The Kentucky cardinal, though I have known it but slightly, made a very vivid impression because of its gentle pensiveness. I once spent a few months in a little village in Florida and flocks of these exquisite creatures appeared from time to time in our garden and in different places that we visited. They were always rather tame, coming near us and feeding on the ground, uttering plaintive notes that reminded me of the cedar bird and which suggested a much smaller bird. The cardinal’s manner had something so sensitive and touching about it that it appealed to me at once and made the lovely strangers as dear as though they had been known a lifetime. They were never hurried or excited and I never heard a cross note or saw the slightest indication of any friction among them; but their whole manner was colored with sadness—a quiet, unobtrusive sadness. Even their song was tinged with it and it was curious how these brilliant creatures left on the mind a sense of “going quietly” and being subdued, which made them the greatest contrast to the absurd redwinged black birds with whom they often shared the umbrella tree. Hundreds of other instances of bird character crowd into the mind, as one writes, and the air seems again full of airy creatures each with his or her small personality standing out from all the rest in bright contrast, some grave, some gay, some cross, and others kind, but all beautiful and full of interest. Louise Claude. Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest. “From the north, from the east, from the south and the west, Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover, Over and over and over and over, Five o’clock, ten o’clock, twelve or seven, Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven: How can we sleep?” —Sidney Lanier, “Owl Against Robin.” [Illustration: LOUISIANA WATER-THRUSH. (Seiurus motacilla). Life-size. FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.] THE LOUISIANA WATER-THRUSH. (_Seiurus motacilla._)