22 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



place I had found his nest the spring before, made of 

 twigs and strips of bark and lined with grass and roots 

 and holding three speckled eggs. It was the cardinal 

 grosbeak, another bird unknown to me in New Eng- 

 land. No matter how often I meet this crimson- 

 crested grosbeak, he will never become a common 

 bird to me. Each time I see him I feel again some- 

 thing of the thrill which came over me when I first 

 met this singer from the southland in a thicket on 

 the edge of Philadelphia. With the Carolina wren 

 and the tufted titmouse, the cardinal grosbeak 

 completes a trio of birds that can never be common- 

 place to one born north of Central Park, New York, 

 which is about the limit of their northern range. 



To-day, as I watched my flaming cardinal, he sud 

 denly dived stiffly into the heart of the thicket. 

 A moment later from its midst sounded a clear, 

 loud whistle, "Whit, whit, whit." I answered him, 

 for this is one of the few bird-calls I can imitate. 

 Before long his dove-colored mate also appeared. 

 Her wings and tail were of a duller red, while the 

 upper-parts of her sleek body were of a brownish-ash 

 tint. The throat and a patch by the base of the bill 

 were black in both. As I watched, the singer in the 

 thicket added to his whistle the word "Teu, teu, teu, 

 teu" and then finally ran them together — "Whee- 

 teu, whee-teu, whee-teu," so rapidly whistled that 

 it sounded almost like a single note. 



On the way back to breakfast, as the sun came up 

 and warmed a slope of the woods, a flock of slate- 

 colored j uncos burst out altogether in a chorus of 



