and rose-breasted grosbeaks are not to be included in any such category. Nor will I put there the goldfinch, the linnet, and the song sparrow. These, if no more, shall stand among the immortals; so far, at any rate, as my suffrage counts. But who ever dreamed of calling the chipping sparrow a fine singer? And yet, who that knows it does not love his earnest, long-drawn trill, dry and tuneless as it is? I can speak for one, at all events; and he always has an ear open for it by the middle of April. It is the voice of a friend, a friend so true and gentle and confiding that we do not care to ask if his voice be smooth and his speech eloquent.

The chipper's congener, the field sparrow, is less neighborly than he, but a much better musician. His song is simplicity itself; yet, even at its lowest estate, it never fails of being truly melodious, while by one means and another its wise little author contrives to impart to it a very considerable variety, albeit within pretty narrow limits. Last spring the field sparrows were singing constantly from the middle of April till about the 10th of May, when they became entirely dumb. Then, after a week in which I heard not a note, they again grew musical. I pondered not a little over their silence, but concluded that they were just then very much occupied with preparations for housekeeping.

The bird who is called indiscriminately the grass finch, the bay-winged bunting, the bay-winged sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and I know not what else (the ornithologists have nicknamed him Poocetes gramineus), is a singer of good parts, but is especially to be commended for his refinement. In form his music is strikingly like the song sparrow's; but the voice is not so loud and ringing, and the two or three opening notes are less sharply emphasized. In general the difference between the two songs may perhaps be well expressed by saying that the one is more declamatory, the VOL. LIV. - NO. 324.

32

other more cantabile; a difference exactly such as we might have expected, considering the nervous, impetuous disposition of the song sparrow and the placidity of the bay-wing.

As one of his titles indicates, the bay-wing is famous for singing in the evening, when, of course, his efforts are doubly acceptable; and I can readily believe that Mr. Minot is correct in his "impression" that he has once or twice heard the song in the night. For while spending a few days at a New Hampshire hotel, which was surrounded with fine lawns such as the grass finch delights in, I happened to be awake in the morning, long before sunrise, when, in fact, it seemed like the dead of night,

-

and one or two of these sparrows were piping freely. The sweet and gentle strain had the whole mountain valley to itself. How beautiful it was, set in such a broad "margin of silence," I must leave to be imagined. I noticed, moreover, that the birds sang almost incessantly the whole day through. Much of the time there were two singing antiphonally. Manifestly, the lines had fallen to them in pleasant places: at home for the summer in those luxuriant Sugar-Hill fields, in continual sight of that magnificent mountain panorama, with Lafayette himself looming grandly in the foreground; while they, innocent souls, had never so much as heard of hotel-keepers and their bills. "Happy commoners," indeed! Their "songs in the night" seemed nowise surprising. I fancied that I could be happy myself in such a case.

Our familiar and ever-welcome snowbird, known in some quarters as the black chipping-bird, and often called the black snow-bird, has a long trill, not altogether unlike the common chipper's, but in a much higher key. It is a modest lay, yet doubtless full of meaning; for the singer takes to the very tip of a tree, and throws his head back in the most approved style. He does his best,

at any rate, and so far ranks with the angels; while, if my testimony can be of any service to him, I am glad to say ('t is too bad the praise is so equivocal) that I have heard many human singers who gave me less pleasure; and further, that he took an indispensable though subordinate part in what was one of the most memorable concerts at which I was ever happy enough to be a listener. This was given some years ago in an old apple-orchard by a flock of fox-colored sparrows, who, perhaps for that occasion only, had the valuable assistance" of a large choir of snow-birds. The latter were twittering in every tree, while to this goodly accompaniment the sparrows were singing their loud, clear, thrushlike song. The combination was felicitous in the extreme. I would go a long way to hear the like again.

If distinction cannot be attained by one means, who knows but that it may be by another? It is denied us to be great? Very well, we can at least try the effect of a little originality. Something like this seems to be the philosophy of the indigo-bird; and he carries it out both in dress and in song. As we have said already, it is usual for birds to reserve the loudest and most taking parts of their music for the close, though it may be doubted whether they have any intelligent purpose in so doing. Indeed, the apprehension of a great general truth such as lies at the basis of this well-nigh universal habit,— the truth, namely, that everything depends upon the impression finally left on the hearer's mind; that to end with some grand burst, or with some surprisingly lofty note, is the only, or, to speak cautiously, the principal, requisite to a really great musical performance, the the intelligent grasp of such a truth as this, I say, seems to me to lie beyond the measure of a bird's capacity in the present stage of his development. Be this as it may, however, it is noteworthy that the indigo-bird exactly reverses the com

mon plan. He begins at his loudest and sprightliest, and then runs off into a diminuendo, which fades into silence almost imperceptibly. The strain has no great quality of beauty; nevertheless it is unique, and, further, is continued well into August. Moreover, -and this adds grace to the most ordinary song, — it is often let fall while the bird is on the wing.

This eccentric genius has taken possession of a certain hillside pasture, which, in another way, belongs to me also. Year after year he comes back and settles down upon it about the middle of May; and I have often been amused to see his mate-who is not permitted to wear a single blue feather

drop out of her nest in a barberry bush and go fluttering off, both wings dragging helplessly through the grass. I should pity her profoundly but that I am in no doubt her injuries will rapidly heal when once I am out of sight. Besides, I like to imagine her beatitude, as, five minutes afterward, she sits again upon the nest, with her heart's treasures all safe underneath her. Many a time was a boy of my acquaintance comforted in some ache or pain with the words, "Never mind! 't will feel better when it gets well;" and so, sure enough, it always did. But what a wicked world this is, where nature teaches even a bird to play the deceiver!

On the same hillside is always to be found the chewink, - a creature whose dress and song are so unlike those of the rest of his tribe that the irreverent amateur is tempted to believe that, for once, the men of science have made a mistake. What has any finch to do with a call like cherawink, or with such a three-colored harlequin suit? But it is unsafe to judge according to the outward appearance, in ornithology as in other matters; and I have heard that it is only those who are foolish as well as ignorant who indulge in off-hand criticisms of wiser men's conclusions. So

let us call the towhee a finch, and say no more about it.

But plainly the chewink, whatever his lineage, is not a bird to be governed very strictly by the traditions of the fathers. His usual song is characteristic and pretty, yet he is so far from being satisfied with it that he varies it continually and in many ways, some of them sadly puzzling to the student who is set upon telling all the birds by their voices. I remember well enough the morning I was inveigled through the wet grass of two pastures and that just as I was shod for the city-by a wonderfully foreign note, which filled me with lively anticipations of a new bird, but which turned out to be the work of a most innocent-looking towhee. It was perhaps this same bird, or his brother, whom I one day heard throwing in between his customary cherawinks a profusion of staccato notes of widely varying pitch, together with little volleys of tinkling sounds such as his every-day song concludes with. This medley was not laughable, like the chat's, which it suggested, but it had the same abrupt, fragmentary, and promiscuous character. All in all, it was what I never should have expected from this paragon of selfpossession.

For self-control, as I have elsewhere said, is Pipilo's strong point. One afternoon last summer a young friend and I found ourselves, as we suspected, near a chewink's nest, and at once set out to see which of us should have the honor of the discovery. We searched diligently, but without avail, while the father-bird sat quietly in a tree, calling with all sweetness and with never a trace of anger or trepidation, cherawink, cherawink. Finally we gave over the hunt, and I began to console my companion and myself for our disappointment by shaking in the face of the bird a small tree which very conveniently leaned toward the one in which he was perched. By rather vigorous efforts I

could make this pass back and forth within a few inches of his bill; but he utterly disdained to notice it, and kept on calling as before. While we were laughing at his impudence (his impudence!) the mother suddenly appeared, with an insect in her beak, and joined her voice to her husband's. I was just declaring that it was cruel as well as useless for us to stay, when she ungratefully gave a ludicrous turn to what was intended for a very sage and considerate remark, by dropping almost at my feet, stepping upon the edge of her nest, and offering the morsel to one of her young. We watched the little tableaux admiringly (I had never seen a prettier show of nonchalance), and thanked our stars that we had been saved from an involuntary slaughter of the innocents while trampling all about the spot. The nest, which we had tried so hard to find, was in plain sight, concealed only by the perfect agreement of its color with that of the dead pinebranches in the midst of which it was placed. The shrewd birds had somehow learned by experience, perhaps, like ourselves - that those who would escape disagreeable conspicuity must conform as closely as possible to the world around them.

According to my observation, the towhee is not much given to singing after July; but he keeps up his call, which is little less musical than his song, till his departure in late September. At that time of the year the birds collect together in their favorite haunts; and I remember my dog's running into the edge of a roadside pasture among some cedar-trees, when there broke out such a chorus of cherawinks that I was instantly reminded of a swamp full of frogs in April.

After the tanager the Baltimore oriole (named for Lord Baltimore, whose colors he wears) is probably the most gorgeous, as he is certainly one of the best known, of New England birds. He

a nest.

to look at it. not far from not far from

has discovered that men, bad as they are, are less dangerous than hawks and weasels, and so, after making sure that his wife is not subject to sea-sickness, he swings his nest boldly from a swaying shade-tree branch, in full view of whoever may choose Some morning in May the 10th - you will wake to hear him fifing in the elm before your window. He has come in the night, and is already making himself at home. Once I saw a pair who on the very first morning had begun to get together materials for His whistle is one of the clearest and loudest, but he makes little pretensions to music. I have been pleased and interested, however, to see how tuneful he becomes in August, after most other birds have ceased to sing, and after a long interval of silence on his own part. Early and late he pipes and chatters, as if he imagined that the spring were really coming back again forthwith. What the explanation of this lyrical revival may be I have never been able to gather; but the fact itself is very noticeable, so that it would not be amiss to call the "golden robin" the bird of August.

The oriole's dusky relatives have the organs of song well developed; and alwell developed; and although most of the species have altogether lost the art of music, there are none of them, even now, who do not betray more or less of the musical impulse. The red-winged blackbird, indeed, has some really praiseworthy notes; and to for personal reasons quite aside from any question about its lyrical value

me

his rough cucurree is one of the very pleasantest of sounds. For that matter, however, there is no one of our birds be he, in technical language, "oscine " or "non-oscine whose voice is not, in its own way, agreeable. Except a few uncommonly superstitious people, who does not enjoy the whip-poor-will's trisyllabic exhortation, and the yak of the night-hawk? Bob

The judging, comparing spirit, the conscientious dread of being ignorantly happy when a broader culture would enable us to be intelligently miserable,

this has its place, unquestionably, in concert halls; but if we are to make the best use of out-door minstrelsy, we must learn to take things as we find them, throwing criticism to the winds. Having said which, I am bound to go farther still, and to acknowledge that on looking back over the first part of this paper I feel more than half ashamed of the strictures therein passed upon the bluebird and the brown thrush. When I heard the former's salutation from a Boston Common elm on the morning of the 22d of February last, I said to myself that no music, not even the nightingale's, could ever be sweeter. Let him keep on, by all means, in his own artless way, paying no heed to what I have foolishly written about his shortcomings. As for the thrasher's smileprovoking gutturals, I recall that even in the symphonies of the greatest of masters there are here and there quaint bassoon phrases, which have, and doubtless were intended to have, a somewhat whimsical effect; and, remembering this, I am ready to own that I was less wise than I thought myself when I found so much fault with the thrush's performance. I have sins enough to answer for may this never be added to them, that I set up my taste against that of Beethoven and Harporhynchus rufus. Bradford Torrey.

THE following letter was copied directly from the original, which I discovered in the library of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, during a recent visit to London, when a commission from the New York Historical Society led me to devote some time to examining and partially indexing the twenty thousand or more manuscripts which constitute the so-called Lord Dorchester Papers.

This ill-arranged and uncatalogued collection of American manuscripts has thus far escaped scrutiny by historians. Nevertheless, it well deserves attention, including, as it does, the entire official and private correspondence of Sir Guy Carleton (afterward Lord Dorchester), the last British commander at New York, together with reports of the military and civil departments, inquisitions of spies and refugees, newspaper clippings, and vouchers of expenditures, both official and personal, all of which were conveyed by Carleton to Canada, at the time of his evacuation of New York, on November 25, 1783.

The Dorchester Papers are divided into fifty-six parts, though with little reference to date or subject matter, and pasted into scrap-books. The document in question appears in the book numbered 45, and is unaccompanied by references of any kind, so far as I was able to discover. The writer was Christian Frederic Michaelis, of Hanover, physician and author, son of the Orientalist and biblical critic, John David Michaelis, and grandson of Christian Benedict Michaelis, professor of Hebrew at the University of Halle. From the records of this distinguished family we learn that Dr. Michaelis was born at Göttingen in 1754, pursued his studies at Coburg and Göttingen, and graduated from the University of Strasbourg in 1776, with the

degree of doctor of medicine; that he resided for some time in Paris and in England; that in 1779 he was appointed chief of the Hessian Medical Staff in America, and in 1785 was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. After the war he became professor of anatomy at the College of Cassel, and in 1786 was called to the same position in the Academy of Marburg, where he later received the appointment of chief professor of medicine, in which post he continued until his death, February 17, 1814, which was occasioned by overwork in his attendance at the Prussian General Hospital.

I also find, in an official list of Hessian troops present in North America in January, 1782, that the name of Dr. Michaelis appears as "Head Physician to the General Hospital at New York;" and this office naturally afforded him ample opportunities for acquainting himself with the important events then transpiring in this country, and with the individuality of the leading participants. Like all spectators at that critical period in American affairs, he was keenly interested in the tripartite struggle for political supremacy, then at its height; and his reputation as an accurate observer evidently caused his letter, containing a detailed report of the situation as viewed from his standpoint, to be deemed worthy of the notice of the British commander-in-chief. He naturally sympathized with the cause of England; but the value of his statements is em phasized by the fact that his report is not that of an advocate, expected to dress and color his testimony to serve a specific purpose, but merely a personal letter to an acquaintance, never intended for the public eye; in view of which no apology is demanded for its freedom of