ng burning-bush berries in a Boston garden, I was half ready to
believe that I had before my eyes a living example of the development of
one species out of another,--a finch already well on his way to become a
thrush. Most often, however, his voice puts me in mind of the cardinal
grosbeak's; his voice, and perhaps still more his cadence, and
especially his practice of the _portamento_.

The 11th of the month was sunny, and the next morning I came back from
my accustomed rounds under a sense of bereavement: the fox sparrows were
gone. Where yesterday there had been hundreds of them, now I could find
only two silent stragglers. They had been well scattered over the
township,--here a flock and there a flock; but in some way--I should be
glad to have anybody tell me how--the word had passed from company to
company that after sundown Friday night all hands would set out once
more on their northward journey. There was one man, at least, who missed
them, and in the comparative silence which followed their departure
appreciated anew how much they had contributed to fill the wet and
chilly April mornings with melody and good cheer.

The snow-birds tarried longer, but from this date became less and less
abundant. For the first third of the month they had been as numerous, I
calculated, as all other species put together. On one occasion I saw a
large company of them chasing an albino, the latter dashing wildly round
a pine-tree, with the whole flock in furious pursuit. They drove him
off, across an impassable morass, before I could get close enough really
to see him, but I presumed him to be of their own kind. As far as I
could make out he was entirely white. For the moment it lasted, it was
an exciting scene; and I was especially gratified to notice with what
extreme heartiness and unanimity the birds discountenanced their wayward
brother's heterodoxy. I agreed with them that one who cannot be content
to dress like other people ought not to be allowed to live with them.
The world is large,--let him go to Rhode Island!

On the evening of the 6th, just at dusk, I had started up the road for a
lazy after-dinner saunter, when I was brought to a sudden halt by what
on the instant I took for the cry of a night-hawk. But no night-hawk
could be here thus early in the season, and listening further, I
perceived that the bird, if bird it was, was on the ground, or, at any
rate, not far from it. Then it flashed upon me that this was the not