V 



A FAMILY OF GROSBEAKS 



ONE day I crossed the road below the yellow-throat's 

 garden, broke through the thick fringe of maples 

 and syringa brush, and crawled along on my hands and 

 knees under the canopy of tall ferns. The ground was soft 

 and loamy. The dogwood saplings, the hazel and arrow- 

 wood bushes grew so thick that each vied with the other 

 in stretching up to reach the life-giving light of the sun's 

 rays. Underneath, the blackberry reached out its long, 

 slender fingers and clutched the tallest ferns to hang its 

 berries where they might catch a glint of the sun, for the 

 beams sifted through only in places. I was in the thicket 

 of the Grosbeak {Zamelodia melanocephala) . 



For several years we have watched a pair of grosbeaks 

 that spend their summers on the side hill in this clump. 

 The same pair, no doubt, has returned to the thicket for 

 at least three or four years. It seems I can almost recog- 

 nize the notes of their song. If our ears were only tuned 

 to the music of the birds, could we not recognize them as 

 individuals, as we recognize our old friends? 



In the grosbeak family, the cardinal or red-bird, is 

 perhaps more familiar to us, since he is often seen behind 

 the bars of a cage. But his colors fade in confinement, and 

 he is no longer the brilliant bird of the wild that seems 

 to have strayed up from the tropics. But even if the 



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