"No," the child answered; "but," she supplemented confidently, "I can find out."
Several days afterward she came to call. "Do you remember exactly the way that red bird you saw in the country looked?" she inquired, almost as soon as we met.
"Just red, I think," I said.
"Not with black wings?" she suggested.
"I hardly think so," I answered.
"P'aps it had a few white feathers in its wings?" she hinted.
"I believe not," I said.
"Then," she observed, with an air of finality, "it was a cardinal grosbeak; and the other name for that is redbird; so you saw a redbird. The scarlet tanager is red, too, but it has black wings, and it isn't called a redbird; and the crossbill is red, with a few white feathers, and it isn't called a redbird either. Only the cardinal grosbeak is. That was what you saw," she repeated.
"And who told you all this?" I queried.
"Nobody," the little girl made reply. "I looked it up in the library."