66 Sunimcr Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



my readers. There is but one way of learning a 

 bird's song, and that is by listening to it in solitude 

 again and again, until you have associated it in 

 your mind with the form and habits and haunts of 

 the singer. 



The Pied Flycatcher may, under certain circum- 

 stances, be a puzzling bird to the novice. An old 

 male, in full plumage of black and white, is indeed 

 unmistakable ; but the female, the young, and (as is 

 now well known) some at least of the birds of a year 

 old, have the back and head of a grayish brown. The 

 pair which I watched at Wiesbaden were very much 

 alike, and as they were flitting about the highest 

 branches of an old gnarled oak, I had some trouble 

 in identifying them even with the field -glass. I 

 knew little of the species then, and the brown in 

 both sexes puzzled me, the song puzzled me, and 

 when the male showed his tail to me delightfully 

 while clinging Swift-like to the mouth of the hole 

 they were choosing for their nesting-place, the white 

 of the two outer tail-feathers puzzled me no less.-^ 

 Worst of all, the brown of the head was distinctly 

 reddish, and it was not for some time that I dis- 

 covered that this was caused by the sunlight falling 

 on the bird and reflected through the ruddy young 

 oak -leaves that brilliant April morning. Only the 



' For the brown of the back in breeding birds, cf. Macpherson's 

 Birds of Owmberlaiid, p. 38. 



