BIRDS AND BIRDS. 165 



the long summer day. I hear it in the dry and 

 parched August when most birds are silent, sometimes 

 delivered on the wing and sometimes from the perch. 

 Indeed, with me its song is as much a midsummer 

 sound as is the brassy crescendo of the cicada. The 

 memory of its note calls to mind the flame-like quiver 

 of the heated atmosphere and the bright glare of the 

 meridian sun. Its color is much more intense than 

 that of the common bluebird, as summer skies are 

 deeper than those of April, but its note is less mellow 

 and tender. Its original, the blue grosbeak, is an un- 

 certain wanderer from the south, as the pine gros- 

 beak is from the north. I have never seen it north 

 of the District of Columbia. It has a loud, vivacious 

 song, of which it is not stingy, and which is a large 

 and free rendering of the indigo's, and belongs to 

 summer more than to spring. The bird is colored 

 the same as its lesser brother, the males being a deep 

 blue and the females a modest drab. Its nest is usu- 

 ally placed low down, as is the indigo's, and the male 

 carols from the tops of the trees in its vicinity in the 

 same manner. Indeed, the two birds are strikingly 

 alike in every respect except in size and in habitat, 

 and, as in each of the other cases, the lesser bird is, 

 as it were, the point, the continuation, of the larger, 

 carrying its form and voice forward as the reverbera- 

 tion carries the sound. 



I know the ornithologists, with their hair-split- 

 tings, or, rather, feather-splittings, point out many 

 differences, but they are unimportant. The fractions 

 not agree, but the whole numbers are the same. 



