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Of these I may cite the scarlet tanager and the rose-breasted grosbeak, both rather shy woodland dwellers, the tanager the friend of the tall timber, the grosbeak partial to sprout land and second growth, but both often found building their nests on the inviting boughs of apple trees not far from their favorite haunts.
Toward the end of the month, when the gelatinous masses in the water courses have developed the little black dots sufficiently so that we can see they are tadpoles, when the songsters have been joined by the catbird, the rose-breasted grosbeak, the woodthrush, the whippoorwill, the cheerful and friendly chewink and several of the warblers and flycatchers, the rivers and creeks will be fringed with the brilliant yellow of the marsh marigold, and we shall think of Shakespeare, walking the meadows of Avon, getting material for that song of the musicians in Cymbeline: And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes.
Still others are seen only in winter, as the brown and shore larks, the crossbills, redpolls, snow-buntings, pine grosbeak, and some of the hawks and owls; and of these some are merely accidental, as the pine grosbeak, which in 1836 appeared here in great numbers in October, and remained until May.
A backward season brings strangers into close company for a while. A white-throat sings his clear song of the North, and a moment later is answered by an oriole's melody, or the sweet tones of a rose-breasted grosbeak the latter one of those rarely favoured birds, exquisite in both plumage and song.
Those who have heard the grosbeak describe its song as similar to that of the finch, though no doubt it is louder and stronger. The finch's instrument is a fife tuned to love and not to war. He blows a clear, round note, rapid and intricate, but full of sweetness and melody. His hardier relative with that larger beak and deeper chest must fill the woods with sounds.
We lift our eyes and see the pointed carmine shield of the rose-breasted grosbeak, one of the most beautiful, useful and music-full birds in the forest or the garden.
Every morning when I came slowly and quietly up the little path from the gate, bird-notes suddenly ceased; the grosbeak, pouring out his soul from the top of a pine-tree, dived down the other side; the towhee, picking up his breakfast on the ground, scuttled behind the bushes and disappeared; the humming-bird, interrupted in her morning "affairs," flew off over my head, scolding vigorously; only the vireo serene as always went on warbling and eating, undisturbed.
Another bird that is occasionally borne to us on the crest of the cold waves from the frozen zone, and that is repeated on a smaller scale in a permanent resident, is the pine grosbeak; his alter ego, reduced in size, is the purple finch, which abounds in the higher latitudes of the temperate zone. The color and form of the two birds are again essentially the same.
Indeed, these two birds so much resemble each other in color, form, manner, voice, and general habits that, were it not for the difference in size, the grosbeak being nearly as large again as the indigo-bird, it would be a hard matter to tell them apart. The females of both species are clad in the same reddish-brown suits. So are the young the first season.
Probably, like the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, which is constantly extending its limits in an eastern direction, the Mocking-Bird may be gradually making progress northwardly, so that fifty years hence both of these birds may be common in Massachusetts.
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