44 rmsT meetings. 



Joseph River, in Northern Indiana, when, coming 

 to a deep, wooded hollow, I espied a flock of birds 

 perched quietly on the branches of some oak sap- 

 lings. Approaching stealthily, I turned my glass 

 upon them, and caught the gleam of a carmine 

 blotch on their chests, worn like a shield, and I 

 realized with a thrill of delight that I had at last 

 found the rose-breasted grossbeak, descriptions of 

 which I had so often read. The large conical 

 beak, the white of belly and rump, the black of 

 back and head, and the striped appearance of wings 

 and tail, put at rest every doubt. Had these birds 

 been the inmates of a deaf and dumb asylum, they 

 could not have been more mute than they were 

 that day, sitting quietly on their perches, refusing 

 to utter a note, and merely turning their heads 

 now and then to look down at me with a sort of 

 contemptuous air. " Who are you ? and what do 

 you want here ?" they seemed to say. 



But this first encounter with the rose-breast 

 proved more than merely "a chance acquaint- 

 ance." A few weeks later, as I was again stroll- 

 ing along the river, I heard a clear, joyous bird 

 song, having a very human intonation. " It must 

 be a robin," I said to m3^self, and was about to pass 

 on, when it struck me that there was a peculiar re- 



