, something worth any bird's while to
turn aside for a moment to look into. The innocent recluse! if he had
lived where I do he would have grown used to such "windy congresses."

[28] After all that has been said about the "pathetic fallacy," so
called, it remains true that Nature speaks to us according to our mood.
With all her "various language" she "cannot talk and find ears too." And
so it happens that some, listening to the black-throated green warbler,
have brought back a report of "_Cheese, cheese, a little more cheese_."
Prosaic and hungry souls! This voice out of the pine-trees was not for
them. They have caught the rhythm but missed the poetry.

A MONTH'S MUSIC

And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

COLERIDGE.

A MONTH'S MUSIC.

The morning of May-day was bright and spring-like, and should have been
signalized, it seemed to me, by the advent of a goodly number of birds;
but the only new-comer to be found was a single black-and-white creeper.
Glad as I was to see this lowly acquaintance back again after his seven
months' absence, and natural as he looked on the edge of Warbler Swamp,
bobbing along the branches in his own unique, end-for-end fashion, there
was no resisting a sensation of disappointment. Why could not the wood
thrush have been punctual? _He_ would have made the woods ring with an
ode worthy of the festival. Possibly the hermits--who had been with us
for several days in silence--divined my thoughts. At all events, one of
them presently broke into a song--the first _Hylocichla_ note of the
year. Never was voice more beautiful. Like the poet's dream, it "left my
after-morn content."

It is too much to be expected that the wood thrush should hold himself
bound to appear at a given point on a fixed date. How can we know the
multitude of reasons, any one of which may detain him for twenty-four
hours, or even for a week? It is enough for us to be assured, in
general, that the first ten days of the month will bring this master of
the choir. The present season he arrived on the 6th--the veery with him;
last year he was absent until the 8th; while on the two years preceding
he assisted at the observance of May-day.

All in all, I must esteem this thrush our greatest singer; although the
hermit might disp