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The bright glancing wings of the summer red-bird, the crimson-headed woodpecker, the gay blue-bird, and noisy but splendid plumed jay, might be seen among the branches; the air was filled with beauteous sights and soft murmuring melodies.
Is it this flight from the inescapable just behind that makes the singing of the red-bird thoughtful and plaintive, and, indeed, nearly all the wild sounds of nature so like the outcry of the doomed? He will sit for a long time silent and motionless in the heart of a cedar, as if absorbed in the tragic memories of his race.
It was an easy step to poetry from flowers, and evidently June was groping for it. A few days later the service-berry swung out white stars on the low hill-sides, but Hale could tell her nothing that she did not know about the "sarvice-berry." Soon, the dogwood swept in snowy gusts along the mountains, and from a bank of it one morning a red-bird flamed and sang: "What cheer! What cheer!
It is also an error to say of his imitations, as the generality of writers assert, that they are improvements upon the originals. When he utters the notes of the Red-Bird, the Golden Robin, or the Common Robin, he does not improve them; and when he gives us the screaming of the Jay or the mewing of the Cat, he does not change them into music.
They reached the end of the old street, and were almost in the country. A wide-spreading chestnut-tree stood before them, around whose giant bole a rustic seat had been built. They walked towards it in silence and sat down side by side. They were entirely alone. A gay young red-bird, his head knowingly cocked on one side, perched in the branches just above them.
Then the red-bird saw such a remarkable thing happen that his bright eyes almost popped out of his little head. He saw a hand and a powerful arm suddenly steal out from below the black hat and move in the direction of the flowered straw not hurriedly, but stealthily and surely.
A belated bumblebee, already heavy laden, hung over a cluster of wild flowers at their feet. A long-legged garrulous grasshopper, undismayed by their presence, uttered his clarion notes on the seat beside them. The inquisitive young red-bird looking down could only see a soft black hat and a white straw hat with flowers about its broad brim.
In a short time the cage was seen to contain specimens of the blue-jay and red-bird, or Virginia nightingale, orioles of several species, and doves of two distinct kinds.
Ridgway, it is perhaps nearer the cormorant than anything else, although not executed with the detail necessary for its satisfactory recognition. It may pass, however, as a badly executed likeness of the tufted cardinal grosbeak or red-bird. The same is true of Figs. 174 and 175, which are also said to be "cherry-birds." To undertake to name the species would be the merest guess-work.
Never since have I been able to look at the red-bird with the old gladness. He is the reminder of my loss. Reminder? Do I ever forget? Am I not thinking of that before his notes lash my memory at dawn? All day can they do more than furrow deeper the channel of unforgetfulness? Little does he dream what my friendship for him has cost me.
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