While listening to the notes of the Wood-Sparrow, we are continually saluted by the agreeable, though less musical song of the Chewink, or Ground-Robin,--a bird that frequents similar places. This is a very beautiful bird, elegantly spotted with white, red, and black,--the female being of a bright bay color where the male is red. Every rambler knows him, not only by his plumage and his peculiar note, but also by his singular habit of lurking about among the bushes, appearing and disappearing like a squirrel, and watching all our movements. Though he does not avoid our company, it is with difficulty that a marksman can obtain a good aim at him, so rapidly does he change his position among the leaves and branches. In this habit he resembles the Wren. While we are watching his motions, he pauses in his song, and utters that peculiar note of complaint from which he has derived his name, _Chewink_, though the sound he utters is more like _chewee_, accenting the second syllable. The Chewink (_Fringilla erythrophthalma_) is a very constant singer during four months of the year, from the middle of April. He is very untiring in his lays, seldom resting for any considerable time from morning till night, being never weary in rain or in sunshine, or at noon-day in the hottest weather of the season. His song consists of two long notes, the first about a third above the second, and the last part is made up of several rapidly uttered notes about one tone below the first note. There is an expression of great cheerfulness in these notes; but music, like poetry, must be somewhat plaintive in its character, to take strong hold of the feelings. I have never known a person to be affected by these notes as by those of the Wood-Sparrow. While engaged in singing, the Chewink is usually perched on the lower branch of a tree, near the edge of a wood, or on the top of a tall bush. He is a true forest-bird, and builds his nest in the thickets that conceal the boundaries of the wood. The notes of the Chewink and his general appearance and habits are well calculated to render him conspicuous, and they cause him to be always noticed and remembered. Our birds are like our men of genius. As in the literary world there is a description of talent that must be discovered and pointed out by an observing few, before the great mass can understand it or even know its existence,--so the sweetest songsters of the wood are unknown to the mass of the community, while many very ordinary performers, whose talents are conspicuous, are universally known and admired.