220 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
lovely contralto notes of the bluebird who from 
mid-sky calls down, “‘Faraway, faraway, faraway,” 
the song of the white-throated sparrow is tantaliz- 
ingly brief and simple in its phrasing. Up in Canada 
the guides call the bird the “‘widow-woman.”’ Usu- 
ally its song, except in the spring, is incomplete and 
apt to flatten a little on some of the notes; but to- 
day it rang through the rain as true and compelling 
as when it wakes me, from the syringa and lilac bushes 
outside my sleeping-porch, some May morning. 
Through the dripping boughs I pressed far into the 
very centre of the wood. In a tangle of greenbrier 
sounded a series of sharp irritating chips, and a cardi- 
nal, blood-red against the leaden sky, perched himself 
on a bough of a hornbeam sapling. As I watched him 
sitting there in the cold rain, he seemed like some bird 
of the tropics which had flamed his way north and 
would soon go back to the blaze of sun and riot of 
color where he belonged. Yet the cardinal grosbeak 
stays with us all winter, and I have seen four of the 
vivid males at a time, all crimson against the white 
snow. To-day he looked down upon me, and without 
any warning suddenly began to sing his full song 
in a whisper. ‘‘Wheepl, wheepl, wheepl,”’ he whistled 
with a mellow and wood-wind note; and again, a 
full tone lower, ‘“‘Wheepl, wheepl, wheepl.’’ Then 
he sang a lilting double-note song, “‘Chu-wee, chu- 
wee, chu-wee,’’ ending with a ringing whistle, 
“Whit, whit, whit, teu, teu, teu,’’ and then ran them 
together, ‘‘Whit-teu, whit-teu, whit-teu.” As his 
lovely dove-colored mate flitted jealously through the 
