ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 71 



unsolved. For nearly, perhaps quite a week, three 

 or four large, heavy-beaked birds flitted about in 

 several tall tree-tops of the woods, but were so far 

 up that, try as I would, I could not identify them 

 even with my opera-glass. In my small collection 

 of mounted birds there is a female evening gross- 

 beak ; and the tree-top flitters looked more like it 

 than any other bird of my acquaintance. If they 

 were evening grossbeaks, it was a rare find ; for 

 these birds are almost unknown in this part of the 

 country, only a few having ever been discovered in 

 this State. Their usual locale is thought to be west 

 of Lake Superior. I was sorely tempted to use a 

 gun, but decided that it was just as well not to know 

 some things as to massacre an innocent bird. 



However, other finds were more satisfactory. 

 Strolling through the woods one day, I caught the 

 notes of a bird song that did not sound familiar. 

 Surely it was a vireo's quaint, continuous lay ; but 

 which of the vireos could it be ? It was different 

 from any vireo minstrelsy I had ever heard. Peer- 

 ing about in the bushes for the author of those 

 elusive notes, I at length espied a little bird form, 

 and the next moment my glass revealed the blue- 

 headed or solitary vireo. It was the first time I had 

 ever heard this little vocalist sing in the spring, 

 although we have met — he and I — on familiar 

 terms every season for many years. Here is a 

 query : Why was blue-head silent other years, and 

 so tuneful that spring? For he was often heard 

 after that day. 



