SPRING THOUGHTS.
A
ND now there is such a fiddling in the woods, such a viol creaking of bough on bough that you would think music was being born again as in the days of Orpheus. Orpheus and Apollo are certainly there taking lessons; aye, and the Jay and Blackbird, too, learn now where they stole their "thunder." They are perforce, silent, meditating new strains.
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Methinks I would share every creature's suffering for the sake of its experience and joy. The Song Sparrow and the transient Fox-colored Sparrow, have they brought me no message this year? Is not the coming of the Fox-colored Sparrow something more earnest and significant than I have dreamed of? Have I heard what this tiny passenger has to say while it flits thus from tree to tree? God did not make this world in jest, no, nor in indifference. These migratory Sparrows all bear messages that concern my life. I love the birds and beasts because they are mythologically in earnest. I see the Sparrow chirps, and flits, and sings adequately to the great design of the universe, that man does not communicate with it, understand its language, because he is not alone with nature. I reproach myself because I have regarded with indifference the passage of the birds. I have thought them no better than I.
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I hear the note of a Bobolink concealed in the top of an apple tree behind me. Though this bird's full strain is ordinarily somewhat trivial, this one appears to be meditating a strain as yet unheard in meadow or orchard. He is just touching the strings of his theorbo, his glassichord, his water organ, and one or two notes globe themselves and fall in liquid bubbles from his tuning throat. It is as if he touched his harp within a vase of liquid melody, and when he lifted it out the notes fell like bubbles from the trembling strings. Methinks they are the most liquidly sweet and melodious sounds I ever heard. They are as refreshing to my ear as the first distant tinkling and gurgling of a rill to a thirsty man. Oh, never advance farther in your art; never let us hear your full strain, sir! But away he launches, and the meadow is all bespattered with melody. Its notes fall with the apple blossoms in the orchard. The very divinest part of his strain drops from his overflowing breast singultim, in globes of melody. It is the foretaste of such strains as never fell on mortal ears, to hear which we should rush to our doors and contribute all that we possess and are. Or it seemed as if in that vase full of melody some notes sphered themselves, and from time to time bubbled up to the surface, and were with difficulty repressed.
—Thoreau.
THE MAGNOLIA WARBLER.
I
N this number of Birds we present two very interesting specimens of the family of Warblers, the Magnolia or Black and Yellow Warbler, ranking first in elegance. Its habitat is eastern North America as far west as the base of the Rocky Mountains. It breeds commonly in northern New England, New York, Michigan, and northward. According to Mr. William Brewster it is found everywhere common throughout the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Its favorite resorts are little clumps of firs and spruce shrubs, also willow thickets near streams and ponds and other damp places. "Its gay colors and sprightly song will at once attract the attention of even the casual observer. The nest is usually placed in the horizontal twigs of a fir or spruce at heights ranging from four to six feet, five being the average elevation, and the favorite localities are the edges of wood paths, clearings, or roads bordered by woods. Sometimes the nests are built in the tops of young hemlocks ten or fifteen feet up, or in the heart of the forest thirty-five feet above the ground." Mr. Brewster describes the nest as loosely put together, of fine twigs, preferredly hemlock, coarse grasses and dry weed-stalks. The lining is fine black roots, closely resembling horse-hair. The eggs are four, very rarely five, of creamy white, spotted and blotched with various shades of reddish brown, hazel and chestnut. The markings are generally large and well defined and often form wreaths about the larger ends.
Ridgway mentions the Magnolia Warbler as "one of the most agile of its tribe, its quick and restless movements being more like those of the Redstart than those of its nearest kindred. The tail is carried somewhat elevated and widely expanded, to display the broad white band across the middle portion of the inner web of the feathers, which together with the bold contrasts of black, yellow, and blue-gray of the plumage, render it both conspicuous and beautiful."
Mr. Langille describes the song of the Magnolia Warbler as "a loud, clear whistle, which may be imitated by the syllables chee-to, chee-to, chee-tee-ee, uttered rapidly and ending in the falling inflection."