CHAPTER XXI. 



ROSE-BKEASTED GROSBEAKS. 



A NEW bird in the neighborhood is a source of joy. 

 However common it may be elsewhere, and however fa- 

 miliar you may be with it " in books," yet to see it in 

 the trees and bushes about your own home, a voluntary 

 visitor at that, is to gaze on a novelty, and you do so 

 with much the same feeling that you would upon a new 

 species. Now, the rose-breasted grosbeak comes under 

 neither head. It is not a new species, nor is it new to 

 the neighborhood, for scores of them pass by every May, 

 on their northward journey, and come trooping back, in 

 October, with their families. But in 1882 they decided 

 upon a change. They came in May as usual, and, delight- 

 ful to tell, they remained not one, nor a pair, but a great 

 many of them. In years past, to see one was an unusual 

 sight, and to hear it sing, a rare pleasure ; but in 1882, 

 they not only came, but seemed anxious to be seen. 

 They perched in the trees nearest the house, and sang 

 such songs as never bird sang before. So, at least, it 

 seemed to all of us. Perhaps, after all, the song was no 

 sweeter than that of the wood-thrush ; but it was widely 

 different, and was so great an addition to the orchestra, 

 that we rated it, while new to us, as the first of the series 

 of noble bird-songs that daily floated houseward from the 

 woods near by. 



May 21st, I spent a pleasant hour watching a gros- 

 beak feed upon the seeds of the catalpa. The tree itself 



