is more
abundant. Most people seem to think, the more trees, the more birds.
Even Chateaubriand, who first tried the primitive-forest-cure, and whose
description of the wilderness in its imaginative effects is unmatched,
fancies the "people of the air singing their hymns to him." So far as my
own observation goes, the farther one penetrates the sombre solitudes of
the woods, the more seldom does he hear the voice of any singing-bird.
In spite of Chateaubriand's minuteness of detail, in spite of that
marvellous reverberation of the decrepit tree falling of its own weight,
which he was the first to notice, I cannot help doubting whether he
made his way very deep into the wilderness. At any rate, in a letter to
Fontanes, written in 1804, he speaks of _mes chevaux paissant a quelque
distance._ To be sure Chateaubriand was at to mount the high horse,
and this may have been but an afterthought of the _grand seigneur,_ but
certainly one would not make much headway on horseback toward the druid
fastnesses of the primaeval pine.

(1) In his book of travels, _New America._

The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in a meadow within
a quarter of a mile of us. A houseless land passes through the midst of
their camp, and in clear westerly weather, at the right season, one
may hear a score of them singing at once. When they are breeding, if
I chance to pass, one of the male birds always accompanies me like a
constable, flitting from post to post of the rail-fence, with a short
note of reproof continually repeated, till I am fairly out of the
neighborhood. Then he will swing away into the air and run down the
wind, gurgling music without stint over the unheeding tussocks of
meadow-grass and dark clumps of bulrushes that mark his domain.

We have no bird whose song will match the nightingale's in
compass, none whose note is so rich as that of the European blackbird;
but for mere rapture I have never heard the bobolink's rival. But his
opera-season is a short one. The ground and tree sparrows are our most
constant performers. It is now late in August, and one of the latter
sings every day and all day long in the garden. Till within a fortnight,
a pair of indigo-birds would keep up their lively _duo_ for an hour
together. While I write, I hear an oriole gay as in June, and the
plaintive _may-be_ of the goldfinch tells me he is stealing my
lettuce-seeds. I know not what the experience of others may have been,
but the only bird I ha