The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics — John Shaqi
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
The Winter-Wren is another marvellous songster, in speaking of whom it
is difficult to avoid superlatives. He is not so conscious of his powers
and so ambitious of effect as the White-Eyed Flycatcher, yet you will
not be less astonished and delighted on hearing him. He possesses the
fluency, volubility, and copiousness for which the Wrens are noted, and
besides these qualities, and what is rarely found conjoined with them, a
wild, sweet, rhythmical cadence that holds you entranced. I shall not
soon forget that perfect June day, when, loitering in a low, ancient
Hemlock, in whose cathedral aisles the coolness and freshness seemed
perennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strain so rapid and
gushing, and touched with such a wild, sylvan plaintiveness, that I
listened in amazement. And so shy and coy was the little minstrel, that
I came twice to the woods before I was sure to whom I was listening. In
summer, he is one of those birds of the deep Northern forests, that,
like the Speckled Canada Warbler and the Hermit-Thrush, only the
privileged ones hear.
The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and
defined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and he will
tell you where to look for the Lady's-Slipper, the Columbine, or the
Harebell. On the same principles the ornithologist will direct you where
to look for the Hooded Warbler, the Wood-Sparrow, or the Chewink. In
adjoining counties, in the same latitude, and equally inland, but
possessing a different geological formation and different forest-timber,
you will observe quite a different class of birds. In a country of the
Beech and Maple I do not find the same songsters that I know where
thrive the Oak, Chestnut, and Laurel. In going from a district of the
Old Red Sandstone to where I walk upon the old Plutonic Rock, not fifty
miles distant, I miss in the woods the Veery, the Hermit-Thrush, the
Chestnut-Sided Warbler, the Blue-Backed Warbler, the Green-Backed
Warbler, the Black and Yellow Warbler, and many others,--and find in
their stead the Wood-Thrush, the Chewink, the Redstart, the
Yellow-Throat, the Yellow-Breasted Flycatcher, the White-Eyed
Flycatcher, the Quail, and the Turtle-Dove.
In my neighborhood here in the Highlands the distribution is very
marked. South of the village I invariably find one species of
birds,--north of it, another. In only one locality, full of Azalea and
Swamp-Huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the Hooded Warbler. In a
dense undergrowth of Spice-Bush, Witch-Hazel, and Alder, I meet the
Worm-Eating Warbler. In a remote clearing, covered with Heath and Fern,
with here and there a Chestnut and an Oak, I go to hear in July the
Wood-Sparrow, and returning by a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sure to find
the Water-Thrush.
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