. Bird-land echoes; . nings of May was no lesshappy now on its frosty perch. The chickadee wasnot content with merely lisping its happiness, butsang those clear phe-bee notes that are among thesweetest of all winter sounds. It is an expressionof satisfaction with the world that few people, Ifancy, can conscientiously repeat. It is the onlyknown bird-song that indicates perfect happiness,and yet our mere description goes for nothing. Thebird must be seen as well as heard. Indeed, this istrue of all the out-door world. How tame are thebrightest pages of our out-door books in comparisonwith an ho
. Bird-land echoes; . nings of May was no lesshappy now on its frosty perch. The chickadee wasnot content with merely lisping its happiness, butsang those clear phe-bee notes that are among thesweetest of all winter sounds. It is an expressionof satisfaction with the world that few people, Ifancy, can conscientiously repeat. It is the onlyknown bird-song that indicates perfect happiness,and yet our mere description goes for nothing. Thebird must be seen as well as heard. Indeed, this istrue of all the out-door world. How tame are thebrightest pages of our out-door books in comparisonwith an hours ramble among the scenes we venture r 22* 258 Bird-Land Echoes. to describe ! The shadows fall upon the pages, dis-tinct at times, far oftener obscure ; but the realthing, the living fact, as yet defies our very song of the passing chickadee will fall upondeaf ears ; the bird itself will flit before closed eyes,in spite of all description and the ramblers urgencythat you go abroad and look and Horned Lark and Redpoll. I had crossed a wide field before I entered thewoods and saw the horned larks, and the questionarises. Is it better to see birds and not hear them orhear and not see them ? It was pleasant to watchthem running over the snow and sometimes plunging With the Winter Birds. 259 intn it, when, as it appeared. the\- trod upon sometreacherous crust gathered about a low, projectiii-twig. These beautiful birds were, of course, notactually silent, but not every sound that comesfrom a birds throat can be called a song. I haveheld that there is music in the cawing of a crow,but I draw the line at my neighbors peacock. Thehorned larks were more than usually timid thismorning, and were quite forgotten when I reachedthe woods. Later, as the shadow^s shortened and every frost-gem faded from the sunny fields, the crested tit, thatembodiment of grace, mischief, and music, cameupon the scene. No author has yet done this grandbird justice. It has not been cla
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1896
