Tree Toads 
cease 
singing; 
Goldfinch 
singing on 
wing 
King-birds 
a Black-billed Cuckoo. At 7.40, when the light was failing 
fast, a Tanager sang a few times and just five minutes later 
the first Whippoorwill began. Five minutes after this 
Grass Finches and Field Sparrows were still singing. One of 
the former closed the diurnal concert at 7.53. 
[jThere were no Tree Toads to-night and I neard none 
last evening at Fairhaven. Have they ceased? 
Soon after leaving the house this evening I saw 
a Goldfinch singing on wing. It flew very slowly on a 
perfectly level plane, the wing^-beats deep and regular. 
The bird looked nearly double its real sizeTj[ 
I now see many broods of young King-birds accom¬ 
panied by their parents, sitting on bushes along the river 
and usually well out over the water. The young are more 
active and animated than most birds of their age and already 
show much of the irritable, quarrelsome disposition so 
characteristic of their species. The parents are feeding 
them largely on Dragon-flies and I see them chasing these 
insects continually, not always with success for the 
dragon-fly is a good dodger and King-bird* s stock of 
patience small. A bird to-day pursued a dragon-fly upwards 
to a height of more than a hundred feet and after snapping 
at it vainly four or five times in quick succession ga.ve 
up the chase in evident great disgust and sailed back and 
down to its disappointed brood, which were sitting in a 
button bush. 
