For some years past I have discontinued my early morning tramps, but I love to recall the persistence with which I clung to habit. Those early walks afforded me much pleasure and some hardships. During the spring months the frogs and birds enlivened my morning walk with music. The bird-music along the route to the city was divided according to locality. Before leaving the cabin, from early daylight, there would be a variety of bird-songs. In numbers the veery led all the rest. Then followed the red-eyed vireo. After these, I could hear only one song each of the following species:
Catbird, towhee-bunting, chestnut-sided warbler, robin, black-throated green warbler, oven-bird, wood-thrush, and warbling-vireo. Indigo-birds and cedar-birds some years could be added to the list, but they are erratic birds, and cannot be depended upon.
CEDAR-BIRD.
THE NEW CABIN.
My route to the city was along the deserted old highway. When I had climbed the first hill (where my new cabin now stands), I could overlook a rugged territory where the fire and axe had exterminated the large trees, leaving a low, shrubby growth, just suited to the needs of the birds. The songs of the catbird, towhee-bunting, and robin were heard here, and, strange to tell, in a distant corner of the territory, could be heard the loud carol of the song-sparrow. A few pairs of these birds had changed their nesting site from pasture to shrub-land. I knew that these sparrows were descendants of my pet birds, Wabbles and his first wife. They were born in the woods, and so reared their children in the same surroundings.
The frog-pond was just beyond the hill, and when the toads and frogs did not drown their music, birds could be heard singing from morning till night during the nesting season.
There was a colony of Maryland yellowthroats near this spot, and the sprightly song could be heard from May 1st to the middle of July. I have heard the song in September.