March 
little worth, and yet there is something very 
musical in the simple ‘‘ conk-a-rée’’ oft re- 
peated, as the bird perches prominently on a 
bush in the swamp, or beside a stream in the 
pasture. 
9 
At the close of the month various parts of the 
Park were fairly alive with fox sparrows, song 
sparrows, robins, snow-birds, and white-throats, 
all in song except the last. The fiery cardinal, 
with an air of exclusiveness, gleams here and 
there through the branches; and the frequent 
note of the golden-winged woodpecker, nut- 
hatch, chickadee, and goldfinch is heard. 
Now too came the pheebe, the earliest repre- 
sentative of another family—the flycatchers— 
a group quite distinctive in plumage and habits. 
Perhaps no other family gives the field ornithol- 
ogist quite so much trouble as this, in the re- 
semblance of many of its species, as the colors 
are mostly neutral (of an olive tint, and white 
that is more or less pure), and most of the species 
differ but little in size. They are aptly called 
flycatchers, not only as being chiefly (but not 
exclusively) insectivorous, but from their con- 
spicuous habit of catching their prey on the 
wing, all having the characteristic of perching 
93 
