SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 153 
the quaintest of head-dresses. IJ must mention 
also a scarlet tanager, who, all afire as he was, 
one day alighted in a bush of flowering dog- 
wood, which was completely covered with its 
large white blossoms. Probably he had no idea 
how well his perch became him. 
Perhaps I ought to be ashamed to confess it, 
but, though I went several times into the gal- 
leries of our honorable Senate and House of 
Representatives, and heard speeches by some 
celebrated men, including at least half a dozen 
candidates for the presidency, yet, after all, 
the congressmen in feathers interested me 
most. I thought, indeed, that the chat might 
well enough have been elected to the lower 
house. His volubility and waggish manners 
would have made him quite at home in that 
assembly, while his orange -colored waistcoat 
would have given him an agreeable conspicuity. 
But, to be sure, he would have needed to learn 
the use of tobacco. 
Well, all this was only a few years ago; but 
the men whose eloquence then drew the crowd 
to the capitol are, many of them, heard there 
no longer. Some are dead; some have retired 
to private life. But the birds never die. Every 
spring they come trooping back for their all- 
summer session. The turkey-buzzard still floats 
majestically over the city; the chat still prac- 
