178 THE COMICAL CHEBEC 



spirit of song upon him, can be supposed to 

 fight for his right to a place ; he would 

 naturally prefer to take his stand out of the 

 range of this " fiery particle " with such blus- 

 tering manners. 



Birds who confine themselves to the 

 ground chebec seems to tolerate or pos- 

 sibly looks down upon the monotonous 

 trill of the chipping- sparrow rouses not his 

 antagonism ; robin and hermit-thrush song 

 may reach me from beyond his circle ; but 

 not a warbler, neither summer yellow-bird 

 nor Maryland yellow-throat, not a purple 

 finch, goldfinch, or vireo, not even a gros- 

 beak is allowed to add his sweet notes to the 

 chorus. 



I admit that chebec does his little best 

 to supply the lacking voices. He sings most 

 vigorously all the magic hours between day- 

 light and full sunshine ; but an everlasting, 

 jerky " chebec ! " is not in the least inspiring 

 hence my regret. 



The second reason for my never having 

 felt inclination to make this bird's acquaint- 

 ance was that I had taken the verdict of the 

 books as final. He was simply the least fly- 



