Sharp County record., 1879-09-11

pear, both old and young are geIIlng
ready to depart.
The wood thrush yet sings, especially
if he has been delayed in rearing his
brood, as so frequently happens. This
bird has not learned the art OF conceal
ing its nest from the crows and jays
and red squirrels, as has the indigo
bird, the catbird and many others. 1t
avoids o thick tangle and close screen
of leaves, and builds in the fork OF
some sapling or elder, seven or eight
feet from the ground, always well sha-
ded, but never artfully concealed;
Hence they are robbed and robbed
again. But misfortune does not break
the birds spirit. After some days OF
silence, the pair look out new place,
the female goes to work again, and the
male strikes up his golden, melodious
chant, and continues it till the young
are ready to fly, often long past mid
summer.
The robin, too, sings till its second
brood is out of the nest. But there are
some real midsummer and some all
summer songsters-birds that apparent
ly sing without any reference to nidifi-
cation, but, like real poets, for the
sweet pleasure it affords them. Con-
spicuous among these is the little indi-
90 bird, whose bright, joyous strain
comes from some tree-top, or from mid
air, nearly all hours of the day, from
June to September. His plumage
fades, but fades not his song. He faces
the blazing sun, and the scorching
winds, and is as happy as if the season
of love had just begun with him. His
song is marked by strength and anima-
ton, with slight plaintive tinge. A
friend tells me of one he used to hear
during the long summer days whose
song was peculiar, and sounded very
much like the words: Three cheers !!
Three cheers! Good to eat! Good to
eat!"
Not less noticeable, and more plain
tive and sweet, is the chant of the little
bush or wood sparrow, the country
cousin of the trim little social sparrow,
less neatly dressed and combed than the
latter bird, but q nightingale beside it
in musical ability. 1t is one of the ear
liest songsters in spring, and one of the
latest in summer. With me it has but
few rivals in April, and it has none in
August. Its song is simple, child-like
strain, q sweet and tender dirge. On
hearing it, the image it calls to mind is
that of the wavelets of q pool from a
fallen stone reversed, or running from
the circumference to the center. 1t has
a circular eliminating character. 1t
begins slow, but high, and after a few
notes runs rapidly to point.
Another midsummer songster is the
scarlet tanager, who, also, one may
hear in some localities in the high noon
of the dreamy August days. He likes
woods and mountain sides, and his song
may be heard a long distance.
The only fresh nests to be found after
midsummer are those of the cedar-bird
and gold-inch, two winter birds that
delay their building till the height of
the season, in order to obtain certain
kinds of food for their young, the gold
finch relying mainly upon the seeds of
the thistle, and the cedar bird upon in
sects and berries. A late English writer
says the birds in that country do not
alight upon the thistle, but pluck its
down as they sweep by on the wing.
Our gold finch alights directly upon the
top of the prickly sheath that contains
the down and seeds, and tears it open
at leisure. So far as l have observed,
no other bird feeds upon these seeds.
About this time the telegraph wires
along the country roads are strung with
swallows, barn swallows and cliff swal-
lows, old and young, resting themselves,
and apparently chatting together about
the southern journey they are so soon
to undertake. They have abandoned
their nests, and seem to have grown
sociable, and disposed to take life easy
for brief season, at least. In August
they are off.
The swift, or chimney swallow, never
perches like his congeners, not even
when gathering the dry twigs for his
nest; these he snips off the tops of dead
trees while on the wing; those little
black, wiry feet have never touched the
ground nor limb of tree.
The shy and enticing wood-fowers are
gone; Flora no longer holds her court
in the sylvan aisles; 90 ye to the ponds
and to the languid water-courses and
behold the queen herself, the white
water-lily. 1t has taken all the power
and all the chemistry of the July
sun to evoke such beauty and purity
and fragrance from those black, Shiny
depths. There is something Egyptian
about this fower-something that sug-
gests Cleopatra and that wondrous East.
Its white sculpturesqueful beauty alone
would remind of Greece; but there is
the blackness, the Africa out of which
it springs, the richness of Niles floods,
and its basking, languid habits. tits not