This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
272
THE CLERK OF THE WOODS

often called the yellow redpoll. If he could only keep his tail still!

Next in order was the black-throated green (May 4), which, take him for all in all, is perhaps my favorite of the whole family. He is the bird of the white pine, as the pine warbler is the bird of the pitch-pine. And now we have a real song; no longer a simple trill, but a highly characteristic, sweetly modulated tune—or two tunes, rather, perfectly distinguished one from the other, and equally charming. If the voice is rough, it is sweetly and musically rough. I would not for anything have it different.

What a vexatiously pleasant time I had, years ago, in tracing the voice home to its author! How vividly I remember the day when I lay flat on my face in a woodland path, opera-glass in hand, a manual open before me, and the bird singing at intervals from a pine tree opposite; and a neighbor, who had known me from boyhood, coming suddenly down the path. I may err in my recollection (it was long ago), but I think I heard the music for weeks before I satis-