56 
NATURE STUDY. 
parent birds to ignore each other? Did the male sit on the 
eggs of the second brood—-or were there two belated eggs in 
the first brood which he hatched out? The difference in size 
between the two sets of young birds was marked—the female’s 
charges must have been two weeks at least older than the 
male’s. We know there has been but one pair of birds visiting 
us — for the female had a peculiar broken white feather in her 
tail which made her easy to be identified. We have never seen 
two adult females or two males at our feeding spot, though this 
island swarms with them — their <f Whip Tom Kelly-elly-elly ” 
is to be heard on every hand. The goldfinches have begun to 
flock to us, on the contrary; we often have a dozen or fifteen at 
once — with but few females, however. Some males are still 
singing wildly and deliciously on August 8. Are there, then, 
some females sitting on the nest still, and have some pairs not 
yet finished a surely belated wooing? 
A Pinfeather Ornithologist. 
The Evening Primrose. 
BY GRORGE BANCROFT GRIFFITH. 
Ah, is she touched by some wand’ring sprite, 
When her luminous blooms flash out at night ? 
As a happy boy, in the summer’s prime 
I have drank of her beauty many a time. 
Those fragrant petals that breathed of hope, 
Of consciousness, to my fancy’s scope, 
In that twilight haunt, — I see them still, 
By the open door of the ruined mill. 
The fluttering moth that hovered nigh 
The bending tufts, and the zephyr’s sigh, 
When the vesper chimes seem to rise and fall. 
In the twilight’s’gloom I oft recall. 
And the Evening Primrose ever will be 
A floral mystery unto me ; 
With its luminous galaxy lit at night 
To win the eye of some eager sprite. 
