APRIL 
93 
thology, the Evening Grosbeak ( Fringilla Vespertina J. He 
says of that bh'd^ their note is strange and peculiar ; and 
it is only at twilight that they are heard crying in a singu- 
lar strain. This mournful sound, uttered at such an unusual 
hour, strikes the traveller's ear, but the bird itself is seldom 
seen." One season I heard it several nights in succession, early 
in March, and going into the State of Vermont in the same 
month, I likewise heard it there, but invariably proceeding 
from the most sombre and gloomy recesses of the black-tim- 
bered woods. Once, and but once, I heard it before the sun 
was set ; I have watched in the woods from which I was in 
the habit of hearing it proceed, for some time after sunset ; 
but could not succeed in hearing it then, I was once coming 
from Sherbrooke near midnight, when everything was pro- 
foundly still, and not a sound broke the deep silence, except 
the measured tramp of my horse's feet on the frozen road ; on 
a sudden, from a thick forest, about half a mile distant, came 
the' metallic tinkle of the saw-whetter. The unexpectedness 
of the sound struck me forcibly, and, cold as it was, I stopped 
my horse for some time to listen to it. In the darkness and 
silence of midnight, the regularly recurring sound, proceeding 
too from so gloomy a spot, had an effect on my mind, so- 
lemn, and almost unearthly, yet not unmixed with pleasure. 
Perhaps the mystery hanging about the origin of the sound 
tended to increase the effect. I have been told by one of 
my neighbours that it is a bird, about the size of a cuckoo, 
but as I could not find that he himself had seen it in the act 
of uttering its notes, little heed is to be given to the sup- 
position. 
C. — It is very singular. I should think it might be 
discovered by perseverance. 
F, — You may watch for it, if you please ; but I apprehend 
it is very shy, and you would not be aware of its presence 
