July 
say anything more. Summarized, the cardinal 
is brilliant, stately, unsocial, and apparently not 
anxious to make the most of his gifts. Can any 
one say that birds are not types of mankind ? 
9 
The wood thrush as a singer is sui generis. 
A well-known writer once divided the human 
race into two parts—all the rest of the world, 
and the Beecher family. With much the same 
propriety we may divide all our song-birds into 
two groups—all the rest of the songsters, and 
the thrush family. The voice of the wood 
thrush (and the same is true of the veery and 
the hermit thrush) is so unique as quite to pre- 
clude all comparison. The oriole, the purple 
finch, the goldfinch, the rose-breasted grosbeak, 
have each its special excellence, but they are all 
measured in the terms of each other—they are 
all, so to speak, human; the wood thrush, to 
use a much-abused term, is divine. In listen- 
ing to any one of the finches I have named, one 
is quite likely to think of the others, even if it 
be in the way of the most flattering contrast ; 
but when he hears the wood or the hermit 
thrush or the veery, he simply forgets the 
others. ‘There seems to be a soul speaking in 
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