Our natural history, and indeed all phases of life in this country, is rich in materials for the poet that have yet hardly been touched. Many of our most familiar birds, which are inseparably associated with one's walks and recreations in the open air, and with the changes of the seasons, are yet awaiting their poet,--as the high-hole, with his golden-shafted quills and loud continued spring call; the meadowlark, with her crescent-marked breast and long-drawn, piercing, yet tender April and May summons forming, with that of the high-hole, one of the three or four most characteristic field sounds of our spring; the happy goldfinch, circling round and round in midsummer with that peculiar undulating flight and calling PER-CHICK'-O-PEE, PER-CHICK'-O-PEE, at each opening and shutting of the wings, or later leading her plaintive brood among the thistle-heads by the roadside; the little indigo- bird, facing the torrid sun of August and singing through all the livelong summer day; the contented musical soliloquy of the vireo, like the whistle of a boy at his work, heard through all our woods from May to September:-- "Pretty green worm, where are you? Dusky-winged moth, how fare you, When wind and rain are in the tree? Cheeryo, cheerebly, chee, Shadow and sun one are to me. Mosquito and gnat, beware you, Saucy chipmunk, how dare you Climb to my nest in the maple-tree, And dig up the corn At noon and at morn? Cheeryo, cheerebly, chee." Or the phœbe-bird, with her sweet April call and mossy nest under the bridge or woodshed, or under the shelving rocks; or the brown thrasher--mocking thrush--calling half furtively, half archly from the treetop back in the bushy pastures: "Croquet, croquet, hit it, hit it, come to me, come to me, tight it, tight it, you're out, you're out," with many musical interludes; or the chewink, rustling the leaves and peering under the bushes at you; or the pretty little oven-bird, walking round and round you in the woods, or suddenly soaring above the treetops, and uttering its wild lyrical strain; or, farther south, the whistling redbird, with his crest and military bearing,--these and many others should be full of suggestion and inspiration to our poets. It is only lately that the robin's song has been put into poetry. Nothing could be happier than this rendering of it by a nameless singer in "A Masque of Poets:"-- "When the willows gleam along the brooks, And the grass grows green in sunny nooks, In the sunshine and the rain I hear the robin in the lane Singing, 'Cheerily, Cheer up, cheer up; Cheerily, cheerily, Cheer up.' "But the snow is still Along the walls and on the hill. The days are cold, the nights forlorn, For one is here and one is gone. 'Tut, tut. Cheerily, Cheer up, cheer up; Cheerily, cheerily, Cheer up.'