. The birds' calendar . se who have not. The dehght caused by the return of many abird in spring is in large measure due to theassociated scenes of other times that are recalledby its appearance. Everyone in the countrywho has wandered through the woods at thetwilight hour, listening to the choristers thatsing their varied farewell to the day and dropoff one by one into silence, feels the force ofthe poets lines: Each bird gives oer its note, the thrush aloneFills the cool grove when all the rest are gone. It may well have been some noble song likethe robins cheerful warble, or the more glorio
. The birds' calendar . se who have not. The dehght caused by the return of many abird in spring is in large measure due to theassociated scenes of other times that are recalledby its appearance. Everyone in the countrywho has wandered through the woods at thetwilight hour, listening to the choristers thatsing their varied farewell to the day and dropoff one by one into silence, feels the force ofthe poets lines: Each bird gives oer its note, the thrush aloneFills the cool grove when all the rest are gone. It may well have been some noble song likethe robins cheerful warble, or the more gloriouschant of the wood thrush, heard among thebranches in the cool of the day, that inspiredthe poetic utterance of the Psalmist, so sensitiveto every natural beauty— Thou makest theoutgoings of the morning and evening to re-joice. (For ^rejoice the marginal readingis sing, which gives color to the foregoingornithological exegesis.) A change has come over the spirit of thephoebe, which for the past ie\w days has been 114. PHOEBE April stationed like a black-capped sentinel on thepoint of a branch overhanging the a week after its arrival it sat silent, soli-tary, and evidently dejected ; but this morningit is all animation, and cheerily calling itsown name or that of its mate as it flies hitherand thither. A case of human nature in bird-form. When the migration-time comes it isusual in this as in most of the other speciesfor the male to arrive first, his gentle consort,proverbially tardy, putting in her appearanceseveral days later. It is hard to imagine whythey cannot agree to take the journey together,as the matrimonial compact does not expireby limitation with the phoebe, as it does withmany others, to be renewed annually. Thatit is not the result of a tiff just beforestarting seems proved by the delight expressedat the reunion. We seem forced to the con-clusion that this conduct results from one ofthe inscrutable eccentricities of the feminineintellect. And it is no
Size: 1420px × 1760px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishern, booksubjectbirds
