100 BIRDS AND POETS 
without success. “ It is in all the forests, from 
spring to fall,” he says in his letter, “‘ and never 
but on the tops of the tallest trees, from which it 
perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest 
notes, and as clear as those of the nightingale. I 
have followed it for miles, without ever but once 
getting’ a good view of it. It is of the size and 
make of the mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on 
the back, and a grayish white on the breast and 
belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was in pos- 
session of one which had been shot by a neighbor,” 
etc. Randolph pronounced it a flycatcher, which 
was a good way wide of the mark. Jefferson must 
have seen only the female, after all his tramp, from 
his description of the color; but he was doubtless fol- 
lowing his own great thoughts more than the bird, 
else he would have had an earlier view. The bird 
was not a new one, but was well known then as the 
ground-robin. The President put Wilson on the 
wrong scent by his erroneous description, and it was 
a long time before the latter got at the truth of the 
case. But Jefferson’s letter is a good sample of 
those which specialists often receive from intelligent 
persons who have seen or heard something in their 
line very curious or entirely new, and who set the 
man of science agog by a description of the supposed 
novelty,— a description that generally fits the facts 
of the case about as well as your coat fits the chair- 
back. Strange and curious things in the air, and 
in the water, and in the earth beneath, are seen 
every day except by those who are looking for them, 
