72 



IN BIRD LAND. 



The song was varied and lively, sometimes run- 

 ningi high in the scale, and had not that absent- 

 minded air which marks the roundelay of the 

 warbling vireo. It is much more intense and 

 expressive, and some notes are quite like certain 

 runs of the brown thrasher's song. The bird did 

 two other things that were a surprise : he chattered 

 and scolded much like the ruby-crowned kinglet. 

 Then he caught a miller, and, as it was too large to 

 be swallowed whole, placed it under his claws pre- 

 cisely like a chickadee or blue jay, and pulled it to 

 pieces. This was a new trick to me, nor have I 

 ever read, in any of the bird manuals, of his taking 

 his dinner in this way. 



The red-eyed vireo also chanted a little roundel 

 that spring, as he pursued his journey northward, his 

 song being slower in movement and less expressive 

 and varied than that of his cousin just referred to. 



Indeed, the procession seemed to be especially 

 musical during that spring. One day, in the last 

 week in April, a new style of music rang out at the 

 border of the woods, and I fairly trembled lest the 

 jolly soloist should scud away before I could iden- 

 tify him ; but he had no intention of making his 

 escape, and giving the credit of his vocal efforts to 

 somebody else in the bird world. At length I got 

 my glass upon him. He proved to be the purple 

 finch, — rosy little Mozart that he was ! For years 

 he has passed through these woods with the vernal 

 procession, but this was the first time he had ever 

 been obliging enough to sing in my hearing. And 



