The Project Gutenberg eBook of Birds in the Bush, by Bradford Torrey

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Birds in the Bush

Author: Bradford Torrey

Release Date: February 7, 2009 [eBook #28019]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS IN THE BUSH***

E-text prepared by Robin Monks, Joseph Cooper, Leonard Johnson, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

BIRDS IN THE BUSH

by

BRADFORD TORREY

Sixth Edition

Boston
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1893

Copyright, 1885,
by Bradford Torrey
All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

Wherefore, let me intreat you to read it with favour and attention, and
to pardon us, wherein we may seem to come short of some words, which we
have laboured to interpret.

_The Prologue of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach._

CONTENTS

PAGE

ON BOSTON COMMON 1

BIRD-SONGS 31

CHARACTER IN FEATHERS 53

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 75

PHILLIDA AND CORIDON 103

SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE 129

MINOR SONGSTERS 155

WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON 185

A BIRD-LOVER'S APRIL 211

AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY 243

A MONTH'S MUSIC 277

ON BOSTON COMMON.

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels:
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth, the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods 't was pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much li