At the end of a week he varied his compliment to, “Pretty, pretty bird, where are you? Where are you?” with a kind of impatient jerk on the last “you.”
He and his mate stayed near us all last summer, and though I heard him talk a hundred times, yet he always brought a feeling of gladness and a laugh.
Our friend has come back again this spring. About May 1st I heard the same endearing compliment as before.
Several of my friends whom I have told about him have asked, “Does he say the words plainly? Do you mean that he really talks?” My reply is, “He says them just as plainly as a bird ever says anything, so plainly, that even now I laugh whenever I hear him.”
He is not very easily frightened, and sometimes talks quite a while when I am standing under the tree where he is.
—Emily B. Pellet, Worcester, Mass., in Bird-Lore.
A SONG OF THE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK
Hark! Hark!
From the elm tree’s topmost spray,
As the sun’s first spark