THE INVITATION. 219 



as he had heard both birds, one would think was pre- 

 pared to judge. Yet he has, no doubt, overrated the 

 one and underrated the other. The song of the water- 

 thrush is very brief, compared with the philomel's, and 

 its quality is brightness and vivacity, while that of the 

 latter bird, if the books are to be credited, is melody 

 and harmony. Again, he says the song of the blue 

 grossbeak resembles the bobolink's, which it does 

 about as much as the color of the two birds resembles 

 each other : one is black and white and the other is 

 blue. The song of the wood-wagtail, he says, consists 

 of a " short succession of simple notes beginning with 

 emphasis and gradually falling." The truth is they run 

 up the scale instead of down ; beginning low and end- 

 ing in a shriek. 



Yet considering the extent of Audubon's work, the 

 wonder is the errors are so few. I can, at this moment, 

 recall but one observation of his, the contrary of which 

 I have proved to be true. In his account of the bobo- 

 link he makes a point of the fact that in returning 

 South in the fall they do not travel by night as they do 

 when moving North in the spring. In Washington I 

 have heard their calls as they flew over at night for 

 four successive autumns. As he devoted the whole of 

 a long life to the subject, and figured and described over 

 four hundred species, one feels a real triumph on find- 

 ing in our common woods a bird not described in his 

 work. I have seen but two. Walking in the woods 

 one clay in early fall, in the vicinity of West Point, I 



