IparaMse Circle 



save as an avian firebrand, burning almost 

 fiercely in our Western winter, and singing 

 at a major pitch whenever a hint of spring 

 hovers in the air. 



I speak of the grosbeak as masculine; 

 but the feminine is at hand, inconspicuously 

 brownish gray with a faint wash of car- 

 dinal. The pair do not, in winter, keep 

 close company with each other; yet where 

 the blazing cock fidgets and flits, not very 

 far away his honest hen peers and pecks, 

 a very industrious little body, proud of 

 her lord. Songless what time the sun is 

 bobbing along the southern slope of 

 heaven, the cardinal grosbeak is yet not 

 voiceless. Approach too near the hedge 

 or thicket in which he flickers like the blaze 

 of a red lantern, and he warns you with a 

 "Chip, chip! " not to trespass, lifting his 

 pointed crest the while. Should you get 

 hold of him, a thing about as difficult to do 

 as reaching a star, he would bite you 

 cruelly with mandibles snapping Hke the 

 jaws of a tiny steel trap. 



Of all the resident Northern birds, the 

 blue jay and the cardinal grosbeak are 

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