As in all phases, Nature keeps up her vital, copious, eternal
procession. Still, plenty of the birds hang around all or most of the
season--now their love-time, and era of nest-building. I find flying
over the river, crows, gulls and hawks. I hear the afternoon shriek of
the latter, darting about, preparing to nest. The oriole will soon
be heard here, and the twanging _meoeow_ of the cat-bird; also the
king-bird, cuckoo and the warblers. All along, there are three
peculiarly characteristic spring songs--the meadow-lark's, so sweet,
so alert and remonstrating (as if he said, "don't you see?" or, "can't
you understand?")--the cheery, mellow, human tones of the robin--(I
have been trying for years to get a brief term, or phrase, that would
identify and describe that robin call)--and the amorous whistle of the
high-hole. Insects are out plentifully at midday.
_April 29_.--As we drove lingering along the road we heard, just after
sundown, the song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd without a word, and
listen'd long. The delicious notes--a sweet, artless, voluntary,
simple anthem, as from the flute-stops of some organ, wafted through
the twilight--echoing well to us from the perpendicular high rock,
where, in some thick young trees' recesses at the base, sat the bird
--fill'd our senses, our souls.
MEETING A HERMIT
I found in one of my rambles up the hills a real hermit, living in a
lonesome spot, hard to get at, rocky, the view fine, with a little
patch of land two rods square.
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