READING A CHECK-LIST 



scientific birth in Santa Barbara. The tricolored 

 blackbird is another. This you have now and then 

 seen here, though it is hardly to be accounted com- 

 mon ; one of the most taking members of its genus, 

 with a startling snow-white patch on its glossy 

 jet-black wing. The white- winged blackbird you 

 have always felt like calling it. You will never 

 read its name (the bird's third color is red) with- 

 out remembering your first sight and sound of it 

 (the first sound especially) in a dense clump of 

 tall reeds, out of which came a most unearthly 

 chorus of cat-like yawlings. *' Something new ! " 

 you exclaimed, and after a little patient waiting 

 you saw the blackbird signed with those impres- 

 sive white wing-marks. Yes, indeed, something 

 new, and something of the best. 



Suffer me to say once more, and this time 

 "finally and in conclusion," for the right man 

 there's a world of good reading in a Check- List. 



