4 The Wilson Bulletin.— No. 42. 



nuptial hues. By the middle of April the last of the leu- 

 costictes has disappeared. 



Hepburn's Leucosticte can easily be distinguished from 

 the Gray-crowned by the greater amount of gray upon the 

 head of the former, the color frequently marking the entire 

 head above the lower part of the ears. In the flocks that 

 visit us, the proportion is about one Hepburn's to six or 

 eight Gray-crowned. In habits the one is a counter-part of 

 the other. 



THE BEST PLACE OF ALL. 



An Amateur s Experience. 

 MISS REBECCA M. LEETE. 



Some three or four years ago my friend and I were re- 

 turning on a late September day from a drive in the country. 

 It was already growing dusk as we crossed a little valley be- 

 fore entering town, but from the dry reeds by the brook a 

 belated bird — black and white with flashes of crimson — rose 

 and swept over us, far out into the sky. 



We followed him with longing eyes until he was lost in 

 the distance and then vowed that when spring came again 

 we would begin to study birds, never dreaming, in our ignor- 

 ance, that we might have begun at once. 



I recalled the fact that I possessed a fine copy of the 

 Pennsylvania Bird Book and a battered pair of fleld glasses 

 cherished until that moment as a relic of the Civil War only. 

 We were never satisfied as to the identity of our bird and it 

 seems to me now as if it were the spirit of all the birds and, 

 soaring out into the twilight, it had left behind an undying 

 joy in the study of nature and her children. 



The following April found us a-field, and we learned many 

 of our common birds which aforetime had been strangers. 



