A few ducks are usually seen sailing on the lake, apparently more for pleasure than anything else, and the ouzels at the head of the rapids sing always; while robins, grosbeaks, and the Douglas squirrels are busy in the groves, making delightful company, and intensifying the feeling of grateful sequestration without ruffling the deep, hushed calm and peace.

And in autumn, when the huckleberries are ripe, bands of robins and grosbeaks come to feast, forming altogether delightful little byworlds for the naturalist.

Busy little grosbeaks picked about the kitchen doors, and woodpeckers tapped the eves of the farm buildings, but we saw hardly any other of the frequenters of the summer cañons.

'Tis a simple proposition, after all, that ten times one is ten; and the bees, the ants, the grosbeaks, and the beavers prove it so clearly that any one of us may read, though we pass by never so quickly.

Wide-spreading oaks and superb magnolias were lighted up with sudden flashes of color, as scarlet grosbeaks flitted from tree to tree.

Along the road were white-crowned and white-throated sparrows (it was the 12th of April), orchard orioles, thrashers, summer tanagers, myrtle and paim warblers, cardinal grosbeaks, mocking-birds, kingbirds, logger-heads, yellowthroated vireos, and sundry others, but not the blue grosbeak, which would have been worth them all.

The worry and the imprecations were wasted, after all, as, Heaven be thanked, they so often are; for within two or three days I saw other blue grosbeaks and heard them sing.

In the bushes by the fence-row were a pair of cardinal grosbeaks, the male whistling divinely, quite unabashed by the volubility of a mocking-bird who balanced himself on the treetop overhead, "Superb and sole, upon a pluméd spray," and seemed determined to show a Yankee stranger what mocking-birds could really do when they set out.

His bird companions are Snowbirds, Horned Larks, Crossbills, and Pine Grosbeaks; and he trembles lest the Great Gray Owl shall find his nestlings.

" "That was the Rose-breasted Grosbeak," said the Doctor.

You must hear a little about that first, and let your American Goldfinch take his turn with his brothers and cousins, for Rap's Rose-breasted Grosbeak belongs also in this family.

All kinds of Finches and Sparrows belong to it, and so do Grosbeaks and Buntings, as well as the Canaries that we keep for pets.

"I think we are getting way off from Nat's yellow bird," said Dodo; "and now I see lots more of Rap's Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, over on the fence.

It is called the Pine Grosbeak.

" THE PINE GROSBEAK "This bird has a great heavy beak, that makes him look rather stupid; in fact, this beak gives him the name of Gros-beak, which means the same as Great-beak.

"When the northern winter is very severe, Pine Grosbeaks gather in flocks and scatter through the States.

[Illustration: Pine Grosbeak.]

"Though this Grosbeak seems rather dull and stupid out of doors, he is a charming cage pet, growing tame and singing a delightful warbling song.

"Some winter day, or even late in autumn, you may see on your walks, another red birda near relation of the Pine Grosbeak; in fact, the two often flock together.

" The Pine Grosbeak Length about nine inches.

Then if we went still further north, even these would begin to grow more scanty and stunted, until the low pines in which the Grosbeak nests would be the only trees seen.

THE CARDINAL (THE CARDINAL GROSBEAK) "There is a legend about this Cardinalthe soldier with a red uniform," said the Doctor; "one of Mammy Bun's strange stories that came from the Indians to the negroes, always growing larger and stranger.

THE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK (THE POTATO-BUG BIRD)

"This Grosbeak dares not trust its brilliant colors in large trees or open places, and so nests where it may hide in a maze of bushes.

" The Rose-breasted Grosbeak Length about eight inches.