172 MINOR gp ONGSTERS. 
laboring under an attack of hoarseness; but I 
have discovered that he himself regards his chip- 
cherr as of equal value. At least, I have found 
him perched at the tip of a tall pine, and re- 
peating this inconsiderable and not very melo- 
dious trochee with all earnestness and persever- 
ance. Sometimes he rehearses it thus at night- 
fall; but even so I cannot call it highly artistic. 
I am glad to believe, however, that he does not 
care in the least for my opinion. Why should 
he? He is too true a gallant to mind what 
anybody else thinks, so long as one is pleased ; 
and she, no doubt, tells him every day that he 
is the best singer in the grove. Beside his di- 
vine chip-cherr the rhapsody of the wood thrush 
is a mere nothing, if she is to be the judge. 
Strange, indeed, that so shabbily dressed a 
creature as this thrush should have the pre- 
sumption to attempt to sing at all! “But 
then,” she charitably adds, ‘perhaps he is not 
to blame; such things come by nature; and 
there are some birds, you know, who cannot tell 
the difference between noise and music.” 
We trust that the tanager will improve as 
time goes on; but in any case we are largely in 
his debt. How we should miss him if he were 
gone, or even were become as rare as the sum- 
mer red-bird and the cardinal are in our lati- 
tude! As it is, he hghts up our Northern woods 
