JUNE IN FRANCONIA. 29 
warble fell upon our ears. ‘A pine gros- 
beak!” said I, in a tone of full assurance, 
although this was my first hearing of the 
song. The younger man plunged into the 
forest, in the direction of the voice, while I, 
knowing pretty well how the land lay, has- 
tened on toward the lakes, in hopes to find 
the singer visible from that point. Just as 
I ran down the little incline into the open, 
a bird flew past me across the water, and 
alighted in a dead spruce Gt might have 
been the very tree of nine days before), 
where it sat in full sight, and at once broke 
into song, — “like the purple finch’s,” says 
my notebook; “less fluent, but, as it seemed 
to me, sweeter and more expressive. I think 
it was not louder.” Before many minutes, 
my comrade came running down the path in 
high glee, calling, ‘Pine grosbeaks!”’ He 
had got directly under a tree in which two 
of them were sitting. So the momentous 
question was settled, and I commenced feel- 
ing once more a degree of confidence in my 
own eyesight. The loss of such confidence 
is a serious discomfort; but, strange as it 
may seem to people in general, I suspect 
that few field ornithologists, except begin- 
