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Slight movements in the hawthorn, or in the depths of the tall hedge grasses, movements too quick for the glance to catch their cause, are where some tiny bird is passing from spray to spray. It may be a white-throat creeping among the nettles after his wont, or a wren.
The fact is, I looked around for quite a while in search of a white-throat, thinking him still a little out of tune, and therefore unable to finish his chanson; and I was undeceived only by the singing of several Harris sparrows that with unusual boldness had perched in plain sight.
The next forenoon, therefore, I betook myself to a hill covered thickly with pines and cedars. Here I soon ran upon several robins, feeding upon the savin berries, and in a moment more was surprised by a tseep so loud and emphatic that I thought at once of a fox sparrow. Then I looked for a song sparrow, badly startled, perhaps, but found to my delight a white-throat.
In the garden was plenty of music of the sort that Madam Melcombe still loved. Peter could not shout in his play without disturbing the storm cock as he sat up aloft singing a love-song to his wife. As for the little birds, blackcaps haunted almost every bush, and the timid white-throat brooded there in peace over her half-transparent eggs.
White, Gilbert, on the proportion of the sexes in the partridge; on the house-cricket; on the object of the song of birds; on the finding of new mates by white owls; on spring coveys of male partridges. Whiteness, a sexual ornament in some birds; of mammals inhabiting snowy countries. White-throat, aerial love-dance of the male.
He would not for worlds scare the poor little prisoners who cheer his lonely hours, and who have long since ceased to fear him. A turtle-dove takes peas, and a hedge-sparrow picks ants' eggs from his lips; a white-throat perches on his left hand to snatch a caterpillar from his right. The huge man was in his garden soon after sunrise gathering the dewy leaves for his feathered pets.
"Where she was born returns the rosy Forest Pigeon to her native tree for mating. White-Throat White-Throat your course is flown!
He would not for worlds scare the poor little prisoners who cheer his lonely hours, and who have long since ceased to fear him. A turtle-dove takes peas, and a hedge-sparrow picks ants' eggs from his lips; a white-throat perches on his left hand to snatch a caterpillar from his right. The huge man was in his garden soon after sunrise gathering the dewy leaves for his feathered pets.
For the third time the song shivered across the night, then Thorpe with a soft sob, dropped his face in his hands and looked no more. He did not feel the earth beneath his knees, nor the whip of the sumach across his face; he did not see the moon shadows creep slowly along the fallen birch; nor did he notice that the white-throat had hushed its song. His inmost spirit was shaken.
Blakiston, 'Ibis, 1863, p. 125. For the Cathartes and Ardea, Audubon, 'Ornithological Biography, vol. ii. p. 51, and vol. iii. p. 89. On the White-throat, Macgillivray, 'History of British Birds, vol. ii. p. 354.
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