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The primitive woods, mostly of birch with a sprinkling of spruce, put a high cavernous wall about the scene. How sweetly the birds sang, their notes seeming to have unusual strength and volume in this forest-bound opening! The principal singer was the white-throated sparrow, which we heard and saw everywhere on the route.
Looking over my notes of this excursion, I come upon the following sentence: "To sit on a stone beside a mountain road, with olive-backed thrushes piping on every side, the ear catching now and then the distant tinkle of a winter wren's tune, or the nearer zee, zee, zee of black-poll warblers, while white-throated sparrows call cheerily out of the spruce forest this is to be in another world."
Chewinks are down scratching among the dry leaves with the white-throated sparrows, their strong-muscled legs sending the leaves flying as if a barnyard hen were doing the scratching. A beautiful hermit thrush is near but he is silent.
A faint light began to show over the mountain across the lake. Killooleet, the white-throated sparrow, saw it, and his clear morning song tinkled out of the dark underbrush. Kagax's eyes glowed red again; he stole toward the sound for a last kill. Young sparrows' brains are a dainty dish; he would eat his fill, since he must sleep all day.
Having a shot gun with me, I fired and killed six at one discharge, but one of the wounded birds having fallen into the water at a distance of about 120 yards, it was immediately seized by a white-throated fish-eagle, which perched upon a tree, swooped down upon the bird, utterly disregarding the report of the gun.
And an awful surprise flashed over his face. "So help me God!" he whispered, with blood thick in his voice. Then darkly, as one groping, he reached for her with shaking hands. "Y'u y'u white-throated hussy!... I'll ..." He grasped the quivering rifle barrel. Crash! She shot him again. As he swayed over her and fell she had to leap aside, and his clutching hand tore the rifle from her grasp.
In March the white-throated and white-crowned sparrows may be seen, hopping about on the flower-beds or peering slyly from the evergreens. The robin hops about freely upon the grass, notwithstanding the keepers large-lettered warning, and at intervals, and especially at sunset, carols from the treetops his loud, hearty strain.
All we knew was that she had vanished; but when memory pictures that pleasant country home and the dear circle there, white-throated Beauty is always sleeping by the fire." Miss Fidelia Bridges, the artist, is another devoted cat lover, and at her home at Canaan, Ct., has had several interesting specimens.
There was nothing to break the silence except the thin clear whistle of the white-throated sparrow far back in the woods. This is almost the only bird-song that one hears on the river, unless you count the metallic "chr-r-r-r" of the kingfisher as a song. Every now and then one of the salmon in the pool would lazily roll out of water, or spring high into the air and fall back with a heavy splash.
In a clearing back of the hotel, but surrounded by the forest, were always a goodly company of birds, among the rest a family of yellow-bellied woodpeckers; and in a second similar place were white-throated sparrows, Maryland yellow-throats, and chestnut-sided warblers, the last two feeding their young. Immature warblers are a puzzling set.
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