AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 159 



WHAT IS MY NAME? 



1. I wear a coat of rich red, with a black tie, and a black band 

 around my beak. I wear a crest also, and I can whistle better than 

 any boy that reads the American Ornithology. My wife whistles too 

 and my daughters, though I have often repeated to them the proverb 

 about whistling girls and crowing hens. 



2. I also am clothed in red, but my coat is not quite as bright as 

 number one. My wings and tail are brown, with white trimmings. 

 Beneath, I am of a lighter red, and my belly is a grayish green. I 

 have a strong bill with which to crack seeds. My home is in northern 

 New England, but I sometimes venture further south in the winter 

 months. 



3. You cannot mistake me in my scarlet gown, with wings and tail 

 of black. I come to you from the Southland in the sweet month of 

 May, and destroy for you many insects and larvae. 



LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH, 



St. Augustine. 



Dear Joe : We are having good times here. We wished you were 

 with us in our walks about the city. As we went through the quaint 

 street of Saint George, the oldest in the city, it seemed as if the little 

 balconies which project from the second stories of the houses would 

 drop upon our heads. Then we went through such pleasant streets, 

 with great arches of live oak branches, (whose tiny evergreen leaves 

 do not look one bit like our oak leaves) with long s:reamers of grey 

 moss swinging in the air. There are many attractive homes, with 

 gardens where oranges hang among glossy green leaves like golden 

 balls, and the air is as sweet as it can be with the perfume of roses, 

 narcissus and violets. Peach trees, loquots and Chinese quanquots are 

 in blossom, and there are magnolias and palms everywhere. The 

 Cardinals sing to us, and the Mocking-birds are very tame, you would 

 know they were relatives of the Catbirds, and when Bluebirds, Robins, 

 Wrens and Brown Thrashers came and spoke to us we felt quite at 

 home. 



Yesterday when we were wheeling outside of the city I spied an im- 

 mense bird taking a dust-bath in the path quite a distance ahead of us, 

 we were creeping very quietly toward it, so pleased that we were to 

 have a good look at an Eagle, when the bird stretched its broad wings, 

 rose into the air with a queer sound which sounded to me like "April 

 Fool," for our ''king of birds" was just an immense Turkey Buzzard. 



There were white-eyed Chewinks rustling about in the undergrowth 

 of. palms beneath the live oaks and cedars and we saw the Loggerhead 



