The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak 
79 
Audubon’s 
Appreciation 
“One year, in the month of August, I was trudging along the shores 
of the Mohawk River, when night overtook me. Being little acquainted 
with that part of the country, I resolved to camp where I was. The 
evening was calm and beautiful, the sky sparkled with stars, which were 
reflected by the smooth waters, and the deep shade of the rocks and trees 
of the opposite shore fell on the bosom of the stream, while gently from 
afar came on the ear the muttering of the cataract. My little fire was 
soon lighted under a rock, and, spreading out my scanty stock of pro- 
visions, I reclined on my grassy couch. ... I closed my eyes, and 
was passing away into the world of dreaming exis- 
tence, when suddenly there burst on my soul the 
serenade of the rose-breasted bird, so rich, so mellow, 
so loud in the stillness of the night, that sleep fled from my eyelids. 
“Never did I enjoy music more; it thrilled through my heart, and 
surrounded me with an atmosphere of bliss. One might easily have 
imagined that even the owl, charmed by such delightful music, remained 
reverently silent. Long after the sounds ceased did I enjoy them, and 
when all had again become still, I stretched out my wearied limbs, and 
gave myself up to the luxury of repose.*’ 
The brilliant singing of this Grosbeak has been the theme of all 
ornithological writers, most of whom speak of it as “warbling;” but it 
is too energetic and staccato to be described by that term. Schuyler 
Matthews devotes several pages of his “Field Book of Wild Birds and 
Their Music” to an analysis of the song, and gives notations of it, illus- 
trating the difference between it and the songs of the Robin and the 
Scarlet Tanager, to both of which it has a certain resemblance. Mr. 
Matthews regards the Rosebreast’s singing as “truly an inspired piece 
of bird-carolling, to be valued less for its melody than for its incompara- 
ble dancing tempo and its inimitable tenderness.” He thinks that Frank 
Chapman has come nearest to expressing its manner and its sentiment in 
the following paragraph : 
“There is an exquisite purity in the joyous carol of the Grosbeak; 
his song tells of all the gladness of a May morning: I have heard few 
happier strains of bird-music. With those who are deaf tq its message 
of good cheer I can only sympathize, pitying the man whose heart does 
not leap with enthusiasm at the sight of rival males dashing through 
the woods like winged meteors, leaving in their wake a train of sparkling 
notes.” 
The food of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak is extraordinarily varied, 
and has been studied with unusual care by W. L. McAtee, one of the 
experts of the Biological Survey, whose “Bulletin 32” 
is a mine of information on the subject. He summar- 
izes his voluminous data in the statement that this 
bird’s fare is composed of about equal parts of vegetable and animal 
matter, the former including a little grain, about one and one-half parts 
in a hundred of garden-peas (a sin greatly exaggerated by some per- 
Varied 
Food 
