54 BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



Red and white may or may not be a pleasing com- 

 bination, but when you see a pine-grosbeak on a 

 snow-covered branch you will be pretty sure to take 

 a second look, and the principal reason for this will 

 be the rarity of your opportunities to do so. Gros- 

 beaks do not like this region. They often come to 

 Pennsylvania, but keep well within the hemlock for- 

 ests, and it is only once in a while that they cross the 

 Delaware and take an outing in a Jersey woodland. 

 More frequently they wander from Long Island to 

 our sea-coast, for these birds have been seen at 

 Holly Beach and not noticed either north or west 

 of that point during the same winter. But when 

 the novelty of the bird's presence wears away, as it 

 soon will, for it is stupid and silent, you will realize 

 that something more than red, and a very dingy red 

 at that, is required to make a bird attractive. There 

 is everything in manner, and it is for this reason that 

 a cat-bird or a wren is worth to the lover of out of 

 doors all the grosbeaks that ever came from Canada. 

 You look at them and then they are forgotten, but 

 who could forget a Carolina wren ? 



There is not a day in the year that we may not 

 see sparrows of one, two, or perhaps a dozen kinds. 

 There is not a field, wood, or pasture that is not fre- 

 quented by them. No spot so cold, so hot, so dry, 

 or so wet but some one of the many species will find 

 there a congenial home. There is a fixedness of 

 purpose about them that enables you to anticipate 

 their presence to some degree, and you are never 

 likely to be wholly disappointed. If it is not one 



