MOBNING IN THE NORTH WOODS. 119 



different points. It opens like the song 

 heard in the Florida flat-woods, but is even 

 more varied, both in voice and in musical 

 form. So it seemed to me, I mean to say ; 

 but hearing the two a year apart, I cannot 

 speak without reserve. It is pleasanter — 

 as weU as safer — to praise both singers than 

 to exalt one to the pulling down of the other. 

 In appearance, Bachman's finch is one of 

 the dullest, dingiest, least prepossessing 

 members of its great family ; but its voice 

 and musical genius make it a treasure, 

 especially in this comparatively sparrowless 

 country of eastern Tennessee. 



I have remarked that I found this bird 

 upon a street corner. Unhappily my notes 

 do not enable me to be more specific. It 

 may have been at the corner of Court and 

 Tremont Streets, or, possibly, at the junction 

 of Tremont and Dartmouth Streets. All 

 these names appear in my memoranda. 

 Boston people should have had a hand in 

 this business, I said to myself. It was on 

 Federal Street (so much I put down) that 

 I saw my only Tennessee rose-breasted gros- 

 beak. He, or rather she, was the most 

 interesting bird of the forenoon, and matched 



