APRIL. 93 



thology, the Evening Grosbeak (Fringilla Vespertina). He 

 says of that bird, " their note is strange and peculiar ; and 

 it is only at twilight that they are heard crying in a singu- 

 lar strain. This mournful sound, uttered at such an unusual 

 hour, strikes the traveller's ear, but the bird itself is seldom 

 seen." One season I heard it several nights in succession, early 

 in March, and going into the State of Vermont in the same 

 month, I likewise heard it there, but invariably proceeding 

 from the most sombre and gloomy recesses of the black-tim- 

 bered woods. Once, and but once, I heard it before the sun 

 was set ; 1 have watched in the woods from which I was in 

 the habit of hearing it proceed, for some time after sunset ; 

 but could not succeed in hearing it then. I was once coming 

 from Sherbrooke near midnight, when everything was pro- 

 foundly still, and not a sound broke the deep silence, except 

 the measured tramp of my horse's feet on the frozen road ; on 

 a sudden, from a thick forest, about half a mile distant, came 

 the metallic tinkle of the saw-whetter. The unexpectedness 

 of the sound struck me forcibly, and, cold as it was, I stopped 

 my horse for some time to listen to it. In the darkness and 

 silence of midnight, the regularly recurring sound, proceeding 

 too from so gloomy a spot, had an effect on my mind, so- 

 lemn, and almost unearthly, yet not unmixed with pleasure. 

 Perhaps the mystery hanging about the origin of the sound 

 tended to increase the effect. I have been told by one of 

 my neighbours that it is a bird, about the size of a cuckoo, 

 but as I could not find that he himself had seen it in the act 

 of uttering its notes, little heed is to be given to the sup- 

 position. 



C. — It is very singular. I should think it might be 

 discovered by perseverance. 



F. — You may watch for it, if you please ; but I apprehend 

 it is very shy, and you would not be aware of its presence 



