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Updated: June 2, 2025
Ice has no sooner disappeared than we desire it. There is a smile, if one may say so, in the blue sky, and there is. softness in the south wind. The song-sparrow is singing in the apple-tree. Another bird-note is heard, two long, musical whistles, liquid but metallic.
A brown bird this one, darker than the song-sparrow, and without the latter's light stripes, and smaller, yet bigger than the queer little chipping-bird. He wants a familiar name, this sweet singer, who appears to be a sort of sparrow. He is such a contrast to the blue-jays, who have arrived in a passion, as usual, screaming and scolding, the elegant, spoiled beauties!
The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine took note, on one occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow sang each of the tunes, and the order of singing them.
As the notes of those birds that sing only in the night come with a double charm to our ears, because they are harmonized by silence and hallowed by the hour that is sacred to repose in like manner does the Song-Sparrow delight us in tenfold measure, because he sings the sweet prelude to the universal hymn of Nature.
For, lo! the tree-tops of human life are full of slumbering melodies, and if a song-sparrow pipe sincerely on the hill-sides of Judea, saying, after his own fashion of speech, "Behold, the divine dawn hath visited my eyes," be sure that the forests of far-off America, then unknown, will one day reply, and ten thousand thousand throats throbbing with high response will make it mutually known all round the world that this auroral beam is not for any single or private eye, but that the broad amber beauty of spiritual morning belongs to man's being, and that in man's heart, by virtue of its perennial nature, is prophesied the day whose sun shall be God and its earth heaven.
Relying on his diminutive size for his security, he comes quite up to our door-step, mindless of the people who are assembled round it, and, fearless of danger, picks up the crumbs that are scattered there. He may be seen at all seasons of the year, though his voice is not heard in the spring so early as that of the Song-Sparrow or the Blue-Bird.
But the sound kept on increasing till it most resembled the yowling of a very strong-voiced Cat, and still grew till each separate "meow" might have been the yell of a Panther. Then at its highest and loudest there was a prolonged "meow" and silence, followed finally by the sweet chant of the Song-sparrow. A great light dawned on Little Beaver.
Study that song-sparrow: why is it that he always goes so ragged in spring, and the bluebird so neat? is it that the song-sparrow is a wild artist, absorbed in the composition of his lay, and oblivious of ordinary proprieties, while the smooth bluebird and his ash-colored mate cultivate their delicate warble only as a domestic accomplishment, and are always nicely dressed before sitting down to the piano?
In the present sketches, I have given particular attention to the vocal powers of the different birds, and have endeavored to designate the parts which each one performs in the grand hymn of Nature. The Song-Sparrow is the earliest visitant and the latest resident of the vocal tenants of the field.
Now and then a song-sparrow hidden in the alder thicket by the river bank dreams that it is morning and breaks out into a quick unconscious trill of melody; but as he wakes he stops himself suddenly and utters a few "peeps" of perplexity, as if not quite sure whether it be morning, or only last evening, and whether he ought to sing or go to sleep again.
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