plicity, and, as it
seems to me, is not improved by this variation.

While listening to the notes of the Wood-Sparrow, we are continually
saluted by the agreeable, though less musical song of the Chewink, or
Ground-Robin,--a bird that frequents similar places. This is a very
beautiful bird, elegantly spotted with white, red, and black,--the
female being of a bright bay color where the male is red. Every rambler
knows him, not only by his plumage and his peculiar note, but also by
his singular habit of lurking about among the bushes, appearing and
disappearing like a squirrel, and watching all our movements. Though he
does not avoid our company, it is with difficulty that a marksman can
obtain a good aim at him, so rapidly does he change his position among
the leaves and branches. In this habit he resembles the Wren. While we
are watching his motions, he pauses in his song, and utters that
peculiar note of complaint from which he has derived his name,
_Chewink_, though the sound he utters is more like _chewee_, accenting
the second syllable.

The Chewink (_Fringilla erythrophthalma_) is a very constant singer
during four months of the year, from the middle of April. He is very
untiring in his lays, seldom resting for any considerable time from
morning till night, being never weary in rain or in sunshine, or at
noon-day in the hottest weather of the season. His song consists of two
long notes, the first about a third above the second, and the last part
is made up of several rapidly uttered notes about one tone below the
first note.

There is an expression of great cheerfulness in these notes; but music,
like poetry, must be somewhat plaintive in its character, to take strong
hold of the feelings. I have never known a person to be affected by
these notes as by those of the Wood-Sparrow. While engaged in singing,
the Chewink is usually perched on the lower branch of a tree, near the
edge of a wood, or on the top of a tall bush. He is a true forest-bird,
and builds his nest in the thickets that conceal the boundaries of the
wood.

The notes of the Chewink and his general appearance and habits are well
calculated to render him conspicuous, and they cause him to be always
noticed and remembered. Our birds are like our men of genius. As in the
literary world there is a description of talent that must be discovered
and pointed out by an observing few, before the great mass can
understand it or even know its existence,--so t