THE FLOWERS OF EARLY JUNE. II. 163 
traffic that was stirring beyond the hills. While I was 
listening with an attent ear and watching with patient 
eye for whatever might come, at the same time enjoying 
to the full the charming prospect, suddenly there ap- 
peared on a low shrub about six feet before me the 
bird which of all I then wished to see, and which from 
the descriptions often read I had no difficulty in identi- 
fying as a male rose-breasted grosbeak. It was ten years 
before I saw another, on what I have since called a red- 
letter day for birds, because within the short space of a 
quarter of an hour I saw several Baltimore orioles, 
scarlet tanagers, redwing-blackbirds, my rose-breasted 
grosbeak, and a whole flock of the commoner birds, 
heard the song of the oven-bird though I did not see 
the singer, and heard the drumming of the ruffed grouse. 
In the rare June days, the rare birds and the rare 
flowers come, and yet these are not all. It is the com- 
mon things that make up the most of the world, the 
common birds and the common flowers. These last now 
light up many a bit of woodland or grassy meadow or 
bank of quiet pool or babbling brook with their fleeting 
beauty, and then, having done their utmost, quietly give 
place to others which in varying forms repeat the old, 
old story. These belong equally to us all; the wild 
flowers are not to be monopolized any more than the 
air of heaven. 
