2 . 
song. Yesterday afternoon a Purple Pinch lit on a branch close by the 
Museum and and treated me to a most beautiful sons. 1 had never heard 
his full sons before. On Tuesday I saw a Humming Bird sucking sweets 
from the flowers of Pyrus Japonica in Mrs.Walcott 1 s garden. In a few 
minutes he lit on a branch and sat there for several moments and then 
only flew away when an English Sparrow lit a little too near him. 
I have just this minute been watching a Vireo gilvus on the tree 
in front of me. He has been flyins about from branch to branch tearing 
off with his bill fine shreds of the outer bark, till his little bill 
was quite full of them. Can he be building a nest on your place? That 
would be good. I noticed him or her doing the very same thing yesterday 
afternoon. 
I have finished Baskett's "The Study of the Birds" and I have tho¬ 
roughly enjoyed it. You must read it when you return. In speaking of 
regurgitation he says that the "Pigeon group is very peculiar even among 
this kind of birds, in that the young inserts its beak into that of the 
parent and finds there at first not half-digested food but a curdllke 
secretion, or, rathei^nore accurately, the thickened and "peeled up" lin¬ 
ing of the parent's crop. " He is very humorous at times and altogeth¬ 
er the book is very pleasing and instructive. It was so to me. 
I will drop you a line from time to time but you are not to think 
of answering. Let me do anything for you that I can 
