the "golden robin" the bird of August.

The oriole's dusky relatives have the organs of song well developed; and
although most of the species have altogether lost the art of music,
there are none of them, even now, that do not betray more or less of the
musical impulse. The red-winged blackbird, indeed, has some really
praiseworthy notes; and to me--for personal reasons quite aside from any
question about its lyrical value--his rough _cucurree_ is one of the
very pleasantest of sounds. For that matter, however, there is no one of
our birds--be he, in technical language, "oscine" or "non-oscine"--whose
voice is not, in its own way, agreeable. Except a few uncommonly
superstitious people, who does not enjoy the whip-poor-will's
trisyllabic exhortation, and the _yak_ of the night-hawk? Bob White's
weather predictions, also, have a wild charm all their own, albeit his
persistent _No more wet_ is often sadly out of accord with the farmer's
hopes. We have no more untuneful bird, surely, than the cow bunting; yet
even the serenades of this shameless polygamist have one merit,--they
are at least amusing. With what infinite labor he brings forth his
forlorn, broken-winded whistle, while his tail twitches convulsively, as
if tail and larynx were worked by the same spring!

The judging, comparing spirit, the conscientious dread of being
ignorantly happy when a broader culture would enable us to be
intelligently miserable,--this has its place, unquestionably, in concert
halls; but if we are to make the best use of out-door minstrelsy, we
must learn to take things as we find them, throwing criticism to the
winds. Having said which, I am bound to go further still, and to
acknowledge that on looking back over the first part of this paper I
feel more than half ashamed of the strictures therein passed upon the
bluebird and the brown thrush. When I heard the former's salutation from
a Boston Common elm on the morning, of the 22d of February last, I said
to myself that no music, not even the nightingale's, could ever be
sweeter. Let him keep on, by all means, in his own artless way, paying
no heed to what I have