Yonder, in that
clump of alders by the brook, is the delicious jargoning of the first
flock of yellow-birds; there are the little gentlemen in black and
yellow, and the little ladies in olive-brown; "sweet, sweet, sweet" is
the only word they say, and often they will so lower their ceaseless
warble, that, though almost within reach, the little minstrels seem far
away. There is the very earliest cat-bird, mimicking the bobolink before
the bobolink has come: what is the history of his song, then? is it a
reminiscence of last year? or has the little coquette been practising it
all winter, in some gay Southern society, where cat-birds and bobolinks
grow intimate, just as Southern fashionables from different States
may meet and sing duets at Saratoga? There sounds the sweet, low,
long-continued trill of the little hair-bird, or chipping-sparrow, a
suggestion of insect sounds in sultry summer, and produced, like them,
by a slight fluttering of the wings against the sides: by-and-by we
shall sometimes hear that same delicate rhythm burst the silence of the
June midnights, and then, ceasing, make stillness more still.
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