CHAPTER II

"Cheer up;Cheerily, cheerily,Cheer up."

The very same song we heard him sing within the Arctic circle, far up to the snow line of the Jade Mountains, alternating his song with the eating of juniper berries.

But one might go on forever with the robin as he hops and skips and flies from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Alaska to Mexico and other parts; but one would never get to the end of loving him.

When poor robin at last meets with disaster and cannot pick himself up again, in short, is "gone to that world where birds are blest," the leaves shall remember to cover him, while we imagine, with the poet who thought it not time and talent wasted to write an epitaph to the redbreast,

"Small notes wake from undergroundWhere now his tiny bones are laid.No prowling cat with whiskered faceApproaches this sequestered place;No school-boy with his willow bowShall aim at thee a treacherous blow."

But the funeral of even a robin is a sad event; so we will bring him back in the spring, for

"There's a call upon the housetop, an answer from the plain,There's a warble in the sunshine, a twitter in the rain."

THE MOCKING-BIRD

Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe,Thou sportive satirist of nature's school;To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,Arch-mocker, and Mad Abbot of Misrule.For such thou art by day; but all night longThou pour'st soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain,As if thou didst in this thy moonlight songLike to the melancholy Jaques complain,Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong.And sighing for thy motley coat again.Wilde.

Wilde.

In his native town, or district, the mocker stands at the head of the class as a song-bird. He is not distinguished for his gorgeous plumage, like a parrot, nor yet for the mischief he does, like the crow. His virtue is all in his throat. And yet he can scarcely be honored as an original genius. Were he original he would be no mocker. But he has an original way with him for all that, when he takes a notion to mimic any person. Were he a man as gifted, we should have no trouble in seeing ourselves "as ithers see us"; or better, in hearing ourselves "as ithers hear us." He is the preacher, the choir leader, the choir itself, the organ. He gives out the hymns, chants the "Amen," and pronounces the benediction in the garden church. Few verses have been inscribed to the mocking-bird, for the reason, it is supposed, that sentiment intended for any known singer fits the mocker, though it must be conceded that he is humorist more than poet. Itis impossible to listen to his varied songs and keep from laughing, especially if the mood be on one. Where the weather is very mild he sings all winter, and nearly all the year. His fall molt takes but a few weeks, and then "Richard is himself again."

His humor does not desert him even at the trying season of molting his coat, for he is seen to stand on a bough and preen himself of his old tatters, catching a falling feather in his beak, and turning it about in a ludicrous way, as if laughing to himself at this annual joke of his. Dropping the remnant of his summer plumage, he cants his wise little head and gives a shrill cry of applause as it floats away.

Whatever may be said of his musical powers, the mocker exceeds his fellows in the art of listening. We have known him to sit the better part of an afternoon, concealed in thick foliage, listening with all his might to the various songs about him, with full intention of repeating them at midnight. And repeat them he does, not forgetting the postman's whistle, nor the young turkeys just learning to run (in the wet grass) to an untimely grave.

He has an agreeable way of improving upon the original of any song he imitates, so that he is supposed to give free music lessons to all the other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit the best.

We imagine that he forgets, from year to year, and must have his memory stirred occasionally. This is particularly so in his imitation of the notes of young birds. We never hear them early in spring or very late in autumn after he has completed his silent molt. In late summer, however, when the baby birds have grown into juveniles, then "old man mocker" takes up his business of mimicking the voices of the late nursery.

AMERICAN MOCKING BIRD.

Until we knew his methods we would start at peculiar sounds in the garden and cry to one another, "There's a late brood of young ones!" and run to locate the tardy family.

From his perch on the chimney the mocker laughs at us, while he squeals, like his own little son of a month old, or coaxes, like a whole nestful of baby linnets.

No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into the sky and down into the "black abyss" as if chimneys were made on purpose for mocking-birds.

A neighbor of ours has a graphophone which is used on the lawn for the entertainment of summer guests. Think you that big brass trumpet-throat emits its uncanny sounds for human ears alone? Behind it, or above it, or in front of it, listening and taking notes, is the mocker. Suddenly, next day or next week, we hear, perhaps at midnight, a concert up in the trees—song-sparrows, and linnets, and blackbirds, and young chickens, and shrikes, and pewees, and a host of other musicians, clear and unmistakable. Then as suddenly the whole is repeated through a graphophone, and we listen and laugh, for well we know that the only source of it all is our dear mocker. How he gets the graphophone ring we do not know any more than we know how he comes by all his powers of reproduction. Of practice he has a plenty, and his industry in this respect may be the key to his success.

The male differs so slightly from his mate that the two are indistinguishable save at song-time. They pair in early spring, and are faithfully united in all their duties. They nest mostly in bushes or low branches from four to twenty feet from theground. The nests are large and often in plain sight. Like the robin and other thrushes, the mocker's first thought is for the foundation. This is made of large sticks and grasses, interlaced and crossed loosely. Upon these the nest proper is placed, of soft materials lined with horsehair or grasses.

With the mockers, as with other birds, there is not a fixed rule as to nesting materials. Outside of a few fundamental principles as to foundations, etc., they select the material at hand. Where cotton is to be obtained they use it, and strings in place of grass. Leaves in the foundation are bulky and little trouble to gather.

We have found a pair of mockers very sly and silent just at nesting-time. Or the female will be at the nest work, while her mate is singing at a distance as if to distract us from the scene of action. However, in our grounds, where we have taught all birds extreme confidence, the good work progresses in plain sight. One writer has declared that a pair of mockers will desert a nest if you so much as look at it. This is true only where they are very wild and unaccustomed to human friends.

When once the young are hatched the fun begins. During the day the male ceases to sing, and devotes himself to giving exact information as to where the nest may be found. Of course this information is unintentional. He flies at us if we step out in sight, screaming with all his might. The nearer we approach the nest the louder and nearer he cries, until he actually has an attack of hysterics and turns somersaults in the air or quivers in the foliage. If it be possible to reach you from behind, he dives at your shoulder and nips at your hair. Always from behind, never facing you. His quiet mate flits through the boughs as if she understands herhusband's exaggerated solicitude, and half smiles to see his performances.

In a day or two the young birds are able to speak for themselves, and from this on until the next brood of their parents is hatched, the youngsters keep up a coaxing squeal. Getting out of the nest in about two weeks, they fly awkwardly about, easy prey to cats and other thieves. From a nest of four or five eggs a pair of mockers do well if they raise two or even one. Night birds find them easy to steal, for they sleep on the ground or under a bush at first, being several days in learning to fly; and a much longer time in learning to eat by themselves. This year three sets of young mockers were raised on raspberries. They were brought to the patch as soon as they left the nest, where they remained on the ground along the drooping canes. The old birds kept with them, putting in all their time at teaching the awkward things the art of helping themselves. The parent bird would hop up a foot or two, seize a tip end of a twig on which was the usual group of berries, and bring it down to the ground, holding it there and bidding the young ones "take a bite." Not a bite would they take, squealing with mouth wide open and waiting for the old bird to pick the berry and place it in the capacious throat, the yellow margins of the base of the beak shining in the sun like melted butter. And butter these birds like, as well as the robins, for they come to the garden table and eat it with the bread and doughnuts and pie like hungry tramps.

Unlike the ashy white of the parent breast, the juveniles have a dotted vest very pretty to look at, which disappears at the first molt.

The natural food of the mocking-bird is fruit and meat.They catch an insect on the wing with almost the cunning of a flycatcher, and listen on the ground like a robin, for the muffled tread of a bug under a log or in the sward. They are not the tyrants they are sometimes accredited with being. The mocker does not fight a pitched battle with other birds as often as opportunity offers. Like many another voluble being, his bark is worse than his bite. Not his weapon, but his word, is law. So fraternal are the mockers, as we see them, that the close coming of them near the house in spring insures us the company of many other birds.

It is hard to outwit the mockers. They love fruit of any sort as well as they love insects. They dote on scarecrows, those "guardian angels" of domestic birds, and have been seen to kiss their cheeks or pick out their eyes.

We caused one of these terrors to stand in the Christmas persimmon-tree in the garden, thinking that, for fright of him, the mockers would stand aloof. It rained, and the first bird that came along snuggled under his chin with the hat-brim for an umbrella. That was a linnet. Along came a mocker and took refuge under the other ear of the angel. We tied paper bags around the fruit, but the mockers bit holes in the bags and took the persimmons. We pinned a sheet over the whole treetop, but peep-holes were sufficient. In went the mockers like mice and held carousals under cover.

Tamed when young, and given the freedom of the whole house, a mocking-bird feels fairly at home and is good company, especially if there be an invalid in the family. The bigger the house the more fun, for the limits of the cage in which birds are usually confined form the greatest objection to keeping them in captivity. Few cages admit of sufficientroom for the stretch of wing in flight, or even for a respectable hop.

We know of no bird save a parrot which chooses to be caressed. Birds are not guinea-pigs, to be scratched into good terms. It spoils the plumage and disagrees with the temper. A mocker on the ground never trails his coat-skirt. He lifts his tail gracefully, as if he knows that contact with the grass will disarrange his feathers.

In "Evangeline," Longfellow immortalized the mocking-bird thus:

"Then from a neighboring thicket, the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the waters,Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious musicThat the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.Plaintive at first were the tones, and sad; then soaring to madness,Till having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the treetopsShakes down a rattling of rain in a crystal shower on the branches."

THE CAT-BIRD

Why, so I will, you noisy bird,This very day I'll advertise you;Perhaps some busy ones may prize you.

He is not always the cat-bird, O no! He is one of our sweetest singers before day has fairly opened her eyes. Before it is light enough to be sure that what one sees be a bird or a shadow, the cat-bird is in the bushes.

Singing as he flits, this early riser and early eater passes from bush to bush on the fringed edge of morning, conscious of happiness and hunger. With a quaint talent for mimicry he tries to reproduce the notes of other birds, with partial success; giving only short snatches, however, as if afraid to trust himself.

In the hush of evening when the cricket's chirp has a drowsy tone, the cat-bird makes his melody, each individual with cadences of his own. Now like a thrush and now like a nightingale, he sings, though he is not to be compared with the mocking-bird in powers of mimicry. Yet his own personal notes are as sweet as the mocker's.

But, like most persons, he has "another side," on which account he came by his name. And his mate is Mrs. Cat-bird as well, for she, too, imitates the feline foe of all birds, more especially at nesting-time.

There is a legend to fit the case, as usual. This bird was once a great gray cat, and got its living by devouring the young of such birds as nest in low bushes.

CAT BIRD.

All the birds met in convention to pray the gods they might be rid of this particular cat.

As no created thing may be absolutely deprived of life, but only transformed into some other being, this cat was changed into a bird, henceforth doomed to mew and scream like a kitten in trouble.

Its note long since ceased to have much effect upon the birds, who seldom mistake its cry for that of their real enemy in fur and claws.

Not so its human friends, for it takes a fine ear indeed to distinguish the bird from a cat when neither is in sight.

Now this bird, doomed, as the superstition runs, to prowl and lurk about in dark places near the ground, seldom flies high, nor does it often nest in trees. This does not prevent the singer from exercising his musical talents, however, more, than it does the meadow-lark or the song-sparrow.

It is in midsummer that the cat-bird is best known as the bird that "mews." Then both birds, if one approaches the nest, fly at the intruder, wings drooping, tail spread, beak open, whole attitude one of scolding anger.

In this mood the bird fears nothing, even making up to a stranger, and pecking at him. If it would pass with the waning summer and the maturing of the young birds, this bad temper of the cat-bird would be more tolerable; but once acquired, the habit clings to it, and it may be that not till next winter will it get over the fit.

The favorite site of the cat-bird for nesting, as we have observed it, is the middle of a patch of blackberry bushes, so dense and untrimmed it would be impossible for any one save a bird to reach it. Even the parent birds must creep on "all twos" or dodge along beneath thebriers. We have known it to build in a thick vine over the door.

The cat-bird and brown thrasher were always together in our Tennessee garden; each fearless, nesting near the door, eating the same food, but differing in personal habits. The cat-bird's nest was in the blackberries, the thrasher's in the honeysuckle. We often borrowed the young thrashers for exhibition to our friends in the parlor. After the first time or two the parents did not care, but watched quietly from the vine for the return of their darlings.

The cat-bird neighbor, always prying about, took note of our custom and played "spy" in the honeysuckle. At the first opening of the door out peeped a black beak, from which proceeded the familiar cat-cry we had learned to not heed. Paying no attention to this self-appointed guardian of the little thrashers, we took them into the parlor, where they would remain for half an hour.

All this time the cat-bird kept up its mewing and screaming at the door, outside, nor did it cease until the birds were placed back in the nest.

The custom of the cat-birds everywhere to play the detective, and sound the note of warning in behalf of all the other birds, is well known. Is there danger anywhere, they rush to the rescue with imploring cry, setting up a great agony of sound and posture, very ludicrous if not pathetic.

And the poor cat-bird is always at swords' points with the farmer. Scarecrows a plenty deck the orchards and ornament the gardens. More do these historical and sometimes artistic beings serve to ease the farmer's conscience than to intimidate the birds; for it is well known that cat-birds thrive best under the grotesque shadows of the scarecrow. And themore horrible of face and figure are these individuals created, the more are they sought after by the very birds they are intended to scare out of their wits.

It will probably take another generation of fruit-men to wake up to the fact that these and other birds habitually mistake the scarecrow for a guide-board to "ways and means," or a sign for "home cooking."

Would the farmer stop when he has finished the very worst scarecrow he can conjure up out of last year's trousers and coat and hat and straw from the bedding mow, the birds would have fair play. But the shot-gun, alas! picks off the poor little mew bird almost as fast as he himself picked off the berries an hour before, and so the farmer is accused of having "no heart."

But the farmer's boy of the bare feet and brown legs loves the funny bird. He will sit for an hour near its brier-bound nest, chuckling at its screams and gestures, and wondering "why it isn't a cat for good and all."

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?—O, be my friend and teach me to be thine.Emerson.

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?—O, be my friend and teach me to be thine.

Emerson.

THE HERMIT-THRUSH

Thrush, thrush, have mercy on thy little bill;I play to please myself, albeit ill;And yet—though how it comes to pass I cannot tell—My singing pleases all the world as well.Montgomery.

Thrush, thrush, have mercy on thy little bill;I play to please myself, albeit ill;And yet—though how it comes to pass I cannot tell—My singing pleases all the world as well.

Montgomery.

Hermit that it is, this little thrush is known and loved in nearly all of North America. True, there are several of its relatives about in fields and woods, which are taken for the hermit by those who have not compared the different birds; the plain, deep olive-brown above, with dotted creamy vest, being a popular dress with the thrushes.

The hermit answers to several names, suiting the location in which it is found. In low parts of the South it is known as the swamp-robin. You meet it in the damp, shady places where it is always twilight, in the fascinating grounds of the snails and water-beetles.

It likes such clammy, silent neighbors, with their retiring habits and proper manners, for the reason that it is able to turn them to some account at meal-time, which, as is the case with most birds, is all the time, or any time. (It is said to resemble in habits and notes the English song-thrush, which is known to spend most of its time at certain periods of the year hunting snails, which it has learned to dress for eating by slapping them against a stone. It will choose a stone of the proper shape, to which it carries its snails as often as it has good luck in the hunt, leaving little heaps of shell by the stone to mark its picnic-ground.)

HERMIT THRUSH.

Family affairs bring little labor to a pair of hermits, for they have not far to go in search of nesting materials. They take what is close at hand, little dry twigs, lichens, and last year's leaves crumbled and moist, which soon lose their dampness and adhere together in a thick mass.

But few have found it, this nest of the hermit, hidden under the bushes where it is always shadowed, and where the fledglings may help themselves to rambling insects without so much as stepping out of the door. They are supposed to take advantage of this nearness to food by remaining about the nest later than most birds; or if they run, returning on foot of course, having tardy use of their wings, but learning to stretch their legs instead. And well may they learn to "stretch their legs," as they will come to their fortunes by "footing it" mostly, when they are not migrating on the wing.

Like the thrashers, the hermit must scratch for a living when berries are not ripe. By listening one may hear the bird at its work, and by slipping quietly in the dusk of the early morning to the lowlands, or the thick woods, and standing stock-still for a while, even see it. But nearly always it is under cover on the edge of thickets, where the leaf-mold is unstirred and richest. And always by its own self is the hermit, as if it loves nature better than the company of its fellows, listening now and then for underground or overhead sounds, and dwelling on the beauty of the leaf skeletons it overturns like a botanist.

Lace-work and dainty insertion in delicate threads does Madam Hermit find in her resorts—fabric so marvelous and fascinating she could admire it forever; cast-off finery of suchinsects as outgrow their clothes, grasshopper nymphs, and whole baskets full of locusts' eggs hidden in half-decayed logs, and making a nourishing breakfast, "rare done" and delicious. She delights in the haunts of the praying-mantis at egg-laying season, surprising the wonderful insect in her devotions, who scarcely has time to turn her head on her foe before she disappears from sight.

It is well for her thus to disappear suddenly, for she is spared witnessing the fate of her newly laid eggs just above her on the twig, their silken wrapper being no obstruction in the way of Madam Hermit finishing her meal on them.

These habits of the hermit-thrush mark the dwarf-hermit in southern California. We see it in the orange-groves after irrigation or during a wet winter. Plenty of mulching in the orchards invites the dwarf (where it is a hermit like its relative), and we find it scratching away in the litter, overturning frail little toadstool huts and umbrellas, and exchanging greetings with its neighbor, the varied thrush, under the next tree.

Here in the cañons, where the brooks turn right side up for one brief season in the long, dry year, we see the little olive-brown bird with its speckled breast. Its sight and hearing are keen, so that it detects the whereabouts of the stone-flies, lingering among the moist rocks until they come out for a drink or a bath, when—that is the last of them.

The dwarf brown beauty, which, of course, must have victuals by hook or crook, never breaking a single law in either case, loves the watery haunts of the dragon-flies.

It passes by the pupa-skin drying on its leaf-stalk just as it was outgrown, with perchance a glance at the reflection in the water; but the cunning bird neglects not to take in thepupa itself, making its own breakfast on undeveloped mosquitoes in the water's edge.

All winter long about our home lives the dwarf hermit, eating crumbs at the garden table and looking for belated raspberries on the ever-green canes. Early, before the sun is up, the bird runs along under our windows, where the myrtle covers the tracks of night insects, and rings its tinkling notes. These resemble the familiar bell-notes that belong to the wood-thrush, cousin of the hermit and the dwarf hermit.

Not so numerous as its relatives, the wood-thrush is seen only in Eastern North America. It nests in trees or bushes, packing wet, decaying leaves and wood fiber into a paste, which dries and resembles the mud nest of the robin. It, too, gets its food in the litter of leaves and wet places, choosing fens and cranberry bogs in the pastures. All the thrushes delight in berries, and any berry-patch, wild or cultivated, is the bird's own patch of ground.

The sadder the day the sweeter the song of the wood-thrush. Nature-lovers who stroll into the thickest of the woods of a cloudy day on purpose to make the acquaintance of the thrush will find

"The heart unlocks its springsWheresoe'er he singeth."

The notes of all the thrushes are singularly sweet, and may be recognized by their low, tinkling, bell-like tones.

At the funeral of Cock Robin, who did not survive his wedding-day in the legend, it was the thrush who sang a psalm, and he was well qualified, "as he sat in a bush," if such a thing were possible, no doubt bringing tears to his feathered audience.

The "throstle with his note so true" in the garden ofBottom, the fairy in "Midsummer Night's Dream," was the thrush of Shakespeare's own country. No fairy's garden is complete without this sweet singer described so truly by Emily Tolman.

"In the deep, solemn wood, at dawn I hearA voice serene and pure, now far, now near,Singing sweetly, singing slowly.Holy; oh, holy, holy;Again at evening hush, now near, now far—Oh, tell me, art thou voice of bird or star?Sounding sweetly, sounding slowly.Holy; oh, holy, holy."

THE GROSBEAKS

Have you ever heard of the sing-away bird,That sings where the run-away riverRuns down with its rills from the bald-headed hillsThat stand in the sunshine and shiver?Oh, sing, sing away, sing away!How the pines and the birches are stirredBy the trill of the sing-away bird!And beneath the glad sun, every glad-hearted oneSets the world to the tune of its gladness;The swift rivers sing it, the wild breezes wing it.Till earth loses thought of her sadness.Oh, sing, sing away, sing away!Oh, sing, happy soul, to joy's giver—Sing on, by Time's run-away river!Lucy Larcom.

And beneath the glad sun, every glad-hearted oneSets the world to the tune of its gladness;The swift rivers sing it, the wild breezes wing it.Till earth loses thought of her sadness.Oh, sing, sing away, sing away!Oh, sing, happy soul, to joy's giver—Sing on, by Time's run-away river!

Lucy Larcom.

You would recognize it anywhere by its beak. And you may call this feature of the face a beak, or a nose, or a hand, or a pair of lips. In either case it is thick, heavy, prominent, the common characteristic of the grosbeaks. Individuals may differ in plumage, but always there is the thick, conical bill.

"Oh, oh, what a big nose you've got!" and "Oh, oh, what a red nose it is!" we exclaimed, when we first met the cardinal face to face in a thicket. In a moment we had forgotten the shape and tint of the beak in the song that poured out of it. It was like forgetting the look of the big rocks between which gushes the waterfall in a mountain gorge.

Not that the mouth of the grosbeak was built to accommodateits song, but, that being formed for other purposes, it nevertheless is a splendid flute.

Whichever he may be, the cardinal or the black headed, or the blue or the rose breasted, the grosbeak is a splendid singer.

On account of its gorgeous coloring, the cardinal is oftenest caged. But to those who love the wild birds best in their native freedom, the cardinal grosbeak imprisoned lacks the charm of manner which marks it in the tangle of wild grape-vines and blackberry thickets. Seldom still in the wild, unless it be singing, the red beauty flits and dodges between twigs, and dips into brush and careens through the thickest undergrowth of things that combine to hide it, now here, now there, and everywhere. One would think its bright coat a certain and quick token of its whereabouts, but so active is the lively fellow that it eludes even the sharpest eye, a stranger mistaking its gleam for a rift of sunlight through the treetops.

Legend tells us that the beak of this bird was once ashen gray and the face white. Once on a time, a whole flock of them were discovered in the currant rows of a mountaineer, who called on the gods of the woods to punish them, since he himself was unable to overtake the thieves. The gods, willing to appease the old man, yet loving the grosbeaks better, dyed their beaks crimson from that moment, and set black masks on their faces. Thus was a favor done to the cardinals, for ever after the juice of berries left no stain on their red lips, while the black masks set off their features to the best advantage, interrupting the tint of the beak and the head. He is no ecclesiastic, though he wear the red cap of the cardinal, which he lifts at pleasure, for he gets his living by foraging the woods and gardens for berries at berry-time.

ROSE BREASTED GROSBEAK.

The cardinal's companion is modest of tint, ashy brown with only traces of red below, deepening on wings, head, and tail. Bird of the bush is she, and she places her loosely made nest in the thicket, where she can easily obtain bark fiber and dry, soft leaves and grass. In it she sees that three or four chocolate-dotted eggs, like decorated marbles, are placed. And she repeats the family history two or three times a season, where the season is long. At first the lips of the baby birds are dark; but they soon blush into the family red. In plumage they resemble the mother for a time, but before cold weather the males put on a coat of red with the black mask.

In the respect of molting the cardinals differ from their young cousins, the rose-breasted, the latter requiring two or three years to complete the tints of adult life.

But born in the thickets are the rose-breasts, just like the cardinals, the nest being composed of the selfsame fibers and woodland grasses. Strange craft of Mother Nature is this, to bring the rose-breast and the cardinal from eggs of the very same size and markings. But so she does; so that a stranger coming upon either nest in the absence of the mother bird might mistake it for that of the other. You can't be certain until you see the old birds.

The rose-breasted grosbeaks are found east of the Rocky Mountains and north into Canada. It migrates south early, and returns to its summer habitat rather late in spring. The lips of the rose-breast are white, not red, while the feet are grayish blue, differing from the brown feet of the cardinal.

How did it come by its breast? Why, legend has it that the breast was white at the start. One day he forgot himself, not knowing it was night, he was so happy singing thefuneral hymn of a robin-redbreast that had died of a chill in molting time, as birds do die when the process is belated. And the grosbeak sang on, until a night-owl spied him and thought to make a supper of a bird so plump. But the owl mistook his aim and flew away with only a beakful of the breast feathers, he not taking into account the nearness of the molt. The grosbeak escaped, but lacking a vest.

The robins gathered pink wild-rose leaves and laid them on the heart of the singer, not forgetting to line the wings, and so from that day to this the psalm singer is known as the rose-breasted grosbeak.

The head and neck of the male and most of the upper parts are black, the tail white and black combined, wings black variegated with white, and the middle breast and under wing-coverts the rich rose that deepens into a carmine. The beak is white.

The mother bird is streaked with blackish and olive brown above, below white tinged with dusky, under wing-coverts the tint of saffron. Her beak is brown.

These beautiful birds may be seen in the haunts of autumn berries, early spring buds that are yet incased in winter wrappings, and orchards in the remote tops of whose trees have been left stray apples. By the time these are frost-bitten they are "ready cooked" for the belated rose-breasts, whose strong beaks seem made on purpose to bite into frozen apples. But frozen apples have a charm of taste for any one who takes the trouble of climbing to the outer limbs for a tempting recluse. Better were more of them left in the late harvest for boys and girls and the rose-breasted grosbeaks.

An invisible thread fastened to a solitary apple on a high twig, and connected inside of the attic window of a cottage,suggests winter fun of a harmless sort. The grosbeaks fish for the apple, which all of a sudden is given a jerk from a watchful urchin inside the window; and the bird realizes the historical "slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." The string being, to start with, almost invisible, is from necessity very weak as well, and breaks at about the third jerk. The fun for the participants inside the window at the other end of the string is over for a time, and before it is readjusted the apple has several bites in it. And besides, there are other apples.

On the Pacific coast we have the black-headed grosbeak, cousin of the others and equally gifted in song.

The sides of the head, back, wings, and tail of this male are black, though the back and wings are dotted with white and cinnamon-brown. The neck and under parts are rich orange-brown, changing to bright, pure yellow on the belly and under wing-coverts. The bill and feet are dark grayish blue. The female and her young differ in the under parts, being a rich sulphur-yellow. Upper parts are olive shaded, varied with whitish or brownish stripes. The habits of the black-headed grosbeak are like those of the others described.

From our custom of making the grounds as attractive to all wild birds as possible, never relenting our vigilance in regard to the feline race, we have had splendid opportunities of studying this bird. They have nested with us for three years, beginning in wary fashion and ending in perfect confidence.

The first of the season we saw only the male, and he kept high in the blue-gum trees, fifty or sixty feet or more above ground, singing as soon as everybody was out of sight, but disappearing if a door opened. We thought him a belated robin, so do the songs of the two birds impress a stranger. For weeks we could catch not so much as a glimpse of thesinger, though we hid in the shrubbery. Shrubbery was no barrier to the sight of the keen little eye and ear above. Then we took to the attic, and from a little roof corner-pane beheld the musician.

But his song was short and ended unfinished, so suspicious was the bird. Gradually he came to understand that no shot-gun disturbed the garden stillness, even though he sat on an outer bough, and no cat lurked in the roses. He also appeared to notice that nobody played ball on the greensward, nor threw stones at stray chickens. Altogether circumstances seemed favorable to Sir Grosbeak, and he brought Madam along down from the mountain cañons.

By midsummer of the second season the two were seen at sunrise as low as the tallest of the orange-trees, but they flew higher or disappeared if the door were opened. It was the year that we first planted the row of Logan berries, a new cross between the blackberry and raspberry. It was between the orange and lemon trees, in a quiet corner of the orchard, and the grosbeaks espied them, reddening a month before they ripened. By getting up at dawn we made sure that nesting operations had begun within twenty feet of the Logan berries. But which way? It was not until the eggs were laid that we found the site on a low limb of a fig-tree adjoining the berry row. The nest was made solely of dry dark-leaf spines, and so transparently laid that we could distinguish the three eggs from below. There was no lining, plenty of ventilation in this and other of these grosbeaks' nests observed in the foothills being the rule. Perhaps the climate induces the birds to this sanitary measure. Certain it is that this nest could be no harbor for those insect foes that too often make life miserable for the birdlings.

The summer passed, and we gave up the row of berries to the grosbeaks. There were but few anyway, and we wanted the birds. And there was other fruit they were welcome to.

This season the grosbeaks have brought off three broods within fifty feet of the house. The male sings in the low bushes and trees, and does not think of punctuating his notes with stops and pauses, even though we stand within a few feet of him. In fact, the birds are now as tame as robins. Young striped fledglings grope about in the clover, or flutter in the bushes as fearless as sparrows. If we pick them up they will support themselves by a grip on the hand and swing by their strong great beaks, screaming at the top of their shrill voices to "let go!" when it is themselves that are holding on with might and main. If they scream long enough, and their beaks do not weaken in their clutch, the mocker comes to the rescue and scolds us, while we explain the situation, extending our hands with the grosbeak clinging to the palm.

So far as we have known, all the nests in our grounds have been built in the crotch of a fig-tree. The fig has sparse foliage and affords little shelter. But then there are figs that ripen most of the summer—and figs are good for baby grosbeaks. Once we discovered a nest by accident. The bees at swarming-time settled in the top of a fig-tree, a place not at all suitable, in our opinion. We were busily engaged in tossing dust into the tree to frighten the bees out, when a grosbeak appeared, scolding so hard in her familiar, motherly tone that we knew we were "sanding" her nest as well as the bees. And we found it all right! She went on with her work after we had attended to the bees.

On account of the fondness of the birds for fruit and buds,the grosbeaks might easily become resident in any home grounds. Low shrubbery they love when once they have become familiar; unlike the thrushes, not caring particularly for damp places. Dry, baked-in-the-sun nooks, crisp undergrowth, and especially untrimmed berry rows fascinate them. During mating-season the male sings all the time when he is not eating, singing as he flies from perch to perch, and like others of the family, has been accused of night serenades. We are unable to know certainly if it is our grosbeak or the mocker that wakes us at midnight. It is probably the mocker, who has stolen notes from all the birds.

THE ORIOLES

A rosy flush creeps up the sky,The birds begin their symphony.I hear the clear, triumphant voiceOf the robin, bidding the world rejoice.The vireos catch the theme of the song.And the Baltimore oriole bears it along,While from sparrow, and thrush, and wood-pewee,And deep in the pine-trees the chickadee.There's an undercurrent of harmony.Harriet E. Paine.

Harriet E. Paine.

It's a merry song, that of the oriole. It belongs to the family, and once heard will be always recognized. Sometimes it is a happy laugh; sometimes a chatter, especially at nesting-time, when a pair of birds are selecting a place for the hammock. Always, wherever heard, the song of an oriole suggests sunshine and a letting-go of winter and sad times.

The name itself is characteristic of the bird, for it signifies yellow glory. And a yellow glory the oriole surely is, whether it be found in Europe or America, and whether it be called hang-bird, or yellow robin, or golden robin, or fiery hang-bird. The term "hang-bird" suggests the fate of a convict, but the oriole is no convict. His transgressions against any law are few and far between. The name simply denotes the conditions of its start in life. The "hanging" of an oriole occurs before it is out of the shell, at the very beginning of its career. The skill of the orioles in the art of weaving nests is unsurpassed by any other bird. Always it isnest-weaving; not nest-building. Not a stick or piece of bark do they use, nor a bit of mud or paste.

The beak of the orioles differs so widely from that of the grosbeaks that one has but to compare them to be interested. One might almost imagine the bill of a grosbeak to be a drinking-cup, or a basket with an adjustable lid or cover shutting slightly over; while that of the orioles is sharp and pointed, sometimes deflected, longer than the head of the bird, parting, it is true, but the upper and lower mandibles meeting so exactly together at the tip that they form a veritable needle or thorn. And a needle it is, on the point of which hangs a tale—the tale that has given to this lovely being the nom de plume of "hang-bird."

True, the orchard oriole fastens its nest in the forks, giving it a more fixed condition than is the case with the strictly pensile nests, but it, too, is woven with artistic designs, the threads interlacing in beautiful patterns. No more could a grosbeak weave an oriole's nest, with its big, clumsy, thick bill, than could an oriole crack pine cones to pieces with its needle beak. Each to its own tools when it comes to individual tricks. And there are the feet of the birds, fitted only for perching, not for walking! The nearest we ever came to catching an oriole on the ground was when we compelled a July grasshopper to sit in a bird-cage under a tree. The oriole went in at the door and the grasshopper went out of the door. We tried it again, and each time the bird and the hopper went out together, the oriole assisting its friend, for whom it has a special fondness. The fondness is not returned on the part of the hopper.

We were sorry for the grasshopper, and wishing to continue our experiments, secured the dry skin of an insect, which we tied to the perch of the cage. The oriole entered warily, took a bite, discovered the trick, and never came back.

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