THE PERCHING Birpbs. Fe 
has here, too, given a home. But we cannot think 
of this little bird as other than all innocence. We 
are interested in the murderer and not the murdered, 
and that makes all the difference in the world. ‘‘ How 
shall I describe its song?” I asked of a veteran student 
of our native birds. ‘‘ Say it is like a distant flute,” 
he replied, “that because of the wind we hear at 
brief intervals.” As I listened to the bird, nearly one 
hundred feet above the ground, I knew what he meant, 
but do not expect these mere words will enable you 
to recognize it. It is not interrupted and out of tune 
like the red-eye’s song, and if you hear both in the 
village street or on the town’s outskirts, you will 
recognize them then, the one as troubled water flowing 
over rocks, the other the quiet ripple of the meadow 
brooks. But we at all times need sharp eyes to see 
these little birds. Their plumage blends admirably 
with the leaves that all summer long conceal these 
rangers of the tree-tops; and so stealthy and ser- 
pent-like is their movement, rapid though it be, that 
sharp eyes are needed to distinguish the bird from 
that perpetual game of hide-and-seek the lights and 
shadows play, and all the while the rippling flow of 
music goes on, a song that greets the gray dawn in 
the east and bids a fitting farewell to the dying day. 
It is never pleasant to pass abruptly, or to pass at 
all, from the contemplation of innocence to that of 
crime; but, as I have intimated, there is nothing 
much but red-handed murder characteristic of insect- 
eating birds’ daily lives. They cover it over with 
music and a sweet smile for us, but this does not 
alter the facts one iota. These vireos are closely 
D 7 
