*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