How much music (wild, simple, savage, doubtless, but so tart-sweet,)
there is in mere whistling. It is four-fifths of the utterance of birds.
There are all sorts and styles. For the last half-hour, now, while I
have been sitting here, some feather'd fellow away off in the bushes has
been repeating over and over again what I may call a kind of throbbing
whistle. And now a bird about the robin size has just appear'd, all
mulberry red, flitting among the bushes--head, wings, body, deep red,
not very bright--no song, as I have heard. _4. o'clock_: There is a real
concert going on around me--a dozen different birds pitching in with
a will. There have been occasional rains, and the growths all show its
vivifying influences. As I finish this, seated on a log close by the
pond-edge, much chirping and trilling in the distance, and a feather'd
recluse in the woods near by is singing deliciously--not many notes,
but full of music of almost human sympathy--continuing for a long, long
while.