two o'clock
The year after , Addison saved the berries by stretching one of his cherry-tree nets over the round-wood tree , in October . It chanced , however , that the tree failed to produce a crop of berries the next season and died a year or two later ; -- a circumstance which Gram hinted , mysteriously , might be a `` dispensation , '' on account of our persistent efforts to thwart the robins . It should be taken into account , however , that the mountain-ash is not long-lived , and that this was already an old tree . In a large maple , down the lane , a preacher-bird sang every day in June and until into August , generally loudest and most continuously , from eleven till two o'clock . On coming to or going from our dinner , we would often hear him : sometimes he sang in the morning and now and then after supper . This bird -- it is the red-eyed vireo -- has an oddly persistent , pragmatic note , which can hardly be called singing , being more like declamation and somewhat disconnected and disjoint , as if the `` preacher '' were laying down certain truths and facts and seeking by constant iteration to impress them upon dullards . Betwixt every one of these short sentences , there is a little pause , as if the preacher were waiting for the truth to strike home to his hearers ; but if the bird is watched , he will be seen to be picking and hopping about on the branch which serves him as a pulpit , snapping up a bug or a seed here and there .