Second to none in delicate beauty of coloring, king of his tribe, is the fox-sparrow. Russet and rufous on the back, beneath the white marked with brilliant stripings of the same color as the back, on the feathers of his head and upper neck a clear pearly luster which is iridescent in the sunshine but invisible in the shadow, he is a marked bird, the peer of any in the woods. Happy the bird-lover who has the opportunity to study this magnificent bird in his winter home; one so favored can well afford a feeling of pity for the less fortunate dwellers in the central states who seldom make his acquaintance except through the medium of the museum or the manual. Florida blue jays in black, white and blue hop about among the rustling leaves or seated on a limb, hammer away at an acorn. Possessing a more extensive vocabulary than our familiar Northern jays, more loquacious, more sociable, they are certainly the artists of the tribe. No one who has ever heard their clear musical notes as they play in the tree-tops or hop about on the lawns as friendly and cheerful as robins, can ever entertain quite such a low opinion of their musical ability as he did before. Resonant, ringing tinkling, this call is the forest chime that summons the little children of the wood to vespers, heard at evening with white throats calling to one another from brush-heaps and briar thicket, it is the expression of this strong pure life away from the haunts of men. Under such surroundings it is easy to forget the cruelty practiced by our gifted blue-coat when spring has filled these woods and fields with nests and nestlings. But here comes one for whom no cloak of charity is needed, the musician pre-eminent among all this gifted throng, the Carolina wren. A slender curved beak, a trim bunch of cinnamon-brown feathers barred with darker brown on wings and tail, a buff breast, a little throat pulsating with vigorous buoyant life are the most conspicuous characteristics of this chorister of winter woods. He has been called the mocking wren. Let no one be deluded by such a term into the belief that he has no individuality, for, although his song has in it the whistle of the cardinal, the dignified song of the brown thrasher and the effervescence of the mockingbird, through it all there runs a peculiar quality all his own. Swinging on a rattan vine, singing with all the abandon of a bright May morning he seems the most vigorous exponent of “the strenuous life” in this land where languorous breezes blow soft and warm, bringing with them a suggestion of the sun-kissed waters of the Gulf and odors of resin and turpentine from the interminable forests that intervene between us and the coast.