ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 75 
unsolved. For nearly, perhaps quite a week, three 
or four large, heavy-beaked birds flitted about in 
several tall tree-tops of the woods, but were so far 
up that, try as I would, I could not identify them 
even with my opera-glass. In my small collection 
of mounted birds there is a female evening gross- 
beak ; and the tree-top flitters looked more like it 
than any other bird of my acquaintance. If they 
were evening grossbeaks, it was a rare find; for 
these birds are almost unknown in this part of the 
country, only a few having ever been discovered in 
this State. Their usual Zoca/e is thought to be west 
of Lake Superior. J was sorely tempted to use a 
gun, but decided that it was just as well not to know 
some things as to massacre an innocent bird. 
However, other finds were more satisfactory. 
Strolling through the woods one day, I caught the 
notes of a bird song that did not sound familiar. 
Surely it was a vireo’s quaint, continuous lay; but 
which of the vireos could it be? It was different 
from any vireo minstrelsy I had ever heard. Peer- 
ing about in the bushes for the author of those 
elusive notes, I at length espied a little bird form, 
and the next moment my glass revealed the blue- 
headed or solitary vireo. It was the first time I had 
ever heard this little vocalist sing in the spring, 
although we have met— he and I—on familar 
terms every season for many years. Here is a 
query : Why was blue-head silent other years, and 
so tuneful that spring? For he was often heard 
after that day. 
