the strain once or twice in a softer voice, and I glanced up
instinctively to see if a female were with him; but instead, there were
two males sitting within a yard of each other. They flew off after a
little, and I resumed my saunter. A party of chimney swifts were
shooting hither and thither over the trees, a single wood thrush was
chanting not far away, and in another direction a tanager was rehearsing
his _chip-cherr_ with characteristic assiduity. Presently I began to be
puzzled by a note which came now from this side, now from that, and
sounded like the squeak of a pair of rusty shears. My first conjecture
about the origin of this _hic_ it would hardly serve my reputation to
make public; but I was not long in finding out that it was the
grosbeaks' own, and that, instead of three, there were at least twice
that number of these brilliant strangers in the grove. Altogether, the
half hour was one of very enjoyable excitement; and when, later in the
evening, I sat down to my note-book, I started off abruptly in a
hortatory vein,--"Always take another walk!"

In the morning, naturally enough, I again turned my steps toward the
chestnut grove. The rose-breasts were still there, and one of them
earned my thanks by singing on the wing, flying slowly--half-hovering,
as it were--and singing the ordinary song, but more continuously than
usual. That afternoon one of them was in tune at the same time with a
robin, affording me the desired opportunity for a direct comparison. "It
is really wonderful," my record says, "how nearly alike the two songs
are; but the robin's tone is plainly inferior,--less mellow and full. In
general, too, his strain is pitched higher; and, what perhaps is the
most striking point of difference, it frequently ends with an attempt at
a note which is a little out of reach, so that the voice breaks." (This
last defect, by the bye, the robin shares with his cousin the wood
thrush, as already remarked.) A few days afterwards, to confirm my own
impression about the likeness of the two songs, I called the attention
of a friend with whom I was walking, to a grosbeak's notes, and asked
him what bird's they were. He, having a good ear for matters of this
kind, looked somewhat dazed at such an inquiry, but answered promptly,
"Why, a robin's, of course." As one day after another passed, however,
and I listened to both species in full voice on every hand, I came to
feel that I had overestimated the resemblance. Wit