A WEEK ON WALDEN'S EIDGE. 131 



but only in winter, he thought, and never 

 in flocks. His brother had once shot one. 

 About smaller birds he could not profess 

 to speak. By and by he stopped the car- 

 riage. " There 's a bird now," he said, 

 pointing with his whip. "What do you 

 call that ? " It was a summer tanager, I 

 told him, or summer redbird. Did he know 

 another redbird, with black wings and tail ? 

 Yes, he had seen it ; that was the male, and 

 this all-red one was the female. Oh no, I 

 explained ; the birds were of different species, 

 and the females in both cases were yellow. 

 He did not insist, it was a case of a 

 driver and his fare; but he had always 

 been told so, he said, and I do not flatter 

 myself that I convinced him to the contrary. 

 It is hard to believe that one man can be so 

 much wiser than everybody else. A Massa- 

 chusetts farmer once asked me, I remember, 

 if the night-hawk and the whippoorwill were 

 male and female of the same bird. I an- 

 swered, of course, that they were not, and 

 gave, as I thought, abundant reason why 

 such a thing could not be possible. But 

 I spoke as a scribe. "Well," remarked 

 the farmer, when I had finished my story, 



