234 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
(d). He is not always silent during the day, when feeding, 
but it is at evening in May or June that he sings most loudly 
and sweetly. Then, perching near the top of some low tree, 
he pours out an extremely mellow warble, like that of the 
Robin, but very much finer. Sometimes, in the love-season, he 
sings at night, and with an ardor which adds to the beauty of 
his song. There is a peculiar charm in hearing birds sing at 
night, for their music is more distinct and impressive in the 
general silence which there then is, and awakes the imagina- 
tion. The cries of the owls would not seem so unearthly, were 
they heard only in the day, nor would they inspire such terror 
to the superstitious, a terror which the darkness naturally in- 
creases or partly creates. 
The Rose-breasted Grosbeaks have as an ordinary note a 
sharp chink, which bears some resemblance to the cry of the 
little spotted or Downy Woodpecker, but is more like a certain 
note of the Black and Yellow Warbler. They are never gre- 
garious, but occur here for the most part in isolated pairs, who 
in autumn are sometimes followed by their young. They are 
said sometimes to sing well in confinement, “‘ though,” says a 
correspondent, ‘one, which I had for several months, was for a 
long while silent, until one morning he burst into song, and 
sang gloriously for almost an hour, when he fell dead on the 
floor of his cage!” The males sometimes warble when on 
wing, and they probably mount in the air, as they sing at night. 
Their merits as musicians will, it is sincerely to be hoped, ever 
protect them from persecution as occasional depredators on 
our shrubs and trees. 
XXUI. CARDINALIS 
(A) viremntanus. Cardinal Grosbeak. Cardinal Red Bird. 
Cardinal-bird. “Cardinal.” Red Bird.4 “Virginia Night- 
ingale.” 
(Accidental in Massachusetts, and rare so far to the north- 
ward.) 
74Not to be confused with the vermilion Summer Red Bird (§10, I, B). The 
Cardinal has a red bill. 
