UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 115 



linnets, and larks, if tliey can be bought so cheaply 

 and will acclimatize and be happy with us? Near 

 this time, Mr. Bok wrote me concerning the 

 feasibility of releasing some European nightingales 

 on his residence grounds at Merion, Montgomery 

 County, Pennsylvania. I advised Mr. Bok and 

 two other men, who asked the same question, by 

 all means to try acclimating the nightingales and 

 larks also. There is no reason why we should not 

 add exquisite singers to our ornithology as well as 

 rare orchids and other imported flowers, shrubs, 

 vines, and trees to our horticulture. 



In the case of two other strange birds, I have no 

 hesitation in saying: "I know." One day while 

 working with a guide in an open piece of woods 

 pasture with clumps of thickly growing trees while 

 we crouched motionless in hiding waiting for a 

 pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks to come to their 

 nest on which I had two set cameras focused, there 

 burst on our ears such a bedlam of song that we 

 were fairly dazed. The time was about half past 

 three in the afternoon. I thought at first that the 

 notes were those of the brown thrasher, but pres- 

 ently I discovered that this bird was singing as no 

 thrasher ever sang. He was imitating the bold, 

 clear notes of the lark, and every song that lay 

 between that and the tiniest wisps of sound made 

 by a gnat-catcher or hummingbird; and when he 

 interrupted this performance to imitate the crow- 

 ing of a rooster, the bark of a dog, the rattle of a 



