214 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



search of a dinner, is also a visitor to our yards, especially 

 in the winter, and he gleans many a meal from the orchard 

 and door-yard trees. The splendidly attired red-headed 

 woodpecker, the showiest of the woodland birds, is a typi- 

 cal representative of the residents of the orchard, for it is 

 equally at home in either place. The rose-breasted gros- 

 beak, one of our friends of the highway and door-yard, 

 is primarily a native of the woodlands, and there along 

 the shaded streams his sweetest songs can be heard. In 

 the woods along the bushy borders of the stream-sides 

 also sing the song sj^arrow, the indigo bunting, the Mary- 

 land yellow-throat, the catbird, the redbird, the Baltimore 

 oriole, and the towhee. There the warbling vireo repeats 

 his sweet, plaintive monologue throughout the day, and 

 the red-eyed vireo continually addresses his hearers in 

 his most emphatic tones. The guttural croaking of the 

 cuckoos indicates their abundance, and the harsh calls of 

 the grackle inform us that this ubiquitous species is 

 especially at home. There the limpid, flute-like notes of 

 the wood thrush announce its presence in the shady 

 glens, and the querulous calls of the crested flycatcher in 

 the treetope regularly attract the ear of the visitor. The 

 yellow-breasted chat whistles from the bushes, and the 

 mourning dove flutters from its simple mat of dried twigs 

 as we pass near its vicinity. J^one of the foregoing spe- 

 cies are confined to the woods, but some of them move 

 and sing with greatest animation in woodland resorts, 

 and while we can form acquaintance with them in town 

 and about our rural residences, we can know them best 

 by rambling through their original environments and 

 observing their behavior uninfluenced by changed sur- 

 roundings. 



WOOD THEUSH. 



Hy acquaintance with the wood thrush began many 

 years ago, in a portion of a "woods pasture" thickly 

 grown with hazel, wild gooseberry and blackberry bushes, 

 small thorn trees, wild plum, and other dwarf trees, all 

 forming a thicket so dense that one could force his way 

 through it only with difficulty. Through the midst of 



