292 A MgyrH's MUSIC. 
been. Heretofore I had not realized that these 
whistled notes were so strictly a song, and as 
such set apart from all the rest of the chicka- 
dee’s repertory of sweet sounds ; and I was de- 
lighted to find my tiny pet recognizing thus 
unmistakably the difference between prose and 
poetry. 
But we linger unduly with these lesser lights 
of song. After the music of the Alice and the 
Swainson thrushes, the chief distinction of May, 
1884, as far as my Melrose woods were con- 
cerned, was the entirely unexpected advent of a 
colony of rose-breasted grosbeaks. For five sea- 
sons I had called these hunting-grounds my own, 
and during that time had seen perhaps about 
the same number of specimens of this royal spe- 
cies, always in the course of the vernal migra- 
tion. The present year the first comer was. ob- 
served on the 15th — solitary and, except for an 
occasional monosyllable, silent. Only one more 
straggler, I assumed. But on the following 
morning I saw four others, all of them males in 
full plumage, and two of them in song. To one 
of these I attended for some time. According 
to my notes “he sang beautifully, although not 
with any excitement, nor as if he were doing his 
best. The tone was purer and smoother than 
the robin’s, more mellow and sympathetic, and 
the strain was especially characterized by a drop- 
