eard the snap of the woodpecker's beak as he passed into the
thick woods, but nobody was hurt, and the flycatcher returned to his
perch.

When we had rested a little after our mad rush through the woods, we
found that the hours were slipping away, and we must go. Passing down
the road at the edge of the woods, we were about to cross a tiny brook,
when our eyes fell upon a distinguished personage at his bath. He was a
rose-breasted grosbeak, and we instantly stopped to see him. He did not
linger, but gave himself a thorough splashing, and flew at once to a
tree, where he began dressing his plumage in frantic haste, as if he
knew he was a "shining mark" for man and beast. He stayed half a minute
on one branch, jerked a few feathers through his beak, then flew to
another place and hurriedly dressed a few more; and so he kept on,
evidently excited and nervous at being temporarily disabled by wet
feathers, though I do not think he knew he had human observers, for we
were at some distance and perfectly motionless. He was a beauty, even
for his lovely family, and the rose color of his wing-linings was the
most gorgeous I ever saw.

[Sidenote: _DRESSING IN A HURRY._]

Moreover, I knew this bird, later, to be as useful as he was beautiful.
He it was who took upon himself the care of the potato-patch in the
garden below, spending hours every day in clearing off the destructive
potato-beetle, singing as he went to and from his labors, and, when the
toils of the day were over, treating us to a delicious evening song from
the top of a tree close by.

In that way the grosbeak's time was spent till babies appeared in the
hidden nest, when everything was changed, and he set to work like any
hod-carrier; appearing silently, near the house, on the lowest board of
the fence, looking earnestly for some special luxury for baby beaks. No
more singing on the tree-tops, no more hunting of the beetle in stripes;
food more delicate was needed now, and he found it among the brakes that
grew in clumps all about under my window. It was curious to see him
searching, hopping upon a stalk which bent very much with his weight,
peering eagerly inside; then on another, picking off something; then
creeping between the stems, going into the bunch out of sight, and
reappearing with his mouth full; then flying off to his home. This bird
was peculiarly marked, so that I knew him. The red of his breast was
continued in a narrow streak down through the whit