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AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



HABITS. 



The stranger to our beautiful forests and sylvan retreats will scarcely 

 know this charming bird, for its favorite haunts are the swampy woods 

 where the shadows are deep from tangled vines and rank undergrowth; 

 where blossoms are large and deeply tinted from vegetable molds, and 

 where the fragrant atmosphere is cool and moist. It delights in thick- 

 ets forming a border line between field and forest, and startles the 

 echoes in the lofty arcades of the densest and darkest woodlands. In 

 such places and rather local in its distribution, the male makes his ap- 

 pearance in western New York from the first to the tenth of May, and 

 stretching himself on tiptoe, delivers, in a hurried and spirited manner, 

 his rare and delightful melody, which strongly resembles the finest per- 

 formance of the Robin — only the warble is much more copious, con- 

 tinuously prolonged and finely modulated with a peculiar richness, pur- 

 ity, and sweet pathos in the tones. 



FEMALE GROSBEAK. 



