A friend once told me of a letter he had received from a correspondent who is an enthusiastic botanist. The writer, having just returned from an excursion in which he found a flower that was new to him, gave vent to his feelings of exultation by exclaiming, "Oh, the joy! the joy!" A like experience comes to the bird lover when he makes a new acquaintance in the feathered domain, no matter how many other observers may have seen and studied the species. "A bird that is new to _me_ is to all intents and purposes a new bird," is his self-complacent mode of reasoning, though it may not be distinguished for its logic. [Illustration: Chipping Sparrow] After studying the birds in Ohio and Indiana for a good many years, I moved to eastern Kansas, where I lived for five and a half years. My rambles were by no means confined to the wooded bluffs and hollows that bound the Missouri River on the west, for I also made excursions out upon the prairies of Kansas, over into the state of Missouri, and down into Oklahoma; and everywhere I carried my field glass with me and kept both eyes intent on the birds. You would expect an enthusiast in the pursuit of bird lore to do nothing else. What a pleasure it was to ramble about in new fields and make acquaintance with new bird friends! There is not a very marked difference between the avifauna of eastern Kansas and Ohio, and yet there are some birds found in the former state that are not met with in the latter--enough to keep the observer on the tiptoe of expectancy for several months. One of my new acquaintances was a little bird which is known as the clay-colored sparrow. It belongs to the same genus (_Spizella_) as the chipping and field sparrows which are so well known in the East; but it has an individuality of its own, and is not merely a copy. I stumbled upon it while pursuing my explorations near Peabody, far out on the level prairie, where the species was abundant during the season of migration. As I was sauntering along a road, a peculiar croaking little trill greeted me from the hedge, sounding very much like the rasping call of certain kinds of grasshoppers when they are suddenly startled and take to wing. But no insect had ever emitted quite such a sound in my hearing. This could not be an insect. It was worth while to look and make sure of the identity of the odd musician.