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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO.
 
 A BIRD-LOVER IN THE 
 WEST 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVE THORNE MILLER 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 Cfee ritocwiUf press, Cambridge 
 
 1900
 
 Copyright, 1894, 
 BY H. M. MILLER. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE studies in this volume were all made, as 
 the title indicates, in the West; part of them 
 in Colorado (1891), in Utah (1893), and the 
 remainder (1892) in what I have called " The 
 Middle Country," being Southern Ohio, and 
 West only relatively to New England and New 
 York, where most of my studies have been 
 made. 
 
 Several chapters have appeared in the " Atlan- 
 tic Monthly " and other magazines, and in the 
 " Independent " and " Harper's Bazar," while 
 others are now for the first tune published. 
 
 OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 nun 
 I. CAMPING IK COLORADO 3 
 
 II. IN THE COTTONWOODS 17 
 
 Western wood-pewee. Contopus richard- 
 
 sonii. 
 Western house wren. Troglodytes aedon 
 
 aztecus. 
 Towhee. Pipilo erythrophthalmus. 
 
 III. AN UPKOAB OF SONG 32 
 
 Western meadow-lark. Sturnella magna 
 
 neglecta. 
 
 Horned lark. Otocoris alpestris leucolcema. 
 Yellow warbler. Dendroica cestiva. 
 Western wood-pewee. Contopus richard- 
 
 sonii. 
 
 Humming-bird. Troc.hilus colubris. 
 Long-tailed chat. Icteria virens longicauda. 
 
 IV. THE TRAGEDY OF A NEST 42 
 
 Long-tailed chat. Icteria virens longicauda. 
 
 V. A FEAST OF FLOWERS 52 
 
 VI. A CINDERELLA AMONG FLOWERS 60 
 
 VII. CLIFF-DWELLERS IN THE CANON 70 
 
 Canon wren. Catherpes mexicanus conspersus. 
 American dipper. Cinclus mexicanus.
 
 Vl CONTENTS. 
 
 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 VIII. AT FOUB O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING .... 95 
 Purple graekle. Quiscalus quiscda. 
 Mourning dove. Zenaidura macroura. 
 Bed-headed woodpecker. Melanerpes ery- 
 
 throcephalus. 
 
 Blue jay. Cyanocitta cristata. 
 Cardinal grosbeak. Cardinalis cardinalis. 
 American robin. Merula migratoria. 
 Golden-wing woodpecker. Colaptes auratus. 
 House sparrow. Passer domesticus. 
 
 IX. THE LITTLE REDBIKDS 113 
 
 Cardinal grosbeak. Cardinalis cardinalis. 
 House sparrow. Passer domesticus, 
 
 X. THE CABDINAL'S NEST 119 
 
 Cardinal grosbeak. Cardinalis cardinalis. 
 Bobolink. Dolichonyx oryzivorus. 
 Meadow-lark. Sturnella magna. 
 
 XL LITTLE BOY BLUE 126 
 
 Blue jay. Cyanocitta cristata. 
 
 XII. STOBT OF THE NESTLINGS 136 
 
 Blue jay. Cyanocitta cristata. 
 
 XIII. BLUE JAY MANNERS 144 
 
 Blue jay. Cyanocitta cristata. 
 
 XIV. THE GBEAT CAROLINIAN 154 
 
 Great Carolina wren. Thryothorus ludovi- 
 
 cianus. 
 
 Yellow-billed cuckoo. Coccyzus americanus. 
 Crested flycatcher. Myiarchus crinitus. 
 XV. THE WBENLINGS APPEAB 172
 
 CONTENTS. Vli 
 
 Great Carolina wren. Thryothorus ludovi- 
 cianus. 
 
 XVI. THE APPLE-TREE NEST 183 
 
 Orchard oriole. Icterus spurius. 
 
 XVII. CEDAR-TREE LITTLE FOLK 194 
 
 Mourning dove. Zenaidura macroura. 
 
 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 XVIII. IN A PASTURE 207 
 
 Louisiana tanager. Piranga ludoviciana. 
 Green-tailed towhee. Pipilo chlorurus. 
 Magpie. Pica pica hudsonica, 
 
 XIX. THE SECRET OF THE WILD ROSE PATH . . .231 
 Long-tailed chat. Icteria virens longicauda. 
 Western robin. Merula migratoria propinqua. 
 Black-headed grosbeak. Hdbia melanoceph- 
 ala. 
 
 XX. ON THE LAWN 259 
 
 Lazuli-painted nch. Passerina amaena. 
 Broad-tailed humming-bird. Trochilus pla- 
 
 tycercus. 
 House sparrow. Passer domesticus.
 
 IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS.
 
 Trust me, 't is something to be cast 
 Face to face with one's self at last, 
 To be taken out of the fuss and strife, 
 The endless clatter of plate and knife, 
 
 The bore of books, and the bores of the street, 
 From the singular mess we agree to call Life. 
 
 And to be set down on one's own two feet 
 So nigh to the great warm heart of God, 
 
 You almost seem to feel it beat 
 Down from the sunshine and up from the sod ; 
 
 To be compelled, as it were, to notice 
 All the beautiful changes and chances 
 Through which the landscape flits and glances, 
 And to see how the face of common day 
 Is written all over with tender histories. 
 
 JAMES KUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 A BIRD-LOVER IN THE WEST. 
 
 CAMPING IN COLORADO. 
 
 THIS chronicle of happy summer days with the 
 birds and the flowers, at the foot of the Rocky 
 Mountains, begins in the month of May, in the 
 year eighteen hundred and ninety-two. 
 
 As my train rolled quietly out of Jersey City 
 late at night, I uttered a sigh of gratitude that 
 I was really off ; that at last I could rest. Up 
 to the final moment I had been hurried and 
 worried, but the instant I was alone, with my 
 " section " to myself, I " took myself in hand," 
 as is my custom. 
 
 At the risk of seeming to stray very far from 
 my subject, I want at this point to say some- 
 thing about rest, the greatly desired state that 
 all busy workers are seeking, with such varying 
 success. 
 
 A really re-creative recreation I sought for 
 years, and 
 
 " I Ve found some wisdom in my quest 
 That 's richly worth retailing,"
 
 4 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 and that cannot be too often repeated, or too 
 urgently insisted upon. What is imperatively 
 needed, the sole and simple secret of rest, is 
 this : To go to our blessed mother Nature, and 
 to go with the whole being, mind and heart as 
 well as body. To deposit one 's physical frame 
 in the most secret and sacred "garden of de- 
 lights," and at the same time allow the mind 
 to be filled, and the thoughts to be occupied, 
 with the concerns of the world we live in year 
 after year, is utterly useless ; for it is not the 
 external, but the internal man that needs re- 
 creation ; it is not the body, but the spirit that 
 demands refreshment and relief from the wear- 
 ing cares of our high-pressure lives. " It is of 
 no use," says a thoughtful writer, " to carry my 
 body to the woods, unless I get there myself." 
 
 Let us consult the poets, our inspired teachers, 
 on this subject. Says Lowell, 
 
 " In June 't is good to lie beneath a tree 
 While the blithe season comforts every sense, 
 Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart, 
 Brimming it o'er with sweetness nnawares, 
 Fragrant and silent as that rosy snow 
 Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills up 
 And tenderly lines some last-year's robin's nest." 
 
 And our wise Emerson, in his strong and 
 wholesome, if sometimes rugged way, 
 
 " Quit thy friends as the dead in doom, 
 And build to them a final tomb.
 
 HOW TO FIND REST. 5 
 
 Behind thee leave thy merchandise, 
 Thy churches and thy charities. 
 
 Enough for thee the primal mind 
 
 That flows in streams that breathes in wind." 
 
 Even the gentle Wordsworth, too; read his 
 exquisite sonnet, beginning, 
 
 " The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." 
 
 All recognize that it is a mental and spiritual 
 change that is needed. 
 
 With the earnest desire of suggesting to tired 
 souls a practicable way of resting, I will even 
 give a bit of personal history; I will tell the 
 way in which I have learned to find re-cre- 
 ation in nature. 
 
 When I turn my back upon my home, I 
 make a serious and determined effort to leave 
 behind me all cares and worries. As my train, 
 on that beautiful May evening, passed beyond 
 the brick and stone walls, and sped into the 
 open country, and I found myself alone with 
 night, I shook off, as well as I was able, all my 
 affairs, all my interests, all my responsibilities, 
 leaving them in that busy city behind me, where 
 a few burdens more or less would not matter 
 to anybody. With my trunks checked, and my 
 face turned toward the far-off Rocky Mountains, 
 I left the whole work-a-<Jay world behind me, 
 departing so far as possible a liberated
 
 6 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 soul, with no duties excepting to rejoice and to 
 recruit. This is not an easy thing to do ; it is 
 like tearing apart one's very life; but it can 
 be done by earnest endeavor, it has been done, 
 and it is a charm more potent than magic to 
 bring restoration and re-creation to the brain 
 and nerve-weary worker. 
 
 To insure any measure of success I always go 
 alone ; one familiar face would make the effort 
 of no avail ; and I seek a place where I am a 
 stranger, so that my ordinary life cannot be 
 recalled to me. When I reach my temporary 
 home I forget, or at least ignore, my notions 
 as to what I shall eat or drink, or how I shall 
 sleep. I take the goods the gods provide, and 
 adjust myself to them. Even these little things 
 help one out of his old ways of thought and life. 
 To still further banish home concerns, I mark 
 upon my calendar one week before the day I 
 shall start for home, and sternly resolve that not 
 until I reach that day will I give one thought to 
 my return, but will live as though I meant to 
 stay always. I take no work of any sort, and I 
 banish books, excepting a few poets and studies 
 of nature* 
 
 Such is the aim of my honest and earnest 
 striving ; that I do not quite reach my goal is 
 merely to say I am human. Letters from home 
 and friends will drag me back to old interests,
 
 A SATISFACTOEY RESULT. 1 
 
 and times will come, in sleepless nights and 
 unguarded moments, when the whole world of 
 old burdens and cares sweep in and overwhelm 
 me. But I rouse my will, and resolutely, with 
 all my power, push them back, refuse to enter- 
 tain them for a moment. 
 
 The result, even under these limitations, is 
 eminently satisfactory. Holding myself in this 
 attitude of mind, I secure a change almost as 
 complete as if I stepped out of my body and left 
 it resting, while I refreshed myself at the foun- 
 tain of Hfe. A few weeks in the country make 
 me a new being ; all my thoughts are turned into 
 fresh channels ; the old ruts are smoothed over, 
 if not obliterated ; nerves on the strain all the 
 year have a chance to recreate themselves ; old 
 worries often weaken and fade away. 
 
 The morning after I left home that balmy 
 evening in May dawned upon me somewhere in 
 western New York, and that beautiful day was 
 passed in speeding through the country, and 
 steadily getting farther and farther from work 
 and care. 
 
 And so I went on, day after day, night after 
 night, till I entered Kansas, which was new to 
 me. By that time I had succeeded in banishing 
 to the farthest corner of my memory, behind 
 closed and locked doors, all the anxieties, all the 
 perplexities and problems, all the concerns, in
 
 8 IN THE BOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 fact, of my home life. I was like a newly cre- 
 ated soul, fresh and eager to see and enjoy 
 everything. I refused the morning papers; I 
 wished to forget the world of strife and crime, 
 and to get so into harmony with the trees and 
 flowers, the brooks and the breezes, that I would 
 realize myself 
 
 " Kith and kin to every wild-born thing that thrills and blows." 
 
 In one word, I wished as nearly as possible to 
 walk abroad out of my hindering body of clay. 
 
 I looked out of the windows to see what the 
 Cyclone State had to give me. It offered flow- 
 ers and singing birds, broad fields of growing 
 grain, and acres of rich black soil newly turned 
 up to the sun. Everything was fresh and per- 
 fect, as if just from the hands of its maker ; it 
 seemed the paradise of the farmer. 
 
 From the fertile fields and miles of flowers 
 the train passed to bare, blossomless earth ; 
 from rich soil to rocks ; from Kansas to Col- 
 orado. That part of the State which appeared 
 in the morning looked like a vast body of 
 hardly dry mud, with nothing worth mentioning 
 growing upon it. Each little gutter had worn 
 for itself a deep channel with precipitous sides, 
 and here and there a great section had sunken, 
 as though there was no solid foundation. Soon, 
 however, the land showed inclination to draw 
 itself up into hills, tiny ones with sharp peaks,
 
 A PERFECT NOOK. 9 
 
 as though preparing for mountains. Before 
 long they retreated to a distance and grew big- 
 ger, and at last, far off, appeared the mountains, 
 overtopping all one great white peak, the 
 
 " Giver of gold, king of eternal hills." 
 
 A welcome awaited me in the summer home 
 of a friend at Colorado Springs, in the pres- 
 ence of the great Cheyenne Range, with the 
 snow-cap of Pike's Peak ever before me. Four 
 delightful days I gave to friendship, and then I 
 sought and found a perfect nook for rest and 
 study, in a cottonwood grove on the banks of 
 the Minnelowan (or Shining Water). This is a 
 mad Colorado stream which is formed by the 
 junction of the North and South Cheyenne 
 Canon brooks, and comes tumbling down from 
 the Cheyenne, rushing and roaring as if it had 
 the business of the world on its shoulders, and 
 must do it man-fashion, with confusion and 
 noise enough to drown all other sounds. 
 
 Imagine a pretty, one-story cottage, set down 
 in a grove of cottonwood-trees, with a gnarly 
 oak and a tall pine here and there, to give it 
 character, and surrounded as a hen by her 
 chickens, by tents, six or eight in every con- 
 ceivable position, and at every possible angle 
 except a right angle. Add to this picture the 
 sweet voices of birds, and the music of water 
 rushing and hurrying over the stones ; let your
 
 10 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 glance take in on one side the grand outlines 
 of Cheyenne Mountain, 
 
 " Made doubly sacred by the poet's pen 
 And poet's grave," 
 
 and on the other the rest of the range, over- 
 looked by Pike's Peak, fourteen thousand feet 
 higher than the streets of New York. Do this, 
 and you will come as near to realizing Camp 
 Harding as one can who is hundreds of miles 
 away and has never seen a Colorado camp. 
 
 Do not think, however, that such camps are 
 common, even in that land of outdoors, where 
 tents are open for business in the streets of the 
 towns, and where every householder sets up his 
 own canvas in his yard, for the invalids to sleep 
 in, from June to November. The little settlement 
 of tents was an evolution, the gradual growth 
 of the tent idea in the mind of one comfort- 
 loving woman. She went there seven or eight 
 years before, bought a grove under the shadow 
 of Cheyenne, put up a tent, and passed her first 
 summer thus. The next year, and several years 
 thereafter, she gradually improved her transient 
 abode in many ways that her womanly taste sug- 
 gested, as a wooden floor, a high base-board, 
 partitions of muslin or cretonne, door and win- 
 dows of wire gauze. The original dwelling thus 
 step by step grew to a framed and rough-plas- 
 tered house, with doors and windows en regie.
 
 LIFE IN A TENT. 11 
 
 Grouped picturesquely around the house, how- 
 ever, were some of the most unique abiding- 
 places in Colorado. On the outside they were 
 permanent tents with wooden foundations ; on 
 the inside they were models of comfort, with 
 regular beds and furniture, rugs on the floor, 
 gauzy window curtains, drapery wardrobes, and 
 even tiny stoves for cool mornings and evenings. 
 They combined the comforts of a house with 
 the open air and delightful freshness of a tent, 
 where one might hear every bird twitter, and see 
 the dancing leaf shadows in the moonlight. 
 Over the front platform the canvas cover ex- 
 tended to form an awning, and a wire-gauze 
 door, in addition to one of wood, made them 
 airy or snug as the weather demanded. 
 
 The restfulness craved by the weary worker 
 was there to be had for both soul and body, if 
 one chose to take it. One might swing in a 
 hammock all day, and be happy watching " the 
 clouds that cruise the sultry sky" a sky so 
 blue one never tires of it ; or beside the brook 
 he might " lie upon its banks, and dream him- 
 self away to some enchanted ground." Or he 
 might study the ever -changing aspect of the 
 mountains, their dreamy, veiled appearance, 
 with the morning sun full upon them; their 
 deep violet blueness in the evening, with the 
 sun behind them, and the mystery of the moon-
 
 12 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 light, which " sets them far off in a world of 
 their own," as tender and unreal as mountains 
 in a dream. 
 
 He might do all these things, but he is far 
 more likely to become excited, and finally be- 
 witched by guide-books, and photographs, and 
 talk all about him of this or that canon, this 
 or that pass, the Garden of the Gods, Manitou, 
 the Seven Sisters' Falls, the grave of " H. H. ; " 
 and unless a fool or a philosopher, before he 
 knows it to be in the full swing of sight-seeing, 
 and becoming learned in the ways of burros, 
 the " Ship of the Rockies," so indispensable, 
 and so common that even the babies take to 
 them. 
 
 This traveler will climb peaks, and drive over 
 nerve-shaking roads, a steep wall on one side 
 and a frightful precipice on the other ; he will 
 toil up hundreds of steps, and go quaking down 
 into mines ; he will look, and admire, and trem- 
 ble, till sentiment is worn to threads, purse de- 
 pleted, and body and mind alike a wreck. For 
 this sort of a traveler there is no rest in Col- 
 orado ; there always remains another mountain 
 to thrill him, another canon to rhapsodize over ; 
 to one who is greedy of " sights," the tameness 
 of Harlem, or the mud flats of Canarsie, will 
 afford more rest. 
 
 For myself I can always bear to be near
 
 A RESTFUL WAY TO SEE COLORADO. 13 
 
 sights without seeing them. I believed what I 
 heard never were such grand mountains ! 
 never such soul-stirring views ! never such hair- 
 breadth roads ! I believed and stayed in my 
 cottonwood grove content. I knew how it all 
 looked ; did I not peer down into one canon, 
 holding my breath the while ? and, with slightly 
 differing arrangement of rocks and pine-trees 
 and brooks, are not all canons the same ? Did 
 I not gaze with awe at the " trail to the grave 
 of H. H,," and watch, without envy, the sight- 
 seeing tourist struggle with its difficulties ? 
 Could I not supply myself with photographs, 
 and guide - books, and poems, and " H. H.'s " 
 glowing words, and picture the whole scene ? I 
 could, I did, and to me Colorado was a delight- 
 ful place of rest, with mountain air that it was 
 a luxury to breathe (after the machinery ad- 
 justed itself to the altitude), with glorious sun- 
 shine every morning, with unequaled nights of 
 coolness, and a new flower or two for every day 
 of the month. 
 
 If to " see Colorado " one must ascend every 
 peak, toil through every canon, cast the eyes on 
 every waterfall, shudder over each precipice, 
 wonder at each eccentric rock, drink from every 
 spring, then I have not seen America's Wonder- 
 land. But if to steep my spirit in the beauty 
 of its mountains so that they shall henceforth
 
 14 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 be a part of me; to inhale its enchanting air 
 till my body itself seemed to have wings ; if to 
 paint in my memory its gorgeous procession of 
 flowers, its broad mesa crowned with the royal 
 blossoms of the yucca, its cosy cottonwood 
 groves, its brooks rushing between banks of 
 tangled greenery ; if this is to " see Colorado," 
 then no one has ever seen it more thoroughly. 
 
 The '^symphony in yellow and red," which 
 " H. H." calls this wonderland, grows upon the 
 sojourner in some mysterious way, till by the 
 time he has seen the waxing and waning of one 
 moon he is an enthusiast. It is charming alike 
 to the sight-seer whose jaded faculties pine for 
 new and thrilling emotions, to the weary in 
 brain and body who longs only for peace and 
 rest, and to the invalid whose every breath is a 
 pain at home. To the lover of flowers it is an 
 exhaustless panorama of beauty and fragrance, 
 well worth crossing the continent to enjoy ; to 
 the mountain lover it offers endless attrac- 
 tions. 
 
 Nothing is more fascinating to the stranger 
 in Colorado than the formation of its canons, 
 not only the grand ones running up into the 
 heart of the mountains, but the lesser ones cut- 
 ting into the high table-land, or mesa, at the 
 foot of the hills. The above mentioned cotton- 
 wood grove, for example, with its dozen of dwel-
 
 THE HIDDEN CA$ON. 15 
 
 lings and a natural park of a good many acres 
 above it, with tall pines that bear the marks of 
 age, is so curiously hidden that one may come 
 almost upon it without seeing it. It is reached 
 from Colorado Springs by an electric road 
 which runs along the mesa south of the town. 
 As the car nears the end of the line, one begins 
 to look around for the grove. Not a tree is in 
 sight; right and left as far as can be seen 
 stretches the treeless plain to the foot of the 
 eternal hills ; not even the top of a tall pine 
 thrusts itself above the dead level. Before you 
 is Cheyenne grim, glorious, but impenetrable. 
 The conductor stops. " This is your place," he 
 says. You see no place; you think he must 
 be mistaken. 
 
 " But where is Camp Harding ? " you ask. 
 He points to an obscure path " trail " he calls 
 it which seems to throw itself over an edge. 
 You approach that point, and there, to your 
 wonder and your surprise, at your feet nestles 
 the loveliest of smiling canon-like valleys, filled 
 with trees, aspen, oak, and pine, with here and 
 there a tent or red roof gleaming through the 
 green, and a noisy brook hurrying on its way 
 downhill. By a steep scramble you reach the 
 lower level, birds singing, flowers tempting on 
 every side, and the picturesque, narrow trail 
 leading you on, around the ledge of rock, over
 
 16 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 the rustic bridge, till you reach the back en- 
 trauce of the camp. Before it, up the narrow 
 valley, winds a road, the carriage-way to the 
 Cheyenne canons.
 
 n. 
 
 IN THE COTTONWOODS. 
 
 A COTTONWOOD grove is the nearest approach 
 to our Eastern rural districts to be found in 
 Colorado, and a cotton storm, looking exactly 
 like a snowstorm, is a common sight in these 
 groves. The white, fluffy material grows in 
 long bunches, loosely attached to stems, and 
 the fibre is very short. At the lightest breeze 
 that stirs the branches, tiny bits of it take to 
 flight, and one tree will shed cotton for weeks. 
 It clings to one's garments ; it gets into the 
 houses, and sticks to the carpets, often showing 
 a trail of white footprints where a person has 
 come in ; it clogs the wire-gauze screens till 
 they keep out the air as well as the flies; it 
 fills the noses and the eyes of men and beasts. 
 But its most curious effect is on the plants and 
 flowers, to which it adheres, being a little gummy. 
 Some flowers look as if they were encased in 
 ice, and others seem wrapped in the gauziest of 
 veils, which, flimsy as it looks, cannot be com- 
 pletely cleared from the leaves. 
 
 It covers the ground like snow, and strangely
 
 18 IN T&E EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 enough it looks in June, but it does not, like 
 snow, melt, even under the warm summer sun- 
 shine. It must be swept from garden and walks, 
 and carted away. A heavy rain clears the air 
 and subdues it for a time, but the sun soon dries 
 the bunches still on the trees, and the cotton 
 storm is again in full blast. This annoyance 
 lasts through June and a part of July, fully 
 six weeks, and then the stems themselves drop 
 to the ground, still holding enough cotton to 
 keep up the storm for days. After this, the 
 first rainfall ends the trouble for that season. 
 
 In the midst of the cottonwoods, in beautiful 
 Camp Harding, I spent the June that followed 
 the journey described in the last chapter, 
 
 " Dreaming sweet, idle dreams of having strayed 
 To Arcady with all its golden lore." 
 
 The birds, of course, were my first concern. 
 Ask of almost any resident not an ornithologist 
 if there are birds in Colorado, and he will shake 
 his head. 
 
 " Not many, I think," he will probably say. 
 " Camp birds and magpies. Oh yes, and larks. 
 I think that 's about all." 
 
 This opinion, oft repeated, did not settle the 
 matter in my mind, for I long ago discovered 
 that none are so ignorant of the birds and 
 flowers of a neighborhood as most of the people 
 who live among them. I sought out my post, 
 and I looked for myself.
 
 BIRDS NOT ON EXHIBITION. 19 
 
 There are birds in the State, plenty of them, 
 but they are not on exhibition like the moun- 
 tains and their wonders. No driver knows the 
 way to their haunts, and no guide-book points 
 them out. Even a bird student may travel a 
 day's journey, and not encounter so many as 
 one shall see in a small orchard in New Eng- 
 land. He may rise with the dawn, and hear 
 nothing like the glorious morning chorus that 
 stirs one in the Atlantic States. He may search 
 the trees and shrubberies for long June days, 
 and not find so many nests as will cluster about 
 one cottage at home. 
 
 Yet the birds are here, but they are shy, and 
 they possess the true Colorado spirit, they are 
 mountain-worshipers. As the time approaches 
 when each bird leaves society and retires for a 
 season to the bosom of its own family, many of 
 the feathered residents of the State bethink 
 them of their inaccessible canons. The saucy 
 jay abandons the settlements where he has been 
 so familiar as to dispute with the dogs for their 
 food, and sets up his homestead in a tall pine- 
 tree on a slope which to look at is to grow 
 dizzy ; the magpie, boldest of birds, steals away 
 to some secure retreat ; the meadow-lark makes 
 her nest in the monotonous mesa, where it is as 
 well hidden as a bobolink's nest in a New Eng- 
 land meadow.
 
 20 IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of studying Colo- 
 rado birds are several, aside from their exces- 
 sive suspicion of every human being. In the 
 first place, observations must be made before 
 ten o'clock, for at that hour every day a lively 
 breeze, which often amounts to a gale, springs 
 up, and sets the cottonwood and aspen leaves in 
 a flutter that hides the movements of any bird. 
 Then, all through the most interesting month of 
 June the cottonwood-trees are shedding their 
 cotton, and to a person on the watch for slight 
 stirrings among the leaves the falling cotton is 
 a constant distraction. The butterflies, too, 
 wandering about in their aimless way, are all 
 the time deceiving the bird student, and draw- 
 ing attention from the bird he is watching. 
 
 On the other hand, one of the maddening 
 pests of bird study at the East is here almost 
 unknown, the mosquito. Until the third week 
 in June I saw but one. That one was in the 
 habit of lying in wait for me when I went to a 
 piece of low, swampy ground overgrown with 
 bushes. Think of the opportunity this combi- 
 nation offers to the Eastern mosquito, and 
 consider my emotions when I found but a soli- 
 tary individual, and even that one disposed to 
 coquette with me. 
 
 I had hidden myself, and was keeping motion- 
 less, in order to see the very shy owners of a
 
 A HESITATING MOSQUITO. 21 
 
 nest I had found, when the lonely mosquito 
 came as far as the rim of my shade hat, and 
 hovered there, evidently meditating an attack 
 a mosquito hesitating ! I could not stir a hand, 
 or even shake my leafy twig; but it did not 
 require such violent measures ; a light puff of 
 breath this side or that was enough to discour- 
 age the gentle creature, and in all the hours I 
 sat there it never once came any nearer. The 
 race increased, however, and became rather 
 troublesome on the veranda after tea; but in 
 the grove they were never annoying ; I rarely 
 saw half a dozen. When I remember the tor- 
 tures endured in the dear old woods of the East, 
 in spite of " lollicopop " and pennyroyal, and 
 other horrors with which I have tried to repel 
 them, I could almost decide to live and die in 
 Colorado. 
 
 The morning bird chorus in the cottonwood 
 grove where I spent my June was a great shock 
 to me. If my tent had been pitched near the 
 broad plains in which the meadow-lark delights, 
 I might have wakened to the glorious song of 
 this bird of the West. It is not a chorus, indeed, 
 for one rarely hears more than a single performer, 
 but it is a solo that fully makes up for want of 
 numbers, and amply satisfies the lover of bird 
 music, so strong, so sweet, so moving are his 
 notes.
 
 22 IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 But on my first morning in the grove, what 
 was my dismay I may almost say despair 
 to find that the Western wood-pewee led the 
 matins ! Now, this bird has a peculiar voice. 
 It is loud, pervasive, and in quality of tone not 
 unlike our Eastern phosbe, lacking entirely the 
 sweet plaintiveness of our wood-pewee. A pewee 
 chorus is a droll and dismal affair. The poor 
 things do their best, no doubt, and they cannot 
 prevent the pessimistic effect it has upon us. 
 It is rhythmic, but not in the least musical, and 
 it has a weird power over the listener. This 
 morning hymn does not say, as does the robin's, 
 that life is cheerful, that another glorious day is 
 dawning. It says, " Rest is over ; another day 
 of toil is here ; come to work." It is monoto- 
 nous as a frog chorus, but there is a merry thrill 
 in the notes of the amphibian which are entirely 
 wanting in the song. If it were not for the 
 light-hearted tremolo of the chewink thrown in 
 now and then, and the loud, cheery ditty of the 
 summer yellow-bird, who begins soon after the 
 pewee, one would be almost superstitious about 
 so unnatural a greeting to the new day. The 
 evening call of the bird is different. He will 
 sit far up on a dead twig of an old pine-tree, 
 and utter a series of four notes, something like 
 " do, mi, mi, do," repeating them without paus- 
 ing till it is too dark to see him, all the time
 
 THE BIRDS UNFAMILIAR. 23 
 
 getting lower, sadder, more deliberate, till one 
 feels like running out and committing suicide 
 or annihilating the bird of ill-omen. 
 
 I felt myself a stranger indeed when I reached 
 this pleasant spot, and found that even the birds 
 were unfamiliar. No robin or bluebird greeted 
 me on my arrival ; no cheerful song-sparrow 
 tuned his little pipe for my benefit ; no phoebe 
 shouted the beloved name from the peak of the 
 barn. Everything was strange. One accus- 
 tomed to the birds of our Eastern States can 
 hardly conceive of the country without robins 
 in plenty ; but in this unnatural corner of Uncle 
 Sam's dominion I found but one pair. 
 
 The most common song from morning till 
 night was that of the summer yellow - bird, or 
 yellow warbler. It was not the delicate little 
 strain we are accustomed to hear from this bird, 
 but a loud, clear carol, equal in volume to the 
 notes of our robin. These three birds, with the 
 addition of a vireo or two, were our main de- 
 pendence for daily music, though we were fa- 
 vored occasionally by others. Now the Arkansas 
 goldfinch uttered his sweet notes from the thick 
 foliage of the cottonwood-trees ; then the charm- 
 ing aria of the catbird came softly from the 
 tangle of rose and other bushes; the black- 
 headed grosbeak now and then saluted us from 
 the top of a pine-tree ; and rarely, too rarely,
 
 24 IN THE BOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 alas ! a passing meadow-lark filled all the grove 
 with his wonderful song. 
 
 And there was the wren ! He interested me 
 from the first ; for a wren is a bird of individu- 
 ality always, and his voice reminded me, in a 
 feeble way, of the witching notes of the winter 
 wren, the 
 
 "Brown wren from out whose swelling throat 
 Unstinted joys of music float." 
 
 This bird was the house wren, the humblest 
 member of his musical family; but there was 
 in his simple melody the wren quality, suggest- 
 ive of the thrilling performances of his more 
 gifted relatives ; and I found it and him very 
 pleasing. 
 
 The chosen place for his vocal display was a 
 pile of brush besides closed-up little cottage, 
 and I suspected him of having designs upon 
 that two-roomed mansion for nesting purposes. 
 After hopping all about the loose sticks, deliver- 
 ing his bit of an aria a dozen times or more, in 
 a most rapturous way, he would suddenly dive 
 into certain secret passages among the dead 
 branches, when he was instantly lost to sight. 
 Then, in a few seconds, a close watcher might 
 sometimes see him pass like a shadow, under the 
 cottage, which stood up on corner posts, dart 
 out the farther side, and fly at once to the eaves. 
 
 One day I was drawn from the house by a
 
 A DISSEMBLING WEEN. 25 
 
 low and oft-repeated cry, like " Hear, hear, 
 hear ! " It was emphatic and imperative, as if 
 some unfortunate little body had the business 
 of the world on his shoulders, and could not get 
 it done to his mind. I carefully approached the 
 disturbed voice, and was surprised to find it 
 belonged to the wren, who was so disconcerted 
 at sight of me, that I concluded this particular 
 sort of utterance must be for the benefit of his 
 family alone. Later, that kind of talk, his lord- 
 and-master style as I supposed, was the most 
 common sound I heard from him, and not near 
 the cottage and the brush heap, but across the 
 brook. I thought that perhaps I had displeased 
 him by too close surveillance, and he had set 
 up housekeeping out of my reach. Across the 
 brook I could not go, for between "our side" 
 and the other raged a feud, which had culmin- 
 ated in torn-up bridges and barbed wire protec- 
 tions. 
 
 One day, however, I had a surprise. In 
 studying another bird, I was led around to the 
 back of the still shut-up cottage, and there I 
 found, very unexpectedly, an exceedingly busy 
 and silent wren. He did sing occasionally while 
 I watched him from afar, but in so low a tone 
 that it could not be heard a few steps away. Of 
 course I understood this unnatural circumspec- 
 tion, and on observing him cautiously, I saw that
 
 26 IN THE BOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 he made frequent visits to the eaves of the cot- 
 tage, the very spot I had hoped he would nest. 
 Then I noted that he carried in food, and on 
 coming out he alighted on a dead bush, and sang 
 under his breath. Here, then, was the nest, and 
 all his pretense of scolding across the brook was 
 but a blind ! Wary little rogue ! Who would 
 ever suspect a house wren of shyness ? 
 
 I had evidently done him injustice when I 
 regarded the scolding as his family manner, for 
 here in his home he was quiet as a mouse, except 
 when his joy bubbled over in trills. 
 
 To make sure of my conclusions I went close 
 to the house, and then for the first time (to 
 know it) I saw his mate. She came with food 
 in her beak, and was greatly disturbed at sight 
 of her uninvited guest. She stood on a shrub 
 near me fluttering her wings, and there her 
 anxious spouse joined her, and fluttered his in 
 the same way, uttering at the same time a low, 
 single note of protest. 
 
 On looking in through the window, I found 
 that the cottage was a mere shell, all open under 
 the eaves, so that the birds could go in and out 
 anywhere. The nest was over the top of a 
 window, and the owner thereof ran along the 
 beam beside it, in great dudgeon at my im- 
 pertinent staring. Had ever a pair of wrens 
 quarters so ample, a whole cottage to them-
 
 THE WEEN REMONSTRATES. 27 
 
 selves? Henceforth, it was part of my daily 
 rounds to peep in at the window, though I am 
 sorry to say it aroused the indignation of the 
 birds, and always brought them to the beam 
 nearest me, to give me a piece of their mind. 
 
 Bird babies grow apace, and baby wrens have 
 not many inches to achieve. One day I came 
 upon a scene of wild excitement : two wrenlings 
 flying madly about in the cottage, now plump 
 against the window, then tumbling breathless to 
 the floor, and two anxious little parents, trying 
 in vain to show their headstrong offspring the 
 way they should go, to the openings under the 
 eaves which led to the great out-of-doors. My 
 face at the window seemed to be the " last 
 straw." A much-distressed bird came boldly 
 up to me behind the glass, saying by his manner 
 and who knows but in words ? " How can 
 you be so cruel as to disturb us ? Don't you see 
 the trouble we are in?" He had no need of 
 Anglo-Saxon (or even of American-English!). 
 I understood him at once ; and though exceed- 
 ingly curious to see how they would do it, I had 
 not the heart to insist. I left them to manage 
 their willful little folk in their own way. 
 
 The next morning I was awakened by the 
 jolliest wren music of the season. Over and 
 over the bird poured out his few notes, louder, 
 madder, more rapturously than I had supposed
 
 28 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 he could. He had guided his family safely out 
 of their imprisoning four walls, I was sure. 
 And so I found it when I went out. Not a 
 wren to be seen about the house, but soft little 
 " churs " coming from here and there among the 
 shrubbery, and every few minutes a loud, happy 
 song proclaimed that wren troubles were over 
 for the summer. Far in among the tangle of 
 bushes and vines, I came upon him, as gay as he 
 had been of yore : 
 
 " Pausing and peering, with sidling head, 
 As saucily questioning all I said ; 
 While the ox-eye danced on its slender stem, 
 And all glad Nature rejoiced with them." 
 
 The chewink is a curious exchange for the 
 robin. When I noticed the absence of the red- 
 breast, whom like the poor we have always 
 with us (at the East), I was pleased, in spite of 
 my fondness for him, because, as every one must 
 allow, he is sometimes officious in his attentions, 
 and not at all reticent in expressing his opin- 
 ions. I did miss his voice in the morning 
 chorus, the one who lived in the grove was not 
 much of a singer, but I was glad to know the 
 chewink, who was almost a stranger. His pe- 
 culiar trilling song was heard from morning till 
 night ; he came familiarly about the camp, eat- 
 ing from the dog's dish, and foraging for crumbs 
 at the kitchen door. Next to the wood-pewee,
 
 A DROLL PERFORMANCE. 29 
 
 he was the most friendly of our feathered neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 He might be seen at any time, hopping about 
 on the ground, one moment picking up a morsel 
 of food, and the next throwing up his head and 
 bursting into song : 
 
 " But not for you his little singing 1 , 
 Soul of fire its flame is flinging, 
 Sings he for himself alone," 
 
 as was evident from the unconscious manner in 
 which he uttered his notes between two mouth- 
 fuls, never mounting a twig or making a " per- 
 formance " of his music. I have watched one 
 an hour at a time, going about in his jerky 
 fashion, tearing up the ground and searching 
 therein, exactly after the manner of a scratch- 
 ing hen. This, by the way, was a droll opera- 
 tion, done with both feet together, a jump for- 
 ward and a jerk back of the whole body, so 
 rapidly one could hardly follow the motion, but 
 throwing up a shower of dirt every time. He 
 had neither the grace nor the dignity of our 
 domestic biddy. 
 
 Matter of fact as this fussy little personage 
 was on the ground, taking in his breakfast and 
 giving out his song, he was a different bird 
 when he got above it. Alighting on the wren's 
 brush heap, for instance, he would bristle up, 
 raising the feathers on head and neck, his red
 
 30 IN THE BOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 eyes glowing eagerly, his tail a little spread 
 and standing up at a sharp angle, prepared for 
 instant fight or flight, whichever seemed desir- 
 able. 
 
 I was amused to hear the husky cry with which 
 this bird expresses most of his emotions, about 
 as nearly a " mew," to my ears, as the catbird 
 executes. Whether frolicking with a comrade 
 among the bushes, reproving a too inquisitive 
 bird student, or warning the neighborhood 
 against some monster like a stray kitten, this 
 one cry seemed to answer for all his needs, and, 
 excepting the song, was the only sound I heard 
 him utter. 
 
 Familiar as the chewink might be about our 
 quarters, his own home was well hidden, on the 
 rising ground leading up to the mesa, 
 
 " An unkempt zone, 
 Where vines and weeds and scrub oaks intertwine," 
 
 which no one bigger than a bird could pene- 
 trate. Whenever I appeared in that neighbor- 
 hood, I was watched and followed by anxious 
 and disturbed chewinks ; but I never found a 
 nest, though, judging from the conduct of the 
 residents, I was frequently ''very warm" (as 
 the children say). 
 
 About the time the purple aster began to 
 unclose its fringed lids, and the mariposa lily to 
 unfold its delicate cups on the lower mesa*
 
 THE BABIES APPEAE. 31 
 
 nearly the middle of July, full-grown chewink 
 babies, in brown coats and streaked vests, made 
 their appearance in the grove, and after that the 
 whole world might search the scrub oaks and 
 not a bird would say him nay. 
 
 " All is silent now 
 
 Save bell-note from some wandering cow, 
 Or rippling 1 lark-song far away."
 
 III. 
 
 AN UPROAR OF SONG. 
 
 THE bird music of Colorado, though not so 
 abundant as one could wish, is singularly rich 
 in quality, and remarkable for its volume. At 
 the threshold of the State the traveler is struck 
 by this peculiarity. As the train thunders by, 
 the Western meadow-lark mounts a telegraph 
 pole and pours out such a peal of melody that 
 it is distinctly heard above the uproar of the 
 iron wheels. 
 
 This bird is preeminently the bird of the 
 mesa, or high table-land of the region, and only 
 to hear his rare song is well worth a journey 
 to that distant wonderland. Not of his music 
 could Lucy Larcom say, as she so happily does 
 of our bird of the meadow, 
 
 " Sounds the meadow-lark's refrain 
 Just as sad and clear." 
 
 Nor could his sonorous song be characterized 
 by Clinton Scollard's exquisite verse, 
 
 " From whispering' winds your plaintive notes were drawn." 
 
 For the brilliant solo of Colorado's bird is not
 
 WONDER-SONG OF THE WEST. 33 
 
 in the least like the charming minor chant of 
 our Eastern lark. So powerful that it is heard 
 at great distances in the clear air, it is still not 
 in the slightest degree strained or harsh, but is 
 sweet and rich, whether it be close at one 's side 
 in the silence, or shouted from the housetop in 
 the tumult of a busy street. It has, moreover, 
 the same tender winsomeness that charms us in 
 our own lark song; something that fills the 
 sympathetic listener with delight, that satisfies 
 his whole being ; a siren strain that he longs to 
 listen to forever. The whole breadth and gran- 
 deur of the great West is in this song, its 
 freedom, its wildness, the height of its moun- 
 tains, the sweep of its rivers, the beauty of its 
 flowers, all in the wonderful performance. 
 Even after months of absence, the bare mem- 
 ory of the song of the mesa will move its lover 
 to an almost painful yearning. Of him, indeed, 
 Shelley might truthfully say, 
 
 " Better than all measures 
 
 Of delightful sound, 
 Better than all treasures 
 
 That in books are found, 
 Thy skill to poet were, 
 
 Thou scorner of the ground." 
 
 Nor is the variety of the lark song less note- 
 worthy than its quality. That each bird has a 
 large repertoire I cannot assert, for my oppor- 
 tunities for study have been too limited ; but it
 
 34 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 is affirmed by those who know him better, that 
 he has, and I fully believe it. 
 
 One thing is certainly true of nearly if not 
 quite all of our native birds, that no two sing 
 exactly alike, and the close observer soon learns 
 to distinguish between the robins and the song- 
 sparrows of a neighborhood, by their notes alone. 
 The Western lark seems even more than others 
 to individualize his utterances, so that constant 
 surprises reward the discriminating listener. 
 During two months' bird-study in that delight- 
 ful canon-hidden grove at the foot of Cheyenne 
 Mountain, one particular bird song was for 
 weeks an unsolved mystery. The strain con- 
 sisted of three notes in loud, ringing tones, 
 which syllabled themselves very plainly in my 
 ear as " Whip-for-her." 
 
 This unseemly, and most emphatic, demand 
 came always from a distance, and apparently 
 from the top of some tall tree, and it proved to 
 be most tantalizing ; for although the first note 
 invariably brought me out, opera-glass in hand, 
 I was never able to come any nearer to a sight 
 of the unknown than the sway of a twig he had 
 just left. 
 
 One morning, however, before I was up, the 
 puzzling songster visited the little grove under my 
 windows, and I heard his whole song, of which 
 it now appeared the three notes were merely the
 
 A SWEET MOUNTAIN SINGER. 35 
 
 conclusion. The performance was eccentric. 
 It began with a soft warble, apparently for his 
 sole entertainment, then suddenly, as if over- 
 whelmed by memory of wrongs received or of 
 punishment deserved, he interrupted his tender 
 melody with a loud, incisive " Whip-for-her ! " 
 in a totally different manner. His nearness, 
 however, solved the mystery; the ring of the 
 meadow-lark was in his tones, and I knew him 
 at once. I had not suspected his identity, for 
 the Western bird does not take much trouble 
 to keep out of sight, and, moreover, his song is 
 rarely less than six or eight notes in length. 
 
 Another unique singer of the highlands is the 
 horned lark. One morning in June a lively 
 carriage party passing along the mountain side, 
 on a road so bare and bleak that it seemed no- 
 thing could live there, was startled by a small 
 gray bird, who suddenly dashed out of the sand 
 beside the wheels, ran across the path, and flew 
 to a fence on the other side. Undisturbed, per- 
 haps even stimulated, by the clatter of two horses 
 and a rattling mountain wagon, undaunted by 
 the laughing and talking load, the little creature 
 at once burst into song, so loud as to be heard 
 above the noisy procession, and so sweet that it 
 silenced every tongue. 
 
 " How exquisite ! What is it ? " we asked 
 each other, at the end of the little aria.
 
 36 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 " It 's the gray sand bird," answered the na- 
 tive driver. 
 
 " Otherwise the horned lark," added the 
 young naturalist, from his broncho behind the 
 carriage. 
 
 Let not his name mislead : this pretty fellow, 
 in soft, gray-tinted plumage, is not deformed by 
 " horns ; " it is only two little tufts of feathers, 
 which give a certain piquant, wide-awake ex- 
 pression to his head, that have fastened upon 
 him a title so incongruous. The nest of the 
 desert-lover is a slight depression in the barren 
 earth, nothing more ; and the eggs harmonize 
 with their surroundings in color. The whole is 
 concealed by its very openness, and as hard to 
 find, as the bobolink's cradle in the trackless 
 grass of the meadow. 
 
 Most persistent of all the singers of the grove 
 beside the house was the yellow warbler, a 
 dainty bit of f eatherhood the size of one's thumb. 
 On the Atlantic coast his simple ditty is tender, 
 and so low that it must be listened for ; but in 
 that land of " skies so blue they flash," he sings 
 it at the top of his voice, louder than the robin 
 song as we know it, and easily heard above the 
 roar of the wind and the brawling of the brook 
 he haunts. 
 
 Before me at this moment is the nest of one of 
 these little sprites, which I watched till the last
 
 A DISMAL WAIL. 37 
 
 dumpy infant had taken flight, and then secured 
 with the branchlet it was built upon. It was in 
 a young oak, not more than twelve feet from the 
 ground, occupying a perpendicular fork, where it 
 was concealed and shaded by no less than six- 
 teen twigs, standing upright, and loaded with 
 leaves. The graceful cup itself, to judge by its 
 looks, might be made of white floss silk, I 
 have no curiosity to know the actual material, 
 and is cushioned inside with downy fibres from 
 the cottonwood-tree. It is dainty enough for a 
 fairy's cradle. 
 
 The wood-pewee, in dress and manners nearly 
 resembling his Eastern brother, 
 
 " The pewee of the loneliest woods, 
 Sole singer in the solitudes," 
 
 has a strange and decidedly original utterance. 
 While much louder and more continuous, it 
 lacks the sweetness of our bird's notes ; indeed, 
 it resembles in quality of tone the voice of our 
 phoebe, or his beautiful relative, the great-crested 
 flycatcher. The Westerner has a great deal to 
 say for himself. On alighting, he announces 
 the fact by a single note, which is a habit also 
 of our phoabe ; he sings the sun up in the morn- 
 ing, and he sings it down in the evening, and he 
 would be a delightful neighbor if only his voice 
 were pleasing. But there is little charm in the 
 music, for it is in truth a dismal chant, with the
 
 38 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 air and cheerfulness of a funeral dirge a pes- 
 simistic performance that inspires the listener 
 with a desire to choke him then and there. 
 
 This bird's nest, as well as his song, is unlike 
 that of our wood-pewee. Instead of a delicate, 
 lichen-covered saucer set lightly upon a horizon- 
 tal crotch of a dead branch, our bird's chosen 
 home, it is a deeper cup, fastened tightly upon 
 a large living branch, and, at least in a cotton- 
 wood grove, decorated on the outside with the 
 fluffy cotton from the trees. 
 
 Even the humming-bird, who contents him- 
 self in this part of the world with a modest 
 hum, heard but a short distance away, at the 
 foot of the Rocky Mountains may almost be 
 called a noisy bird. The first one I noticed 
 dashed out of a thickly leaved tree with loud, 
 angry cries, swooped down toward me, and flew 
 back and forth over my head, scolding with a 
 hum which, considering his size, might almost 
 be called a roar. I could not believe my ears 
 until my eyes confirmed their testimony. The 
 sound was not made by the wings, but was 
 plainly a cry strong and harsh in an extraordi- 
 nary degree. 
 
 The Western ruby-throat has other singular- 
 ities which differentiate him from his Eastern 
 brother. It is very droll to see one of his 
 family take part in the clamors of a bird mob,
 
 PANIC IN THE BIRD WORLD. 39 
 
 perching like his bigger fellows, and adding his 
 excited cries to the notes of catbird and robin, 
 chewink and yellow-bird. Attracted one morn- 
 ing by a great bird outcry in a dense young oak 
 grove across the road, I left my seat under the 
 cottoiiwoods and strolled over toward it. It was 
 plain that some tragedy was in the air, for the 
 winged world was in a panic. Two robins, the 
 only pair in the neighborhood, uttered their cry 
 of distress from the top of the tallest tree; a 
 catbird hopped from branch to branch, flirting 
 his tail and mewing in agitation ; a chewink or 
 two near the ground jerked themselves about 
 uneasily, adding their strange, husky call to the 
 hubbub ; and above the din rose the shrill voice 
 of a humming-bird. Every individual had his 
 eyes fixed upon the ground, where it was evi- 
 dent that some monster must be lurking. I 
 expected a big snake at the very least, and, put- 
 ting the lower branches aside, I, too, peered into 
 the semi-twilight of the grove. 
 
 No snake was there ; but my eyes fell upon 
 an anxious little gray face, obviously much dis- 
 turbed to find itself the centre of so much atten- 
 tion. As I appeared, this bugaboo, who had 
 caused all the excitement, recognized me as a 
 friend and ran toward me, crying piteously. It 
 was a very small lost kitten ! 
 
 I took up the stray little beastie, and a silence
 
 40 IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 fell upon the assembly in the trees, which began 
 to scatter, each one departing upon his own 
 business in a moment. But the humming-bird 
 refused to be so easily pacified ; he was bound 
 to see the end of the affair, and he followed me 
 out of the grove, still vigorously speaking his 
 mind about the enemy in fur. I suspected that 
 the little creature had wandered away from the 
 house on the hill above, and I went up to see. 
 The hummer accompanied me every step of the 
 way, sometimes flying over my head, and again 
 alighting for a minute on a branch under which 
 I passed. Not until he saw me deliver pussy 
 into the hands of her own family, and return to 
 my usual seat in the grove, did he release me 
 from surveillance and take his leave. 
 
 The yellow-breasted chat, the long-tailed va- 
 riety belonging to the West, delivers his strange 
 medley of " chacks " and whistles, and rattles 
 and other indescribable cries, in a voice that is 
 loud and distinct, as well as sweet and rich. 
 He is a bird of humor, too, with a mocking 
 spirit not common in his race. One day, while 
 sitting motionless in a hidden nook, trying to 
 spy upon the domestic affairs of this elusive in- 
 dividual, I was startled by the so-called "laugh" 
 of a robin, which was instantly repeated by a 
 chat, unseen, but quite near. The robin, appar- 
 ently surprised or interested, called again, and
 
 THE SAUCY CHAT. 41 
 
 was a second time mocked. Then he lost his 
 temper, and began a serious reproof to the 
 levity of his neighbor, which ended in a good 
 round scolding, as the saucy chat continued to 
 repeat his taunting laugh. This went on till 
 the redbreast flew away in high dudgeon. 
 
 Why our little brothers in feathers are so 
 much more boisterous than elsewhere, 
 
 " Up in the parks and the mesas wide, 
 Under the blue of the bluest sky," 
 
 has not, so far as I know, been discovered. 
 
 Whether it be the result of habitual opposi- 
 tion to the strong winds which, during the sea- 
 son of song, sweep over the plains every day, or 
 whether the exhilaration of the mountain air be 
 the cause who can tell ?
 
 rv. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A NEST. 
 
 NEAR to the Camp, a little closer to beautiful 
 Cheyenne Mountain, lay a small park. It was 
 a continuation of the grove, through which the 
 brook came roaring and tumbling down from 
 the canons above, and, being several miles from 
 the town, it had never become a popular resort. 
 A few winding paths, and a rude bench here 
 and there, were the only signs of man's inter- 
 ference with its native wildness; it was practi- 
 cally abandoned to the birds and me. 
 
 The birds had full possession when I appeared 
 on the scene, and though I did my best to be 
 unobtrusive, my presence was not so welcome as 
 I could have wished. Every morning when I 
 came slowly and quietly up the little path from 
 the gate, bird-notes suddenly ceased ; the gros- 
 beak, pouring out his soul from the top of a 
 pine-tree, dived down the other side; the to- 
 whee, picking up his breakfast on the ground, 
 scuttled behind the bushes and disappeared; 
 the humming-bird, interrupted in her morning 
 " affairs," flew off over my head, scolding vigor-
 
 CHEYENNE'S POET AND LOVER. 43 
 
 ously ; only the vireo serene as always 
 went on warbling and eating, undisturbed. 
 
 Then I made haste to seek out an obscure 
 spot, where I could sit and wait in silence, to 
 see who might unwittingly show himself . 
 
 I was never lonely, and never tired ; for if 
 as sometimes happened no flit of wing came 
 near to interest me, there before me was beauti- 
 ful Cheyenne, with its changing face never 
 twice alike, and its undying associations with 
 its poet and lover, whose lonely grave makes it 
 forever sacred to those who loved her. There, 
 too, was the wonderful sky of Colorado, so blue 
 it looked almost violet, and near at hand the 
 " Singing Water," whose stirring music was 
 always inspiring. 
 
 One morning I was startled from my reverie 
 by a sudden cry, so loud and clear that I turned 
 quickly to see what manner of bird had uttered 
 it. The voice was peculiar and entirely new to 
 me. First came a scolding note like that of an 
 oriole, then the " chack " of a blackbird, and 
 next a sweet, clear whistle, one following the 
 other rapidly and vehemently, as if the per- 
 former intended to display all his accomplish- 
 ments in a breath. Cheyenne vanished like 
 "the magic mountain of a dream," blue skies 
 were forgotten, the babbling brook unheard, 
 every sense was instantly alert to see that ex- 
 traordinary bird,
 
 44 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 " Like a poet hidden, 
 Singing songs unbidden," 
 
 But he did not appear. Not a leaf rustled, not 
 a twig bent, though the strange medley kept on 
 for fifteen minutes, then ceased as abruptly as it 
 had begun, and not a whisper more could be 
 heard. The whole thing seemed uncanny. Was 
 it a bird at all, or a mere " wandering voice " ? 
 It seemed to come from a piece of rather 
 swampy ground, overgrown with clumps of wil- 
 low and low shrubs ; but what bird of earthly 
 mould could come and go, and make no sign that 
 a close student of bird ways could detect ? Did 
 he creep on the ground ? Did he vanish into 
 thin air? 
 
 Hours went by. I could not go, and my 
 leafy nook was "struck through with slanted 
 shafts of afternoon " before I reluctantly gave 
 up that I should not see my enchanter that day, 
 and slowly left the grove, the mystery unex- 
 plained. 
 
 Very early the next morning I was saluted 
 by the same loud, clear calls near the house. 
 Had then the Invisible followed me home ? I 
 sprang up and hurried to the always open win- 
 dow. The voice was very near; but I could 
 not see its author, though I was hidden behind 
 blinds. 
 
 This time the bird if bird it were in-
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY PERFORMANCE. 45 
 
 dulged in a fuller repertoire. I seized pencil 
 and paper, and noted down phonetically the dif- 
 ferent notes as they were uttered. This is the 
 record : " Rat-t-t-t-t " (very rapid) ; " quit ! quit ! 
 quit ! " (a little slower) ; " wh-eu ! wh-eu ! " 
 (still more deliberately) ; " chack ! chack ! 
 chack ! " (quite slow) ; " ere, ere, ere, ere " 
 (fast) ; " hu - way ! hu - way ! " (very sweet). 
 There was a still more musical clause that I 
 cannot put into syllables, then a rattle exactly 
 like castanets, and lastly a sort of " Kr-r-r ! 
 kr-r-r ! " in the tone of a great-crested fly- 
 catcher. While this will not express to one 
 who has not heard it the marvelous charm of it 
 all, it will at least indicate the variety. 
 
 Hardly waiting to dispose of breakfast, I be- 
 took myself to my " woodland enchanted," re- 
 solved to stay till I saw that bird. 
 
 " All day in the bushes 
 The woodland was haunted." 
 
 The voice was soon on hand, and once more I 
 was treated to the incomparable recitative. 
 
 This day, too, my patience was rewarded; 
 the mystery was solved ; I saw the Unknown ! 
 While my eyes were fixed upon a certain bush 
 before me, the singer incautiously ventured too 
 near the top of a twig, and I saw him plainly, 
 standing almost upright, and vehemently chant- 
 ing his fantasia, opening his mouth very wide
 
 46 Iff THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 with every call. I knew him at once, the rogue ! 
 from having read of him ; he was the yellow- 
 breasted chat. It was well, indeed, that I hap- 
 pened to be looking at that very spot, and that 
 I was quick in my observation ; for in a moment 
 he saw the blunder he had made, and slipped 
 back down the stem, too late for his secret I 
 had him down in black and white. 
 
 From that time the little park was never 
 lonely, nor did I spend much time dreaming 
 over Cheyenne. The moment I appeared in the 
 morning my lively host began his vocal gym- 
 nastics, while I sat spellbound, bewitched by the 
 magic of his notes. In spite of being absorbed 
 in listening to him, I retained my faculties suf- 
 ficiently to reflect that the chat had probably 
 other employment than entertaining me, and 
 that doubtless his object was to distract my at- 
 tention from looking about me, or to reproach 
 me for intruding upon his private domain. In 
 either case there was, of course, 
 
 " A nest unseen 
 Somewhere among the million stalks ; " 
 
 and, delightful as I found the unseen bird, his 
 nest was a treasure I was even more anxious to 
 see. 
 
 Not to disturb him more than necessary, I 
 spent part of an evening studying up the nest- 
 ing habits of the chat, the long-tailed, yellow-
 
 THE NEST DISCOVERED. 47 
 
 breasted, as I found him to be, and the next 
 morning made a thorough search through the 
 swamp, looking into every bush and examining 
 every thicket. An hour or two of this hard 
 work satisfied rne for the day, and I went home 
 warm and tired, followed to the very door by 
 the mocking voice, triumphing, as it seemed, in 
 my failure. 
 
 The next day, however, fortune smiled upon 
 me; I came upon a nest, not far above the 
 ground, among the stems of a clump of shrubs, 
 which exactly answered the description of the 
 one I sought. Careful not to lay a finger on it, I 
 slightly parted the branches above, and looked 
 in upon three pinkish-white eggs, small in size 
 and dainty as tinted pearls. Happy day, I 
 thought, and the forerunner of happy to-mor- 
 rows when I should watch 
 
 " The green nest full of pleasant shade 
 Wherein three speckled eggs were laid," 
 
 and see and delight in the family life centring 
 about it. 
 
 To study a bird so shy required extraordinary 
 precautions ; I therefore sought, and found, a 
 post of observation a long way off, where I could 
 look through a natural vista among the shrubs, 
 and with my glass bring the bush and its pre- 
 cious contents into view. For greater seclusion 
 in my retreat, so that I should be as little con-
 
 48 IN THE BOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 spicuous as possible, I drew down a branch of 
 the low tree over my seat, and fastened it with 
 a fine string to a stout weed below. Then I 
 thought I had a perfect screen ; I devoutly 
 hoped the birds would riot notice me. 
 
 Vain delusion ! and labor as vain ! Doubt- 
 less two pairs of anxious eyes watched from 
 some neighboring bush all my careful prepara- 
 tions, and then and there two despairing hearts 
 bade farewell to their lovely little home, aban- 
 doned it and its treasures to the spy and the 
 destroyer, which in their eyes I seemed to be. 
 
 This conclusion was forced upon me by the 
 experiences of the next few days. The birds 
 absolutely would not approach the nest while I 
 was in the park. The first morning I sat mo- 
 tionless for nearly two hours, and not a feather 
 showed itself near that bush; it was plainly 
 " tabooed." During the next day the chat 
 called from this side and that, moving about in 
 his wonderful way, without disturbing a twig, 
 rustling a leaf, or flitting a wing as silently, 
 indeed, as if he were a spirit unclothed. 
 
 While waiting for him to show himself, mak- 
 ing myself as nearly a part of nature about me 
 as a mortal is gifted to do, I congratulated my- 
 self upon the one good look I had secured, for, 
 with all my efforts and all my watching, I saw 
 him but twice more all summer. The enigma
 
 THE MADDENING CHAT. 49 
 
 of that remarkable voice would have been mad- 
 dening- indeed, if I could not have known to 
 whom it belonged. 
 
 After several days of untiring observation I 
 had but two glimpses to record. On one occa- 
 sion a chat alighted on the top sprig of the fate- 
 ful shrub, as if going to the nest, but almost on 
 the instant vanished. The same day, a little 
 later, one of these birds flitted into my view, 
 without a sound. So perfectly silent were his 
 movements that I should not have seen him if 
 he had not come directly before my eyes. He, 
 or she, for the pair are alike, alighted in a low 
 bush and scrambled about as if in search of in- 
 sects, climbing, not hopping. He stayed but a 
 few seconds and departed like a shadow, as he 
 had come. 
 
 On the tenth day after my discovery of the 
 nest with its trio of eggs I went out as usual, 
 for I could not abandon hope. In passing the 
 nest I glanced in and saw one egg ; I could 
 never see but one as I went by, but, not liking 
 to go too near, I presumed that the other two 
 were there, as I had always found them, and 
 slipped quietly into my usual place. 
 
 In a few moments the chat shouted a call so 
 near that it fairly startled me. From that he 
 went on to make his ordinary protest, but, as 
 happened nearly every time, I was not able to
 
 50 IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 see him. I saw something something that 
 took my breath away. A shadowy form creep- 
 ing stealthily through the shrubs five or six feet 
 from me. It glided across the opening in front, 
 and in a moment went to the bush I was watch- 
 ing. In silence, but with evident excitement, it 
 moved about, approached the nest, and in a few 
 seconds flew quickly across the path in plain 
 sight, holding in its mouth something white 
 which was large for its beak. I was reminded 
 of an English sparrow carrying a piece of bread 
 as big as his head, a sight familiar to every one. 
 In a minute or two the same bird, or his twin, 
 came to the nest again and disappeared on the 
 other side. 
 
 When I left my place to go home, I looked 
 with misgivings into the nest on which I had 
 built so many hopes. Lo ! it was empty ! 
 
 Now I identified that stealthy visitor abso- 
 lutely, but I shall never name him. I have 
 never heard him accused of nest-robbing, and I 
 shall not make the charge ; for I am convinced 
 that the chat had deserted the nest, and that 
 this abstractor of eggs knew it, and simply took 
 the good things the gods threw in his way as 
 would the best of us. 
 
 After that unfortunate ending the chat dis- 
 appeared from the little park ; but a week later 
 I came upon him, or his voice, in a private and
 
 FAREWELL TO THE BEWITCHING BIRD. 51 
 
 rarely visited pasture down the road, where 
 many clumps of small trees and much low 
 growth offered desirable nesting - places. He 
 made his usual protest, and feeling that I had 
 been the cause of the tragedy of the first nest, 
 though I had grieved over it as much as the 
 owners could, the least I could do, to show my 
 regret, was to take myself and my curiosity out 
 of his neighborhood. So I retired at once, and 
 left the whole broad pasture to the incorrigible 
 chat family, who, I hope, succeeded at last in 
 enriching the world by half a dozen more of 
 their bewitching kind.
 
 V. 
 
 A FEAST OF FLOWERS. 
 
 When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold 
 Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould, 
 And folded green things in dim woods unclose 
 Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes 
 Into my veins and makes me kith and kin 
 To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows. 
 
 T. B. ALDRICH. 
 
 MY feast of flowers began before I entered 
 Colorado. For half the breadth of Kansas the 
 banks of the railroad were heavenly blue with 
 clustered blossoms of the spiderwort. I remem- 
 ber clumps of this flower in my grandmother's 
 old-fashioned garden, but my wildest dreams 
 never pictured miles of it, so profuse that, look- 
 ing backward from the train, the track looked 
 like threads of steel in a broad ribbon of blue. 
 
 Through the same State, also, the Western 
 meadow-larks kept us company, and I shall 
 never again think of " bleeding Kansas," but 
 of smiling Kansas, the home of the bluest of 
 blossoms and the sweetest of singers. The lat- 
 ter half of the way through the smiling State 
 was golden with yellow daisies in equal abun-
 
 THE PARADISE OF WILD-FLOWEES. 53 
 
 dance, and beside them many other flowers. 
 Beginning at noon, I counted twenty-seven vari- 
 eties, so near the track that I could distinguish 
 them as we rushed past. 
 
 The Santa Fe road enters Colorado in a pecu- 
 liarly desolate region. Flowers and birds appear 
 to have stayed behind in Kansas, and no green 
 thing shows its head, excepting one dismal-look- 
 ing bush, which serves only to accentuate the 
 poverty of the soil. As we go on, the mud is 
 replaced by sand and stones, from gravel up 
 to big bowlders, and flowers begin to struggle 
 up through the unpromising ground. 
 
 Nothing is more surprising than the amazing 
 profusion of wild-flowers which this apparently 
 ungenial soil produces. Of a certainty, if Colo- 
 rado is not the paradise of wild-flowers, it is 
 incomparably richer in them than any State 
 east of the Mississippi River and north of 
 "Mason and Dixon's Line." To begin with, 
 there is a marvelous variety. Since I have 
 taken note of them, from about the 10th of 
 June till nearly the same date in July, I have 
 found in my daily walk of not more than a mile 
 or two, each time from one to seven new kinds. 
 A few days I have found seven, many times I 
 have brought home four, and never has a day 
 passed without at least one I had not seen be- 
 fore. That will average, at a low estimate,
 
 54 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 about a hundred varieties of flowers in a month, 
 and all within a radius of four miles. What 
 neighborhood can produce a record equal to 
 this? 
 
 Then, again, the blossoms themselves are so 
 abundant. Hardly a root contents itself with 
 a single flower. The moccasin-plant is the only 
 one I have noticed as yet. One root will usu- 
 ally send up from one to a dozen stems, fairly 
 loaded with buds like the yucca which open 
 a few every day, and thus keep in bloom for 
 weeks. Or if there is but one stem, it will be 
 packed with buds from the ground to the tip, 
 with new ones to come out for every blossom 
 that falls. 
 
 One in the vase on my stand at this moment 
 is of this sort. It is a stem that sometimes 
 attains a height of four or five feet. I think 
 it lengthens as long as it is blossoming, and, to 
 look at its preparations, that must be all sum- 
 mer. Every two or three inches of the stout 
 stem is a whorl of leaves and buds and blos- 
 soms. Except the number of buds, it is all in 
 fours. Opposite each other, making a cross, 
 are four leaves, like a carnation leaf at first, 
 but broadening and lengthening till it is two 
 inches at the base and eight or ten long. Ris- 
 ing out of the axil of each leaf are buds, of 
 graduated size and development up to the open
 
 A SYMPHONY IN GREEN. 55 
 
 blossom. That one stem, therefore, is prepared 
 to open fresh flowers every day for a long time. 
 
 The plant is exquisitely beautiful, for the 
 whole thing, from the stem to the flower petals, 
 is of a delicate, light pea-green. The blossom 
 opens like a star, with four stamens and four 
 petals. The description sounds mathematical, 
 but the plant is graceful a veritable sym- 
 phony in green. 
 
 A truly royal bouquet stands on my table 
 three spikes of yucca flowers in a tall vase, the 
 middle one three feet high, bearing fifty blos- 
 soms and buds, of large size and a pink color ; 
 on its right, one a little less in size, with long 
 creamy cups fully open ; and on the left another, 
 set with round greenish balls, not so open as 
 cups. They are distinctly different, but each 
 seems more exquisite than the other, and their 
 fragrance fills the room. In fact it is so over- 
 powering that when at night I close the door 
 opening into the grove, I shut the vase and its 
 contents outside. 
 
 This grand flower is the glory of the mesa or 
 table-land at the foot of this range of the Rocky 
 Mountains the Cheyenne Range. Where no 
 grass that we name grass will grow, where 
 trees die for want of water, these noble spikes 
 of flowers dot the bare plains in profusion. 
 
 It is the rich possessor of three names. To
 
 56 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 the flower-lover it is the yucca; to the culti- 
 vator, or whosoever meddles with its leaves, it 
 is the Spanish-bayonet ; to the utilitarian, who 
 values a thing only as it is of use to him, it is 
 the soap-weed ignoble name, referring to cer- 
 tain qualities pertaining to its roots. When 
 we remember that this flower is not the care- 
 ful product of the garden, but of spontaneous 
 growth in the most barren and hopeless-looking 
 plains, we may well regard it as a type of Colo- 
 rado's luxuriance in these loveliest of nature's 
 gifts. 
 
 Of a surly disposition is the blossom of a 
 cactus the "prickly-pear," as we call it in 
 Eastern gardens, where we cultivate it for its 
 oddity, I suppose. When the sojourner in this 
 land of flowers sees, opening on all sides of 
 this inhospitable-looking plant, rich cream-col- 
 ored cups, the size of a Jacqueminot bud, and 
 of a rare, satiny sheen, she cannot resist the 
 desire to fill a low dish with them for her table. 
 
 Woe to her if she attempts to gather them 
 " by hand " ! Properly warned, she will take a 
 knife, sever the flower from the pear (there is 
 no stem to speak of), pick it up by the tip 
 of a petal, carry it home in a paper or hand- 
 kerchief, and dump it gently into water 
 happy if she does not feel a dozen intolerable 
 prickles here and there, and have to extract,
 
 OBSTINATE CACTUS BLOSSOMS. 57 
 
 with help of magnifying-glass and tweezers, as 
 many needle-like barbs rankling in her flesh. 
 She may as well have spared herself the trouble. 
 The flowers possess the uncompromising nature 
 of the stock from which they sprung ; they will 
 speedily shut themselves up like buds again 
 I almost believe they close with a snap and 
 obstinately refuse to display their satin dra- 
 peries to delight the eyes of their abductors. 
 This unlovely spirit is not common among Col- 
 orado flowers ; most of them go on blooming in 
 the vase day after day. 
 
 Remarkable are the places in which the 
 flowers are found. Not only are they seen in 
 crevices all the way up the straight side of 
 rocks, where one would hardly think a seed 
 could lodge, but beside the roads, between the 
 horses' tracks, and on the edge of gutters in 
 the streets of a city. One can walk down any 
 street in Colorado Springs and gather a bou- 
 quet, lovely and fragrant, choice enough to 
 adorn any one's table. I once counted twelve 
 varieties in crossing one vacant corner lot on 
 the principal street. 
 
 One of the richest wild gardens I know is a 
 bare, open spot in a cottonwood grove, part of it 
 tunneled by ants, which run over it by millions, 
 and the rest a jumble of bowlders and wild rose- 
 bushes, impossible to describe. In this spot,
 
 58 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 unshaded from the burning sun, flourish flowers 
 innumerable. Rosebushes, towering far above 
 one 's head, loaded with bloom ; shrubs of sev- 
 eral kinds, equally burdened by delicate white 
 or pink blossoms ; the ground covered with foot- 
 high pentstemons, blue and lavender, in which 
 the buds fairly get in each other's way; and 
 a curious plant primrose, I believe which 
 opens every morning, a few inches from the 
 ground, a large white blossom like the magnolia, 
 turns it deep pink, and closes it before night ; 
 several kinds of yellow flowers ; wild geraniums, 
 with a look of home in their daintily penciled 
 petals ; above all, the wonderful golden colum- 
 bine. I despair of picturing this grand flower 
 to eyes accustomed to the insignificant colum- 
 bine of the East. The blossom is three times 
 the size of its Eastern namesake, growing in 
 clumps sometimes three feet across, with thirty 
 or forty stems of flowers standing two and a 
 half feet high. In hue it is a delicate straw 
 color, sometimes all one tint, sometimes with 
 outside petals of snowy white, and rarely with 
 those outsiders of lavender. It is a red-letter 
 day when the flower-lover comes upon a clump 
 of the lavender-leaved columbine. Far up in 
 the mountains is found still another variety 
 of this beautiful flower, with outside petals of a 
 rich blue. This, I believe, is the State flower 
 of Colorado.
 
 DISCOVERIES FOR EVERY DAY. 59 
 
 I am surprised at the small number of flowers 
 here with which I am familiar. I think there 
 are not more than half a dozen in all this ex- 
 traordinary " procession of flowers " that I ever 
 saw before. In consequence, every day promises 
 discoveries, every walk is exciting as an excur- 
 sion into unknown lands, each new find is a 
 fresh treasure.
 
 VI. 
 
 A CINDERELLA AMONG FLOWERS. 
 
 Like torches lit for carnival, 
 The fiery lilies straight and tall 
 Burn where the deepest shadow is ; 
 Still dance the columbines cliff-hung, 
 And like a broidered veil outflung 
 The many-blossomed clematis. 
 
 SUSAN COOLIDGE. 
 
 A HOUGH, scraggy plant, with unattractive, 
 dark-green foliage and a profusion of buds 
 standing out at all angles, is, in July, almost the 
 only growing thing to be seen on the barren- 
 looking mesa around Colorado Springs. Any- 
 thing more unpromising can hardly be ima- 
 gined ; the coarsest thistle is a beauty beside it ; 
 the common burdock has a grace of growth far 
 beyond it ; the meanest weed shows a color 
 which puts it to shame. Yet if the curious trav- 
 eler pass that way again, late in the afternoon, 
 he shall find that " Solomon in all his glory was 
 not arrayed like one of these." He will see the 
 bush transfigured ; its angular form hidden under 
 a mass of many pointed stars of snowy white-
 
 A FAIRY-STOEY TRANSFORMATION. 61 
 
 ness, with clusters of pale gold stamens. Then 
 will stand revealed the " superb mentzelia," a 
 true Cinderella, fit only for ignominious uses in 
 the morning, but a suitable bride for the fairy 
 prince in the evening. 
 
 To look at the wide-stretching table-lands, 
 where, during its season, this fairy-story trans- 
 formation takes place daily, so burned by the 
 sun, and swept by the wind, that no cultivated 
 plant will flourish on it, one would never sus- 
 pect that it is the scene of a brilliant " proces- 
 sion of flowers " from spring to fall. " There is 
 always something going on outdoors worth see- 
 ing," says Charles Dudley Warner, and of no 
 part of the world is this more true than of these 
 apparently desolate plains at the foot of the 
 Rocky Mountains. Rich is the reward of the 
 daily stroller, not only in the inspiration of its 
 pure, bracing air, the songs of its meadow-larks, 
 and the glory of its grand mountain view, but 
 in its charming flower show. 
 
 This begins with the anemone, modest and 
 shy like our own, but three times as big, and 
 well protected from the sharp May breezes by a 
 soft, fluffy silk wrap. Then some day in early 
 June the walker shall note groups of long, 
 sword-shaped leaves, rising in clusters here and 
 there from the ground. He may not handle 
 them with impunity, for they are strong and
 
 62 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 sharp-edged, and somewhat later the beauty they 
 are set to guard is revealed. A stem or two, 
 heavy and loaded with hard green balls, pushes 
 itself up among them day by day, till some 
 morning he stands spellbound before the full- 
 blown bells of the yucca, cream-tinted or pink, 
 and fragrant as the breath of summer. 
 
 Before the Nature-lover is tired of feasting 
 his eyes upon that stately flower, shall begin to 
 unfold the crumpled draperies of the great Mex- 
 ican poppy, dotting the hillsides and the mesa 
 with white, as far as the eye can reach. Mean- 
 while, the earth itself shall suddenly turn to pink, 
 and a close look disclose a tiny, low-growing blos- 
 som, sweet as the morning, with the glow of the 
 sunrise in its face ; a little bunch of crazy-look- 
 ing stamens, and tiny snips of petals standing 
 out at all angles, and of all shades on one stem, 
 from white to deep red; the whole no bigger 
 than a gauzy-winged fly, and shaped not unlike 
 one, with a delicious odor that scents the air. 
 
 Next day or next week wandering over 
 the pathless barrens, the observer may come 
 upon a group of cream-colored satin flowers, 
 wide open to the sun, innocent looking and 
 most tempting to gather. But the great fleshy 
 leaves from which they spring give warning; 
 they belong to the cactus family, and are well 
 armed to protect their treasures from the va-
 
 A RIOT OF ROSES. 63 
 
 grant hand. The walker if he be wise 
 will content himself with looking, nor seek a 
 nearer acquaintance. 
 
 While these royal beauties are adorning the 
 highlands, others, perhaps even more lovely, 
 are blooming in the canons, under the trees, 
 and beside the noisy brooks. First, there is a 
 " riot of roses" the only expression that ade- 
 quately suggests the profusion of these beauti- 
 ful flowers. They grow in enormous bushes, 
 far above one's head, in impenetrable thickets, 
 extending for yards each way. 
 
 Abloom to the edges." 
 
 Every country road is walled in by them ; every 
 brookside is glorified by their rich masses of 
 color; and no rocky wall is so bare but here 
 and there a tiny shoot finds root, and open its 
 rosy bloom. All these bushes, from the low- 
 growing sort that holds its mottled and shaded 
 petals three inches above the ground, to that 
 whose top one cannot reach, are simply loaded 
 with blossoms of all shades, from nearly white 
 to deepest rose-color, filling the air with per- 
 fume. 
 
 The first time one comes upon this lavish dis- 
 play, he or more probably she picks a 
 spray from the first bush ; she cannot resist the 
 next variety, and before she knows it her arms
 
 64 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 are full, with temptations as strong as ever before 
 her. She may at last, like " H. H.," take home 
 her roses by the carriage load, or, overwhelmed 
 by their numbers, leave them all on their stems, 
 and enjoy them in mass. 
 
 Shyly hiding under the taller shrubs beside 
 the running water, the experienced seeker will 
 find the gilia, one of the gems of Colorado's 
 bouquet. This plant consists of one slender 
 stem two feet or more tall, swayed by every 
 breeze, and set for several inches of its length 
 with daintiest blossoms, 
 
 " Like threaded rubies on its stem." 
 
 They are like fairy trumpets, in many shades, 
 from snow white to deep rose, and brilliant 
 scarlet, with great variety of delicate marking 
 visible only under a glass. The stem is so 
 sticky that the flowers must be arranged as 
 they are gathered ; for they cling to each other 
 more closely than the fabled "brother," and 
 an attempt to separate them will result in torn 
 flowers. 
 
 Anything more exquisite than a vase of gilias 
 alone is rarely seen. The buds are as lovely as 
 the blossoms ; new ones open every day, and 
 even the faded ones are not unsightly ; their 
 petals are simply turned backward a little. One 
 minute every morning spent in snipping off 
 blossoms that are past their prime insures the
 
 ".ff. fl.'S" FLOWER. 65 
 
 happy possessor a bouquet that is a joy forever, 
 even in memory ; lovely and fresh, in ever- 
 changing combinations of color and form. 
 
 Some day shall be made memorable to the 
 enthusiast by the discovery of a flower which 
 should be named for " H. H.," the one which 
 looked so charming from the moving train that 
 her winning tongue brought the iron horse to a 
 pause while it was gathered, " root and branch," 
 for her delectation. Finding the gorgeous spike 
 of golden blossoms without a common name, she 
 called it most happily the golden prince's 
 feather. It is to be presumed that it has an 
 unwieldy scientific cognomen in the botanies ; 
 but I heard of no common one, except that given 
 by the poet. 
 
 While this royal flower is still in bloom, may 
 be found the mariposa, or butterfly lily, small 
 and low on the burning mesa, but more gener- 
 ous in size, and richer of hue, in the shaded 
 canons. 
 
 " Like a bubble borne in air 
 
 Floats the shy Mariposa's bell," 
 
 says Susan Coolidge in her beautiful tribute to 
 her beloved friend and poet. The three petals 
 of this exquisite flower form a graceful cup of 
 differing degrees of violet hue, some being 
 nearly white, with the color massed in a rich, 
 deep-toned crescent, low down at the heart of
 
 66 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 each petal, while others are glowing in the most 
 regal purple. 
 
 All these weeks, too, have been blossoming 
 dozens, yes, hundreds of others ; every nook 
 and corner is full ; every walk brings surprises. 
 Some of our most familiar friends are wanting. 
 One is not surprised that the most common way- 
 side flower of that golden region is the yellow 
 daisy, or sunflower it is called ; but she remem- 
 bers fondly our fields of white daisies, and 
 clumps of gay little buttercups, and she longs 
 for cheery -faced dandelions beside her path. A 
 few of the latter she may find, much larger and 
 more showy than ours ; but these it is said in 
 Colorado Springs are all from seed imported 
 by an exile for health's sake, who pined for the 
 flowers of home. 
 
 Several peculiarities of Colorado flowers are 
 noteworthy. Some have gummy or sticky stems, 
 like the gilia, already mentioned, and others 
 again are " clinging," by means of a certain 
 roughness of stem and leaf. The mentzelia is 
 of this nature ; half a dozen stalks can with 
 difficulty be separated ; and they seem even to 
 attract any light substance, like fringe or lace, 
 holding so closely to it that they must be torn 
 apart. 
 
 Many of the prettiest flowers are, like our 
 milkweed, nourished by a milky juice, and when
 
 PLANT ECCENTRICITIES. 67 
 
 severed from the parent stem, not only weep 
 thick white tears, which stain the hands and the 
 garments, but utterly refuse to, subsist on water, 
 and begin at once to droop. Is it the vitality in 
 the air which forces even the plants to eccentri- 
 cities ? Or can it be that they have not yet 
 been subdued into uniformity like ours ? Are 
 they unconventional nearer to wild Nature ? 
 So queries an unscientific lover of them all. 
 
 This slight sketch of a few flowers gives 
 hardly a hint of the richness of Colorado's flora. 
 No words can paint the profusion and the 
 beauty. I have not here even mentioned some 
 of the most notable : the great golden colum- 
 bine, the State flower^ to which our modest blos- 
 som is an insignificant weed ; 
 
 " The fairy lilies, straight and tall, 
 Like torches lit for carnival ; " 
 
 the primrose, opening at evening a disk three 
 or four inches across, loaded with richest per- 
 fume, and changed to odorless pink before 
 morning ; exquisite vetches, with bloom like 
 our sweet pea, and of more than fifty varieties ; 
 harebells in great clumps, and castilleias which 
 dot the State with scarlet ; rosy cyclamens " on 
 long, lithe stems that soar ; " and mertensias, 
 whose delicate bells, blue as a baby's eyes, turn 
 day by day to pink ; the cleome, which covers 
 Denver with a purple veil ; the whole family of 
 pentstemons, and hundreds of others.
 
 68 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 An artist in Colorado Springs, who has given 
 her heart, almost her life, to fixing in imperish- 
 able color the floral wealth about her, has 
 painted over three hundred varieties of Colo- 
 rado wild-flowers, and her list is still incomplete. 
 
 It is not pleasant to mar this record of beauty, 
 but one thing must be mentioned. The lux- 
 uriance of the flowers is already greatly dimin- 
 ished by the unscrupulousness of the tourists 
 who swarm in the flower season, especially, I am 
 sorry to say, women. Not content with filling 
 their hands with flowers, they fill their arms and 
 even their carriage, if they have one. More- 
 over, the hold of the plant on the light, sandy 
 soil is very slight ; and the careless gatherer, not 
 provided with knife or scissors, will almost inva- 
 riably pull the root with the flower, thus totally 
 annihilating that plant. When one witnesses 
 such greediness, and remembers that these van- 
 dals are in general on the wing, and cannot stay 
 to enjoy what they have rifled, but will leave it 
 all to be thrown out by hotel servants the next 
 morning, he cannot wonder at the indignation 
 of the residents toward the traveler, nor that 
 " No admittance " notices are put up, and big 
 dogs kept, and that " tourist " is a name synon- 
 ymous with " plunderer," and bitterly hated by 
 the people. 
 
 I have seen a party of ladies to judge by
 
 THE GREEDY TOURIST. 69 
 
 their looks with arms so full of the golden 
 columbine that it seemed they could not hold 
 another flower, whose traveling dress and equip- 
 ments showed them to be mere transient passers 
 through, who could not possibly make use of 
 so many. Half a dozen blossoms would have 
 given as much pleasure as half a hundred, and be 
 much more easily cared for, besides leaving a 
 few for their successors to enjoy. The result 
 is, of course, plain to see : a few more years of 
 plunder, and Colorado will be left bare, and lose 
 half her charm. 
 
 One beautiful place near Colorado Springs, 
 Glen Eyrie, belonging to General Palmer, was 
 generously left open for every one to enjoy by 
 driving through; but, incredible as it seems, 
 his hospitality was so abused, his lovely grounds 
 rifled, not only of wild-flowers, but even of cul- 
 tivated flowers and plants, that he was forced at 
 last to put up notices that the public was al- 
 lowed to " drive through without dismounting."
 
 vn. 
 
 CLIFF-DWELLERS IN THE CA&OK 
 
 Glad 
 
 With light as with a garment it is clad 
 Each dawn, before the tardy plains have won 
 One ray ; and often after day has long been done 
 For us, the light doth cling reluctant, sad to leave its brow. 
 
 H. H. 
 
 THE happiest day of my summer in the 
 Rocky Mountains was passed in the heart of 
 a mountain consecrated by the songs and the 
 grave of its lover, " H. H.," beautiful Chey- 
 enne, the grandest and the most graceful of its 
 range. 
 
 Camp Harding, my home for the season, in 
 its charming situation, has already been de- 
 scribed. The fortunate dwellers in this " happy 
 valley " were blessed with two delectable walks, 
 " down the road " and " up the road." Down 
 the road presented an enchanting procession of 
 flowers, which changed from day to day as the 
 season advanced ; to-day the scarlet castilleia, 
 or painter's-brush, flaming out of the coarse 
 grasses; to-morrow the sand lily, lifting its
 
 UP INTO THE CANON. 71 
 
 dainty face above the bare sand ; next week 
 the harebell, in great clumps, nodding across the 
 field, and next month the mariposa or butter- 
 fly lily, just peeping from behind the brush, 
 with dozens of others to keep them company. 
 As one went on, the fields grew broader, the 
 walls of the mesa lowered and drew apart, till 
 the canon was lost in the wide, open country. 
 
 This was the favorite evening walk, with all 
 the camp dogs in attendance, the nimble grey- 
 hound, the age-stiffened and sedate spaniel, the 
 saucy, ill-bred bull-terrier, and the nai've baby 
 pug. The loitering walk usually ended at the 
 red farmhouse a mile away, and the walkers 
 returned to the camp in the gloaming, loaded 
 with flowers, saturated with the delicious moun- 
 tain air, and filled with a peace that passeth 
 words. 
 
 Up the road led into the mountain, under 
 thick-crowding trees, between frowning rocks, 
 ever growing higher and drawing nearer to- 
 gether, till the carriage road became a burro 
 track, and then a footpath ; now this side the 
 boisterous brook, then crossing by a log or two 
 to the other side, and ending in the heart of 
 Cheyenne in a cul-dc-sac, whose high perpendic- 
 ular sides could be scaled only by flights of 
 steps built against the rocks. From high up the 
 mountain, into this immense rocky basin, came
 
 72 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 the brook Shining Water, in seven tremendous 
 leaps, each more lovely than the last, and reached 
 at bottom a deep stone bowl, which flung it out 
 in a shower of spray forbidding near approach, 
 and keeping the rocks forever wet. 
 
 The morning walk was up the road, in the 
 grateful shade of the trees, between the cool 
 rocks, beside the impetuous brook. This last 
 was an ever fresh source of interest and pleas- 
 ure, for nothing differs more widely from an 
 Eastern brook than its Western namesake. The 
 terms we apply to our mountain rivulets do not 
 at all describe a body of water on its way down 
 a Rocky Mountain valley. It does not murmur, 
 it roars and brawls ; it cannot ripple, it 
 rages and foams about the bowlders that lie in 
 its path. The name of a Colorado mountain 
 stream, the Roaring Fork, exactly character- 
 izes it. 
 
 One warm morning in June, a small party 
 from the camp set out for a walk up the road. 
 By easy stages, resting here and there on con- 
 venient rocks, beguiled at every step by some- 
 thing more beautiful just ahead, they pen- 
 etrated to the end of the canon. Of that 
 party I was one, and it was my first visit. I 
 was alternately in raptures over the richness of 
 color, the glowing red standstone against the 
 violet-blue sky, and thrilled by the grandeur
 
 A WIND-SOWN GARDEN. 73 
 
 of places which looked as if the whole mountain 
 had been violently rent asunder. 
 
 But no emotion whatever, no beauty, no 
 sublimity even, can make me insensible to a 
 bird note. Just at the entrance to the Pillars 
 of Hercules, two towering walls of perpendicu- 
 lar rock that approach each other almost threat- 
 eningly, as if they would close up and crush 
 between them the rash mortal who dared to 
 penetrate farther, in that impressive spot, 
 while I lingered, half yielding to a mysterious 
 hesitation about entering the strange portal, a 
 bird song fell upon my ear. It was a plaintive 
 warble, that sounded far away up the stern 
 cliff above my head. It seemed impossible that 
 a bird could find a foothold, or be in any way 
 attracted by those bare walls, yet I turned my 
 eyes, and later my glass that way. 
 
 At first nothing was to be seen save, part 
 way up the height, an exquisite bit of nature. 
 In a niche that might have been scooped out by 
 a mighty hand, where scarcely a ray of sunlight 
 could penetrate, and no human touch could 
 make or mar, were growing, and blooming luxu- 
 riantly, a golden columbine, Colorado's pride 
 and glory, a rosy star-shaped blossom unknown 
 to me, and a cluster of 
 
 " Proud cyclamens on long, lithe stems that soar." 
 
 When I could withdraw my eyes from this
 
 74 IN TEE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 dainty wind-sown garden, I sought the singer, 
 who proved to be a small brown bird with a 
 conspicuous white throat, flitting about on the 
 face of the rock, apparently quite at home, and 
 constantly repeating his few notes. His song 
 was tender and bewitching in its effect, though 
 it was really simple in construction, being 
 merely nine notes, the first uttered twice, and 
 the remaining eight in descending chromatic 
 scale. 
 
 Now and then the tiny songster disappeared 
 in what looked like a slight crack in the wall, 
 but instantly reappeared, and resumed his siren 
 strains. Spellbound I stood, looking and listen- 
 ing ; but alas ! the hour was late, the way was 
 long, and others were waiting ; I needs must 
 tear myself away. "To-morrow I will come 
 again," I said, as I turned back. " To-morrow 
 I shall be here alone, and spend the whole day 
 with the canon wren." 
 
 Then we retraced our steps of the morning, 
 lingering among the pleasant groves of cotton- 
 wood, oak, and aspen ; pausing to- admire the 
 cactus display of gorgeous yellow, with petals 
 widespread, yet so wedded to their wildness that 
 they resented the touch of a human hand, re- 
 sisting their ravisher with needle-like barbs, 
 and then sullenly drawing together their satin 
 petals and refusing to open them more ; past
 
 SOLITARY POSSESSION OF THE C Aft ON. 75 
 
 great thickets of wild roses, higher than our 
 heads and fragrant as the morning; beside 
 close-growing bushes, where hid the 
 
 " Golden cradle of the moccasin flower," 
 
 and the too clever yellow-breasted chat had 
 mocked and defied me ; and so home to the 
 camp. 
 
 At an early hour the next morning, the car- 
 riage of my hostess set me down at the entrance 
 of Cheyenne Canon proper, with the impedi- 
 menta necessary for a day's isolation from civ- 
 ilization. I passed through the gate, for even 
 this grand work of nature is claimed as private 
 property ; but, happily, through good sense or 
 indifference, " improvements " have not been 
 attempted, and one forgets the gate and the 
 gate-keeper as soon as they are passed. 
 
 Entering at that unnatural hour, and alone, 
 leaving the last human being behind, staring in 
 astonishment, by the way, at my unprecedented 
 proceeding, I began to realize, as I walked up 
 the narrow path, that the whole grand canon, 
 winding perhaps a mile into the heart of this 
 most beautiful of the Rocky Mountains, was 
 mine alone for three hours. Indeed, when the 
 time arrived for tourists to appear, so little 
 did I concern myself with them that they might 
 have been a procession of spectres passing by ; 
 so, in effect, the canon was my solitary posses- 
 sion for nine blissful hours.
 
 76 IN THE BOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The delights of that perfect day cannot be 
 put into words. Strolling up the path, filled 
 with an inexpressible sense of ownership and 
 seclusion from all the world, I first paused in 
 the neighborhood of the small cliff-dweller 
 whose music had charmed me, and suggested 
 the enchanting idea of spending a day with him 
 in his retreat. I seated myself opposite the 
 forbidding wall where the bird had hovered, 
 apparently so much at home. All was silent ; 
 no singer to be heard, no wren to be seen. The 
 sun, which turned the tops of the Pillars to gold 
 as I entered, crept down inch by inch till it beat 
 upon my head and clothed the rock in a ||d 
 glory. Still no bird appeared. High above tbe 
 top of the rocks, in the clear thin air of the 
 mountain, a flock of swallows wheeled and 
 sported, uttering an unfamiliar two-note call; 
 butterflies fluttered irresolute, looking frivolous 
 enough in the presence of the eternal hills ; 
 gauzy-winged dragonflies zigzagged to and fro, 
 their intense blue gleaming in the sun. The 
 hour for visitors drew near, and my precious 
 solitude was fast slipping away. 
 
 Slowiy then I walked up the canon, looking 
 for my singer. Humming-birds were hovering 
 before the bare rock as before a flower, perhaps 
 sipping the water-drops that here and there 
 trickled down, and large hawks, like mere specks
 
 FOOL OB PHILOSOPHER? 11 
 
 against the blue, were soaring, but no wren 
 could I see. At last I reached the end, with 
 its waterfall fountain. Close within this cease- 
 less sprinkle, on a narrow ledge that was never 
 dry, was placed I had almost said grew a 
 bird's nest ; whose, it were needless to ask. One 
 American bird, and one only, chooses perpetual 
 dampness for his environment, the American 
 dipper, or water ouzel. 
 
 Here I paused to muse over the spray-soaked 
 cradle on the rock. In this strange place had 
 lived a bird so eccentric that he prefers not 
 only to nest under a continuous shower, through 
 which he must constantly pass, but to spend 
 most of his life in, not on the water. Shall we 
 call him a fool or a philosopher ? Is the water 
 a protection, and from what ? Has " damp, 
 moist unpleasantness "' no terrors for his fine 
 feathers ? Where now were the nestlings whose 
 lullaby had been the music of the falling waters ? 
 Down that sheer rock, perhaps into the water at 
 its foot, had been the first flight of the ouzel 
 baby. Why had I come too late to see him ? 
 
 But the hours were passing, while I had not 
 seen, and, what was worse, had not heard my 
 first charmer, the canon wren. Leaving these 
 perplexing conundrums unsolved, I turned slowly 
 back down the walk, to resume my search. Per- 
 haps fifty feet from the ouzel nest, as I lingered
 
 78 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 to admire the picturesque rapids in the brook, a 
 slight movement drew my attention to a little 
 projection on a stone, not six feet from me, 
 where a small chipmunk sat pertly up, holding 
 in his two hands, and eagerly nibbling was it, 
 could it be a strawberry in this rocky place ? 
 
 Of course I stopped instantly to look at this 
 pretty sight. I judged him to be a youngster, 
 partly because of his evident fearlessness of his 
 hereditary enemy, a human being; more on 
 account of the saucy way in which he returned 
 my stare ; and most, perhaps, from the appear- 
 ance of absorbing delight, in which there was 
 a suggestion of the unexpected, with which he 
 discussed that sweet morsel. Closely I watched 
 him as he turned the treasure round and round 
 in his deft little paws, and at last dropped the 
 rifled hull. Would he go for another, and 
 where ? In an instant, with a parting glance at 
 me, to make sure that I had not moved, he 
 scrambled down his rocky throne, and bounded 
 in great leaps over the path to a crumpled 
 paper, which I saw at once was one of the bags 
 with which tourists sow the earth. But its pres- 
 ence there did not rouse in my furry friend the 
 indignation it excited in me. To him it was a 
 treasure-trove, for into it he disappeared without 
 a moment's hesitation; and almost before I 
 had jumped to the conclusion that it contained
 
 UNIQUE STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL. 79 
 
 the remains of somebody's luncheon, he reap- 
 peared, holding in his mouth another straw- 
 berry, bounded over the ground to his former 
 seat, and proceeded to dispose of that one, also. 
 The scene was so charming and his pleasure so 
 genuine that I forgave the careless traveler on 
 the spot, and only wished I had a kodak to 
 secure a permanent picture of this unique straw- 
 berry festival. 
 
 As I loitered along, gazing idly at the brook, 
 ever listening and longing for the wren song, I 
 was suddenly struck motionless by a loud, shrill, 
 and peculiar cry. It was plainly a bird voice, 
 and it seemed to come almost from the stream 
 itself. It ceased in a moment, and then fol- 
 lowed a burst of song, liquid as the singing of 
 the brook, and enchantingly sweet, though very 
 low. I was astounded. Who could sing like 
 that up in this narrow mountain gorge, where I 
 supposed the canon wren was king? 
 
 At the point where I stood, a straggling 
 shrub, the only one for rods, hung over the 
 brink. I silently sank to a seat behind it, lest 
 I disturb the singer, and remained without 
 movement. The baffling carol went on for some 
 seconds, and for the only time in my life I 
 wished I could put a spell upon brook-babble, 
 that I might the better hear. 
 
 Cautiously I raised my glass to my eyes, and
 
 80 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 examined the rocks across the water, probably 
 eight feet from me. Then arose again that 
 strange cry, and at the same instant my eye fell 
 upon a tiny ledge, level with the water, and per- 
 haps six inches long, on which stood a small 
 fellow-creature in great excitement. He was 
 engaged in what I should call " curtsying " ; 
 that is, bending his leg joint, and dropping his 
 plump little body for a second, then bobbing up 
 to his fullest height, repeating the performance 
 constantly, looking eagerly out over the water 
 the while, evidently expecting somebody. This 
 was undoubtedly the bird's manner of begging 
 for food, a very pretty and well-bred way, too, 
 vastly superior to the impetuous calls and de- 
 mands of some young birds. The movement 
 was " dipping," of course, and he was the dip- 
 per, or ouzel baby, that had been cradled in that 
 fountain-dashed nest by the fall. He was not 
 long out of it, either ; for though fully dressed 
 in his modest slate-color, with white feet, and 
 white edgings to many of his feathers, he had 
 hardly a vestige of a tail. He was a winsome 
 baby, for all that. 
 
 While I studied the points of the stranger, 
 breathless lest he should disappear before my 
 eyes, he suddenly burst out with the strange call 
 I had heard. It was clearly a cry of joy, of wel- 
 come, for out of the water, up on to the ledge be-
 
 AN EXQUISITE SONG. 81 
 
 side him, scrambled at that moment a grown-up 
 ouzel. He gave one poke into the wide-open 
 mouth of the infant, then slipped back into the 
 water, dropped down a foot or more, climbed 
 out upon another little shelf in the rock, and in 
 a moment the song arose. I watched the singer 
 closely. The notes were so low and so mingled 
 with the roar of the brook that even then I 
 should not have been certain he was uttering 
 them if I had not seen his throat and mouth 
 distinctly. The song was really exquisite, and 
 as much in harmony with the melody of the 
 stream as the voice of the English sparrow is 
 with the city sounds among which he dwells, 
 and the plaintive refrain of the meadow-lark 
 with the low-lying, silent fields where he spends 
 his days. 
 
 But little cared baby ouzel for music, how- 
 ever ravishing. What to his mind was far 
 more important was food, in short, worms. 
 His pretty begging continued, and the daring 
 notion of attempting a perilous journey over the 
 foot of water that separated him from his papa 
 plainly entered his head. He hurried back and 
 forth on the brink with growing agitation, and 
 was seemingly about to plunge in, when the 
 singer again entered the water, brought up an- 
 other morsel, and then stood on the ledge be- 
 side the eager youngling, " dipping " occasion-
 
 82 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 ally himself, and showing every time he winked 
 as did the little one, also snowy-white eye- 
 lids, in strange contrast to the dark slate-colored 
 plumage. 
 
 This aesthetic manner of discharging family 
 duties, alternating food for the body with rap- 
 ture of the soul, continued for some time, proba- 
 bly until the young bird had as much as was 
 good for him ; and then supplies were cut off by 
 the peremptory disappearance of the purveyor, 
 who plunged with the brook over the edge of a 
 rock, and was seen no more. 
 
 A little later a grown bird appeared, that I 
 supposed at first was the returning papa, but 
 a few moments' observation convinced me that 
 it was the mother ; partly because no song ac- 
 companied the work, but more because of the 
 entirely different manners of the new-comer. 
 Filling the crop of that importunate offspring 
 of hers was, with this Quaker-dressed dame, a 
 serious business that left no time for rest or rec- 
 reation. Two charmed hours I sat absorbed, 
 watching the most wonderful evolutions one 
 could believe possible to a creature in feathers. 
 
 At the point where this little drama was en- 
 acted, the brook rushed over a line of pebbles 
 stretching from bank to bank, lying at all an- 
 gles and of all sizes, from six to ten inches in 
 diameter. Then it ran five or six feet quietly,
 
 OUZEL FEATS UNDER WATER. 83 
 
 around smooth rocks here and there above the 
 water, and ended by plunging over a mass of 
 bowlders to a lower level. The bird began by 
 mounting one of those slippery rounded stones, 
 and thrusting her head under water up to her 
 shoulders. Holding it there a few seconds, ap- 
 parently looking for something, she then jumped 
 in where the turmoil was maddest, picked an 
 object from the bottom, and, returning to the 
 ledge, gave it to baby. 
 
 The next moment, before I had recovered 
 from my astonishment at this feat of the ouzel, 
 she ran directly up the falls (which, though not 
 high, were exceedingly lively), being half the 
 time entirely under water, and exactly as much 
 at her ease as if no water were there ; though 
 how she could stand in the rapid current, not to 
 speak of walking straight up against it, I could 
 not understand. 
 
 Often she threw herself into the stream, and 
 let it carry her down, like a duck, a foot or two, 
 while she looked intently on the bottom, then 
 simply walked up out of it on to a stone. I 
 could see that her plumage was not in the least 
 wet ; a drop or two often rested on her back 
 when she came out, but it rolled off in a mo- 
 ment. She never even shook herself. The 
 food she brought to that eager youngling every 
 few minutes looked like minute worms, doubt- 
 less some insect Iarva3.
 
 84 IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Several times this hard - working mother 
 plunged into the brook where it was shallow, 
 ran or walked down it, half under water, and 
 stopped on the very brink of the lower fall, 
 where one would think she could not even stand, 
 much less turn back and run up stream, which 
 she did freely. This looked to me almost as 
 difficult as for a man to stand on the brink of 
 Niagara, with the water roaring and tumbling 
 around him. Now and then the bird ran or 
 flew up, against the current, and entirely under 
 water, so that I could see her only as a dark-col- 
 ored moving object, and then came out all fresh 
 and dry beside the baby, with a mouthful of food. 
 I should hardly dare to tell this, for fear of rais- 
 ing doubts of my accuracy, if the same thing 
 had not been seen and reported by others before 
 me. Her crowning action was to stand with 
 one foot on each of two stones in the middle 
 and most uproarious part of the little fall, lean 
 far over, and deliberately pick something from 
 a third stone. 
 
 All this was no show performance, even no 
 frolic, on the part of the ouzel, it was simply 
 her every-day manner of providing for the needs 
 of that infant ; and when she considered the 
 duty discharged for the time, she took her de- 
 parture, very probably going at once to the care 
 of a second youngster who awaited her coming 
 in some other niche in the rocks.
 
 A CLEVEE LITTLE ROGUE. 85 
 
 Finding himself alone again, and no more 
 dainties coming his way, the young dipper 
 turned for entertainment to the swift-running 
 streamlet. He went down to the edge, stepping 
 easily, never hopping ; but when the shallow 
 edge of the water ran over his pretty white toes, 
 he hastily scampered back, as if afraid to ven- 
 ture farther. The clever little rogue was only 
 coquetting, however, for when he did at last 
 plunge in he showed himself very much at 
 home. He easily crossed a turbulent bit of the 
 brook, and when he was carried dowji a little he 
 scrambled without trouble up on a stone. All 
 the time, too, he was peering about after food ; 
 and in fact it was plain that his begging was a 
 mere pretense, he was perfectly well able to 
 look out for himself. Through the whole of 
 these scenes not one of the birds, old or young, 
 had paid the slightest attention to me, though I 
 was not ten feet from them. 
 
 During the time I had been so absorbed in 
 my delightful study of domestic life in the ouzel 
 family, the other interesting resident of the 
 canon the elusive caiion wren had been for- 
 gotten. Now, as I noticed that the day was 
 waning, I thought of him again, and, tearing 
 myself away from the enticing picture, leaving 
 the pretty baby to his own amusements, I re- 
 turned to the famous Pillars, and planted my-
 
 86 IiV THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 self before my rock, resolved to stay there till 
 the bird appeared. 
 
 No note came to encourage me, but, gazing 
 steadily upward, after a time I noticed some- 
 thing that looked like a fly running along the 
 wall. Bringing my glass to my eyes, I found 
 that it was a bird, and one of the white-throated 
 family I so longed to see. She for her si- 
 lence and her ways proclaimed her sex was 
 running about where appeared to be nothing 
 but perpendicular rock, flirting her tail after the 
 manner of her race, as happy and as uncon- 
 cerned as if several thousand feet of sheer cliff 
 did not stretch between her and the brook at its 
 foot. Her movements were jerky and wren-like, 
 and every few minutes she flitted into a tiny 
 crevice that seemed, from my point of view, 
 hardly large enough to admit even her minute 
 form. She was dressed like the sweet singer of 
 yesterday, and the door she entered so familiarly 
 was the same I had seen him interested in. I 
 guessed that she was his mate. 
 
 The bird seemed to be gathering from the 
 rock something which she constantly carried 
 into the hole. Possibly there were nestlings in 
 that snug and inaccessible home. To discover 
 if my conjectures were true, I redoubled my 
 vigilance, though it was neck-breaking work, 
 for so narrow was the canon at that point that I
 
 SHE FLUNG HERSELF DOWN. 87 
 
 could not get far enough away for a more level 
 view. 
 
 Sometimes the bustling little wren flew to the 
 top of the wall, about twenty feet above her 
 front door, as it looked to me (it may have been 
 ten times that). Over the edge she instantly 
 disappeared, but in a few minutes returned to 
 her occupation on the rock. Upon the earth 
 beneath her sky parlor she seemed never to turn 
 her eyes, and I began to fear that I should get 
 no nearer view of the shy cliff-dweller. 
 
 Finally, however, the caprice seized the tan- 
 talizing creature of descending to the level of 
 mortals, and the brook. Suddenly, while I 
 looked, she flung herself off her perch, and fell 
 down down down disappearing at last 
 behind a clump of weeds at the bottom. Was 
 she killed ? Had she been shot by some noiseless 
 air-gun ? What had become of the tiny wren ? 
 I sprang to my feet, and hurried as near as the 
 intervening stream would allow, when lo ! there 
 she was, lively and fussy as ever, running about 
 at the foot of the cliff, searching, searching all 
 the time, ever and anon jumping up and pulling 
 from the rock something that clung to it. 
 
 When the industrious bird had filled her beak 
 with material that stuck out on both sides, which 
 I concluded to be some kind of rock moss, she 
 started back. Not up the face of that blank
 
 88 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 wall, loaded as she was, but by a strange path 
 that she knew well, up which I watched her 
 wending her way to her proper level. This was 
 a cleft between two solid bodies of rock, where, 
 it would seem, the two walls, in settling to- 
 gether for their lifelong union, had broken and 
 crumbled, and formed between them a sort of 
 crack, filled with unattached bowlders, with 
 crevices and passages, sometimes perpendicular, 
 sometimes horizontal. Around and through 
 these was a zigzag road to the top, evidently as 
 familiar to that atom of a bird as Broadway is 
 to some of her fellow-creatures, and more easily 
 traversed, for she had it all to herself. 
 
 The wren flew about three feet to the first step 
 of her upward passage, then ran and clambered 
 nearly all the rest of the way, darting behind jut- 
 ting rocks and coming out the other side, occa- 
 sionally flying a foot or two ; now pausing as if 
 for an observation, jerking her tail upright and 
 letting it drop back, wren-fashion, then starting 
 afresh, and so going on till she reached the level 
 of her nest, when she flew across the (apparent) 
 forty or fifty feet, directly into the crevice. In 
 a minute she came out, and without an instant's 
 pause flung herself down again. 
 
 I watched this curious process very closely. 
 The wren seemed to close her wings ; certainly 
 she did not use them, nor were they in the least
 
 AN INQUISITIVE BURRO. 89 
 
 spread that I could detect. She caine to the 
 ground as if she were a stone, as quickly and as 
 directly as a stone would have fallen ; but just 
 before touching the ground she spread her wings, 
 and alighted lightly on her feet. Then she fell to 
 her labor of collecting what I suppose was nest- 
 ing material, and in a few minutes started up 
 again by the roundabout road to the top. Two 
 hours or more, with gradually stiffening neck, 
 I spent with the wren, while she worked con- 
 stantly and silently, and not once during all 
 that time did the singer appear. 
 
 What the scattering parties of tourists, who 
 from time to time passed me, thought of a silent 
 personage sitting in the canon alone, staring in- 
 tently up at a blank wall of rock, I did not 
 inquire. Perhaps that she' was a verse-writer 
 seeking inspiration ; more likely, however, a 
 harmless lunatic musing over her own fancies. 
 
 I know well what I thought of them, from the 
 glimpses that came to me as I sat there ; some 
 climbing over the sharp-edged rocks, in tight 
 boots, delicate kid gloves, and immaculate trav- 
 eling costumes, and panting for breath in the 
 seven thousand feet altitude ; others uncomfort- 
 ably seated on the backs of the scraggy little 
 burros, one of whom was so interested in my 
 proceedings that he walked directly up and 
 thrust his long, inquiring ears into my very face,
 
 90 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 spite of the resistance of his rider, forcing me 
 to rise and decline closer acquaintance. One of 
 the melancholy procession was loaded with a 
 heavy camera, another equipped with a butterfly 
 net ; this one bent under the weight of a big 
 basket of luncheon, and that one was burdened 
 with satchels and wraps and umbrellas. All 
 were laboriously trying to enjoy themselves, but 
 not one lingered to look at the wonder and the 
 beauty of the surroundings. I pitied them, one 
 and all, feeling obliged, as no doubt they did, to 
 " see the sights ; " tramping the lovely canon 
 to-day, glancing neither to right nor left ; whirl- 
 ing through the Garden of the Gods to-morrow ; 
 painfully climbing the next day the burro track 
 to the Grave, the sacred point where 
 
 ' ' Upon the wind-blown mountain spot 
 Chosen and loved as best by her, 
 Watched over by near sun and star, 
 Encompassed by wide skies, she sleeps." 
 
 Alas that one cannot quote with truth the re- 
 maining lines ! 
 
 " And not one jarring murmur creeps 
 Up from the plain her rest to mar." 
 
 For now, at the end of the toilsome passage, 
 that place which should be sacred to loving 
 memories and tender thoughts, is desecrated by 
 placards and picnickers, defaced by advertise- 
 ments, strewn with the wrapping-paper, tin cans,
 
 THE BETTER WAY. 91 
 
 and bottles with which the modern globe-trotter 
 marks his path through the beautiful and sacred 
 scenes in nature, 1 
 
 In this uncomfortable way the majority of 
 summer tourists spend day after day, and week 
 after week ; going home tired out, with no new 
 idea gained, but happy to be able to say they 
 have been here and there, beheld this canon, 
 dined on that mountain, drank champagne in 
 such a pass, and struggled for breath on top of 
 " the Peak." Their eyes may indeed have 
 passed over these scenes, but they have not seen 
 one thing. 
 
 Far wiser is he (and more especially she) who 
 seeks out a corner obscure enough to escape the 
 eyes of the " procession," settles himself in it, 
 and spends fruitful and delightful days alone 
 with nature ; never hasting nor rushing ; seeing 
 and studying the wonders at hand, but avoid- 
 ing " parties " and " excursions ; " valuing more 
 a thorough knowledge of one canon than a 
 glimpse of fifty ; caring more to appreciate the 
 beauties of one mountain than to scramble over 
 a whole range ; getting into such perfect har- 
 mony with nature that it is as if he had come 
 into possession of a new life ; and from such an 
 
 1 Since the above was written, I am glad to learn that, be- 
 cause of this vandalism, the remains of ' ' H. H." have been 
 removed to the cemetery at Colorado Springs.
 
 92 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 experience returning to his home refreshed and 
 invigorated in mind and body. 
 
 Such were my reflections as the sun went 
 down, and I felt, as I passed out through the 
 gate, that I ought to double my entrance fee, 
 so much had my life been enriched by that per- 
 fect day alone in Cheyenne Canon.
 
 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY.
 
 For all the woods are shrill with stress of song-, 
 Where soft wings flutter down to new-built nests, 
 
 And turbulent sweet sounds are heard day long, 
 Aa of innumerable marriage feasts. 
 
 CHAKLES LOTIN HILDRETH.
 
 VIII. 
 AT FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. 
 
 FOUR o'clock in the morning is the magical 
 hour of the day. I do not offer this sentiment 
 as original, nor have I the slightest hope of con- 
 verting any one to my opinion ; I merely state 
 the fact. 
 
 For years I had known it perfectly well ; 
 and fortified by my knowledge, and bristling 
 with good resolutions, I went out every June 
 determined to rise at that unnatural hour. No- 
 thing is easier than to get up at four o'clock 
 the night before ; but when morning comes, the 
 point of view is changed, and all the arguments 
 that arise in the mind are on the other side ; 
 sleep is the one thing desirable. The case ap- 
 peared hopeless. Appeals from Philip drunk 
 (with sleep) to Philip sober did not seem to 
 avail ; for whatever the latter decreed, the for- 
 mer would surely disobey. 
 
 But last June I found my spur ; last summer 
 I learned to get up with eagerness, and stay up 
 with delight. This was effected by means of 
 an alarm, set by the evening's wakefulness, that
 
 96 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 had no mercy on the morning's sleepiness. The 
 secret is a present interest. What may be 
 going on somewhere out of sight and hearing 
 in the world is a matter of perfect indifference ; 
 what is heard and seen at the moment is an ar- 
 gument that no one can resist. 
 
 I got my hint by the accident of some shelled 
 corn being left on the ground before my win- 
 dow, and so attracting a four o'clock party, 
 consisting of blackbirds, blue jays, and doves. 
 I noticed the corn, but did not think of the 
 pleasure it would give me, until the next morn- 
 ing, when I was awakened about four o'clock by 
 loud and excited talk in blackbird tones, and 
 hurried to the window, to find that I had half 
 the birds of the neighborhood before me. 
 
 Most in number, and most noisy, were the 
 common blackbirds, who just at that time were 
 feeding their young in a grove of evergreens 
 back of the house, where they had set up their 
 nurseries in a crowd, as is their custom. It is 
 impossible to take this bird seriously, he is so 
 irresistibly ludicrous. His manners always sug- 
 gest to me the peculiar drollery of the negro ; 
 one of the old-fashioned sort, as we read of him, 
 and I promised myself some amusement from 
 the study of him at short range ; I was not dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 My greeting as I took my seat at the open
 
 "SQUEE-GEE!" 97 
 
 window, unfortunately without blinds to screen 
 me, was most comical. A big pompous fellow 
 turned his wicked-looking white eye upon me, 
 drew himself into a queer humped-up position, 
 with all his feathers on end, and apparently 
 by a strong effort squeezed out a husky and 
 squeaky, yet loud cry of two notes, which 
 sounded exactly like " Squee-gee ! " 
 
 I was so astounded that I laughed in his face ; 
 at which he repeated it with added emphasis, 
 then turned his back on me, as unworthy of 
 notice away up in my window, and gave his 
 undivided attention to a specially large grain 
 of corn which had been unearthed by a meek- 
 looking neighbor, and appropriated by him, in 
 the most lordly manner. His bearing at the 
 moment was superb and stately in a degree of 
 which only a bird who walks is capable ; one 
 cannot be dignified who is obliged to hop. 
 
 I thought his greeting was a personal one to 
 show contempt which it did emphatically 
 to the human race in general, and to me in 
 particular, but I found later that it was the 
 ordinary blackbird way of being offensive ; it 
 was equivalent to "Get out!" or "Shut up!" 
 or some other of the curt and rude expressions 
 in use by bigger folk than blackbirds. 
 
 If a bird alighted too near one of these arro- 
 gant fellows on the ground, he was met with the
 
 98 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 same expletive, and if he was about the same 
 size he " talked back." The number and vari- 
 ety of utterances at their command was aston- 
 ishing ; I was always being surprised with a new 
 one. Now a blackbird would fly across the 
 lawn, making a noise exactly like a boy's tin 
 trumpet, and repeating it as long as he was 
 within hearing, regarding it, seemingly, as an 
 exceptionally great feat. Again one would seize 
 a kernel of corn, burst out with a convulsive 
 cry, as if he were choking to death, and fly off 
 with his prize, in imminent danger of his life, 
 as I could not but feel. 
 
 The second morning a youngster came with 
 his papa to the feast, and he was droller, if 
 possible, than his elders. He followed his par- 
 ent around, with head lowered and mouth wide 
 open, fairly bawling in a loud yet husky tone. 
 
 The young blackbird does not appear in the 
 glossy suit of his parents. His coat is rusty in 
 hue, and his eye is dark, as is proper in youth. 
 He is not at all backward in speaking his mind, 
 and his sole desire at this period of his life 
 being food, he demands it with an energy and 
 persistence that usually insures success. 
 
 In making close acquaintance with them, one 
 cannot help longing to prescribe to the whole 
 blackbird family something to clear their bron- 
 chial tubes; every tone is husky, and the stu-
 
 A BLACKBIRD RUSE. 99 
 
 dent involuntarily clears his own throat as he 
 listens. 
 
 I was surprised to find the blackbirds so 
 beautiful. When the sun was near setting, and 
 struck across the grass its level rays, they were 
 really exquisite ; their heads a brilliant metallic 
 blue, and all back of that rich bronze or purple, 
 all over as glossy as satin. The little dames 
 are somewhat smaller, and a shade less finely 
 dressed than their bumptious mates ; but that 
 does not make them meek far from it ! and 
 they are not behind their partners in eccentric 
 freaks. Sometimes one would apparently at- 
 tempt a joke by starting to fly, and passing so 
 near the head of one of the dignitaries on the 
 ground that he would involuntarily start and 
 " duck " ingloriously. On one occasion a pair 
 were working peaceably together at the corn, 
 when she flirted a bit of dirt so that it flew 
 toward him. He dashed furiously at her. She 
 gave one hop which took her about a foot away, 
 and then it appeared that she coveted a kernel 
 of corn that was near him when the offense was 
 given, for she instantly jumped back and pounced 
 upon it as if she expected to be annihilated. He 
 ran after her and drove her off, but she kept her 
 prize. 
 
 Eating one of those hard grains was no joke 
 to anybody without teeth, and it was a serious
 
 100 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 affair to one of the blackbirds. He took it into 
 his beak, dropped both head and tail, and gave 
 his mind to the cracking of the sweet morsel. 
 At this time he particularly disliked to be dis- 
 turbed, and the only time I saw one rude to a 
 youngster was when struggling with this diffi- 
 culty. While feeding the nestlings, they broke 
 the kernels into bits, picked up all the pieces, 
 filling the beak the whole length, and then flew 
 off with them. 
 
 But they were not always allowed to keep the 
 whole kernel. They were generally attended 
 while on the ground by a little party of thieves, 
 ready and waiting to snatch any morsel that 
 was dropped. These were, of course, the Eng- 
 lish sparrows. They could not break corn, but 
 they liked it for all that, so they used their wits 
 to secure it, and of sharpness these street birds 
 have no lack. The moment a blackbird alighted 
 on the grass, a sparrow or two came down beside 
 him, and lingered around, watching eagerly. 
 Whenever a crumb dropped, one rushed in and 
 snatched it, and instantly flew from the wrath 
 to come. 
 
 The sparrows had not been at this long be- 
 fore some of the wise blackbirds saw through 
 it, and resented it with proper spirit. One 
 of them would turn savagely after the spar- 
 row who followed him, and the knowing rascal
 
 NO REPOSE OF MANNER. 101 
 
 always took his departure. It was amusing to 
 see a blackbird working seriously on a grain, 
 all his faculties absorbed in the solemn question 
 whether he should succeed in cracking his nut, 
 while two or three feathered pilferers stood as 
 near as they dared, anxiously waiting till the 
 great work should be accomplished, the hard 
 shell should yield, and some bits should fall. 
 
 About five days after the feast was spread, 
 the young came out in force, often two of them 
 following one adult about on the grass, running 
 after him so closely that he could hardly get a 
 chance to break up the kernel; indeed, he often 
 had to fly to a tree to prepare the mouthfuls for 
 them. The young blackbird has not the slight- 
 est repose of manner ; nor, for that matter, has 
 the old one either. The grown-ups treated the 
 young well, almost always ; they never " squee- 
 gee 'd " at them, never touched them in any way, 
 notwithstanding they were so insistent in beg- 
 ging that they would chase an adult bird across 
 the grass, calling madly all the time, and fairly 
 force him to fly away to get rid of them. 
 
 Once two young ones got possession of the 
 only spot where corn was left, and so tormented 
 their elders who came that they had to dash in 
 and snatch a kernel when they wanted one. 
 One of the old ones danced around these two 
 babies in a little circle a foot in diameter, the
 
 102 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTEY. 
 
 infants turning as he moved, and ever present- 
 ing open beaks to him. It was one of the 
 funniest exhibitions I ever saw. After going 
 around half a dozen times, the baffled blackbird 
 flew away without a taste. 
 
 When the two had driven every one else off 
 the ground by their importunities, one of them 
 plucked up spirit to try managing the corn for 
 himself. Like a little man he stopped bawling, 
 and began exercising his strength on the sweet 
 grain. Upon this his neighbor, instead of fol- 
 lowing his example, began to beg of him ! flut- 
 tering his wings, putting up his beak, and almost 
 pulling the corn out of the mouth of the poor 
 little fellow struggling with his first kernel ! 
 
 Sometimes a young one drove his parent all 
 over a tree with his supplications. Higher and 
 higher would go the persecuted, with his tor- 
 mentor scrambling, and half flying after, till 
 the elder absolutely flew away, much put out. 
 
 Long before this time the corn had been used 
 up. But I could not bear to lose my morning 
 entertainment, for all these things took place 
 between four and six A. M. so I made a trip 
 to the village, and bought a bag of the much de- 
 sired dainty, some handf uls of which I scattered 
 every night after birds were abed, ready for the 
 sunrise show. Blackbirds were not the only 
 guests at the feast; there were the doves,
 
 THE DOLL A BOGY. 103 
 
 mourning, or wood-doves, who dropped to the 
 grass, serene as a summer morning, walking 
 around in their small red boots, with mincing 
 steps and fussy little bows. Blue jays, too, 
 came in plenty, selected each his grain and flew 
 away with it. Robins, seeing all the excitement, 
 came over from their regular hunting-ground, 
 but never finding anything so attractive as 
 worms, they soon left. 
 
 The corn feast wound up with a droll excite- 
 ment. One day a child from the house took her 
 doll out in the grass to play, set it up against 
 a tree trunk, and left it there. It had long 
 light hair which stood out around the head, and 
 it did look rather uncanny, but it was amusing 
 to see the consternation it caused. Blue jays 
 came to trees near by, and talked in low tones 
 to each other ; then one after another swooped 
 down toward it ; then they all squawked at it, 
 and finding this of no avail, they left in a body. 
 
 The robins approached cautiously, two of 
 them, calling constantly, "he ! he! he! " One 
 was determined not to be afraid, and came 
 nearer and nearer, till within about a foot of the 
 strange object and behind it, when suddenly he 
 started as though shot, jumped back, and both 
 flew in a panic. 
 
 Soon after this a red-headed woodpecker 
 alighted on the trunk of the elm, preparatory
 
 104 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 to helping himself to a grain of corn. The 
 moment his eyes fell upon madam of the fluffy 
 hair, he burst out with a loud, rapid woodpecker 
 " chitter," gradually growing higher in key and 
 louder in tone. The blue jay flew down from 
 the nest across the yard, and another came from 
 behind the house ; both perched near and stared 
 at him, and then began to talk in low tones. A 
 robin came hastily over and gazed at the usually 
 silent red-head, and apparently it was to all as 
 strange a performance as it was to me, or possi- 
 bly they recognized that it was a cry of warning 
 against danger. 
 
 After he had us all aroused, the bird suddenly 
 fell to silence, and resumed his ordinary man- 
 ner, but he did not go after corn. I suppose 
 the harangue was addressed to the doll. 
 
 That was the last scene in the first act of the 
 corn feast, for the blackbirds had become so 
 numerous and so noisy that they made morning 
 hideous to the whole household, and I stopped 
 the supplies for several days, till these birds 
 ceased to expect anything, and so came no more, 
 and then I spread a fresh breakfast-table for 
 more interesting guests, whose manners and cus- 
 toms I studied for weeks. 
 
 I was invariably startled wide awake on these 
 mornings by a bird note, and sprang up, to see 
 at one glance that
 
 LOVELY MORNING. 105 
 
 " Day had awakened all things that be, 
 The lark and the thrush, and the swallow free," 
 
 and that my party was already assembled ; one 
 or two cardinals or redbirds, as they are 
 often called on the -grass, with the usual at- 
 tendance of English sparrows, and the red- 
 headed woodpecker in the elm, surveying the 
 lawn, and considering which of the trespassers 
 he should fall upon. It was the work of one 
 minute to get into my wraps and seat myself, 
 with opera glass, at the wide-open window. 
 
 My first discovery made, however, during the 
 blackbird reign, was that four o'clock is the 
 most lovely part of the day. All the dust of hu- 
 man affairs having settled during the hours of 
 sleep, the air is fresh and sweet, as if just made ; 
 and generally, just before sunrise, the foliage is 
 at perfect rest, the repose of night still linger- 
 ing, the world of nature as well as of men still 
 sleeping. 
 
 The first thing one naturally looks for, as 
 birds begin to waken, is a morning chorus of 
 song. True bird-lovers, indeed, long for it with 
 a longing that cannot be told. But alas, every 
 year the chorus is withdrawing more and more 
 to the woods, every year it is harder to find a 
 place where English sparrows are not in posses- 
 sion ; and it is one of the most grievous sins of 
 that bird that he spoils the song, even when he
 
 106 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 does not succeed in driving out the singer. A 
 running accompaniment of harsh and intermina- 
 ble squawks overpowers the music of meadow- 
 lark and robin, and the glorious song of the 
 thrush is fairly murdered by it. One could al- 
 most forgive the sparrow his other crimes, if he 
 would only lie abed in the morning ; if he would 
 occasionally listen, and not forever break the 
 peace of the opening day with his vulgar brawl- 
 ing. But the subject of English sparrows is 
 maddening to a lover of native birds ; let us not 
 defile the magic hour by considering it. 
 
 The most obvious resident of the neighbor- 
 hood, at four o'clock in the morning, was al- 
 ways the golden-winged woodpecker, or flicker. 
 Though he scorned the breakfast I offered, hav- 
 ing no vegetarian proclivities, he did not refuse 
 me his presence. I found him a character, and 
 an amusing study, and I never saw his tribe so 
 numerous and so much at home. 
 
 Though largest in size of my four o'clock 
 birds, and most fully represented (always ex- 
 cepting the English sparrows), the golden-wing 
 was not in command. The autocrat of the hour, 
 the reigning power, was quite a different per- 
 sonage, although belonging to the woodpecker 
 family. It was a red-headed woodpecker who 
 assumed to own the lawn and be master of the 
 feast. This individual was marked by a defect
 
 OUT OF PLACE ON THE GEOUND. 107 
 
 in plumage, and had been a regular caller since 
 the morning of my arrival. During the black- 
 bird supremacy over the corn supply he had 
 been hardly more than a spectator, coming to 
 the trunk of the elm and surveying the assem- 
 bly of blue jays, doves, blackbirds, and spar- 
 rows with interest, as one looks down upon a 
 herd with whom he has nothing in common. 
 But when those birds departed, and the visitors 
 were of a different character, mostly cardinals, 
 with an occasional blue jay, he at once took the 
 place he felt belonged to him that of dictator. 
 The Virginia cardinal, a genuine F. F. V., 
 and a regular attendant at my corn breakfast, 
 was a subject of special study with me ; indeed, 
 it was largely on his account that I had set up 
 my tent in that part of the world. I had all 
 my life known him as a tenant of cages, and it 
 struck me at first as very odd to see him flying 
 about freely, like other wild birds. No one, 
 it seemed to me, ever looked so out of place 
 as this fellow of elegant manners, aristocratic 
 crest, and brilliant dress, hopping about on the 
 ground with his exaggerated little hops, tail 
 held stiffly up out of harm's way, and uttering 
 sharp " tsips." One could not help the feeling 
 that he was altogether too fine for this common 
 work-a-day existence ; that he was intended for 
 show; and that a gilded cage was his proper
 
 108 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 abiding-place, with a retinue of human servants 
 to minister to his comfort. Yet he was modest 
 and unassuming, and appeared really to enjoy 
 his life of hard work ; varying his struggles with 
 a kernel of hard corn on the ground, where his 
 color shone out like a flower against the green, 
 with a rest on a spruce-tree, where 
 
 " Like a living jewel he sits and sings ; " 
 
 and when he had finished his frugal meal, de- 
 parting, if nothing hurried him, with a graceful, 
 loitering flight, in which each wing-beat seemed 
 to carry him but a few inches forward, and 
 leave his body poised an infinitesimal second 
 for another beat. With much noise of flutter- 
 ing wings he would start for some point, but 
 appear not to care much whether he got there. 
 He was never in haste unless there was some- 
 thing to hurry him, in which he differed greatly 
 from some of the fidgety, restless personages I 
 have known among the feathered folk. 
 
 The woodpecker's way of making himself dis- 
 agreeable to this distinguished guest, was to 
 keep watch from his tree (an elm overlooking 
 the supply of corn) till he came to eat, and then 
 fly down, aiming for exactly the spot occupied 
 by the bird on the ground. No one, however 
 brave, could help "getting out from under," 
 when he saw this tricolored whirlwind descend- 
 ing upon him. The cardinal always jumped
 
 A LITTLE SET-TO. 109 
 
 aside, then drew himself up, crest erect, tail held 
 at an angle of forty-five degrees, and faced the 
 woodpecker, calm, but prepared to stand up for 
 his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his 
 breakfast. Sometimes they had a little set-to, 
 with beaks not more than three inches apart, 
 the woodpecker making 1 feints of rushing upon 
 his vis-a-vis, and the cardinal jumping up ready 
 to clinch, if a fight became necessary. It never 
 went quite so far as that, though they glared 
 at each other, and the cardinal uttered a little 
 whispered " ha ! " every time he sprang up. 
 
 The Virginian's deliberate manner of eating 
 made peace important to him. He took a grain 
 of hard corn in his mouth, lengthwise ; then 
 working his sharp-edged beak, he soon suc- 
 ceeded in cutting the shell of the kernel through 
 its whole length. From this he went on turn- 
 ing it with his tongue, and still cutting with his 
 beak, till the whole shell rolled out of the side 
 of his mouth in one long piece, completely 
 cleared from its savory contents. 
 
 The red-head, on the contrary, took his grain 
 of corn to a branch, or sometimes to the trunk 
 of a tree, where he sought a suitable crevice in 
 the bark or in a crotch, placed his kernel, ham- 
 mered it well in till firm and safe, and then 
 proceeded to pick off pieces and eat them dain- 
 tily, one by one. Sometimes he left a kernel
 
 110 IZV THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 there, and I saw how firmly it was wedged in, 
 when the English sparrow discovered his store, 
 fell upon it, and dug it out. It was a good deal 
 of work for a strong-billed, persistent sparrow 
 to dislodge a grain thus placed. But of course 
 he never gave up till he could carry it off, 
 probably because he saw that some one valued 
 it ; for since he was unable to crack a grain that 
 was whole, it must have been useless to him. 
 Sometimes the woodpecker wedged the kernel 
 into a crevice in the bark of the trunk, then 
 broke it up, and packed the pieces away in other 
 niches ; and I have seen an English sparrow go 
 carefully over the trunk, picking out and eat- 
 ing these tidbits. That, or something else, has 
 taught sparrows to climb tree trunks, which 
 they do, in the neighborhood I speak of, with 
 as much ease as a woodpecker. I have repeat- 
 edly seen them go the whole length of a tall 
 elm trunk; proceeding by little hops, aide.d by 
 the wings, and using the tail for support almost 
 as handily as a woodpecker himself. 
 
 The red-head's assumption of being monarch 
 of all he surveyed did not end with the break- 
 fast-table ; he seemed to consider himself guard- 
 ian and protector of the whole place. One even- 
 ing I was drawn far down on the lawn by a 
 peculiar cry of his. It began with a singular 
 performance which I have already described,
 
 A CURIOUS PARTY. Ill 
 
 a loud, rapid " chit-it-it-it-it," increasing in vol- 
 ume and rising in pitch, as though he were 
 working himself up to some deed of despera- 
 tion. In a few minutes, however, he appeared 
 to get his feelings under control, and dropped to 
 a single-note cry, often repeated. It differed 
 widely from his loud call, " wok ! wok ! wok ! " 
 still more from the husky tones of his conver- 
 sation with others of his kind ; neither was it 
 like the war-cries with which he intimated to 
 another bird that he was not invited to break- 
 fast. I thought there must be trouble brew- 
 ing, especially as mingled with it was an occa- 
 sional excited " pe-auk ! " of a flicker. When I 
 reached the spot, I found a curious party, con- 
 sisting of two doves and three flickers, assembled 
 on one small tree, with the woodpecker on an 
 upper branch, as though addressing his remarks 
 to them. 
 
 As I drew near the scene of the excitement, 
 the doves flew, and then the golden-wings ; but 
 the red-head held his ground, though he stopped 
 his cries when he saw help coming. In vain I 
 looked about for the cause of the row ; every- 
 thing was serene. It was a beautiful quiet even- 
 ing, and not a child, nor a dog, nor anything in 
 sight to make trouble. The tree stood quite 
 by itself, in the midst of grass that knew not 
 the clatter of the lawn-mower.
 
 112 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 I stood still and waited ; and I had my re- 
 ward, for after a few minutes' silence I saw a 
 pair of ears, and then a head, cautiously lifted 
 above the grass, about fifteen feet from the tree. 
 The mystery was solved ; it was a cat, whom 
 all birds know as a creature who will bear 
 watching when prowling around the haunts of 
 bird families. I am fond of pussy, but I depre- 
 cate her taste for game, as I do that of some 
 other hunters, wiser if not better than she. I 
 invited her to leave this place, where she plainly 
 was unwelcome, by an emphatic " scat ! " and a 
 stick tossed her way. She instantly dropped 
 into the grass and was lost to view ; and as the 
 woodpecker, whose eyes were sharper and his 
 position better than mine, said no more, I con- 
 cluded she had taken the hint and departed.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE LITTLE REDBIRDS. 
 
 WHEX the little redbircls began to visit the 
 lawn there were exciting times. At first they 
 ventured only to the trees overlooking it ; and 
 the gayly dressed father who had them in 
 charge reminded me of nothing so much as a 
 fussy young mother. He was alert to the tips 
 of his toes, and excited, as if the whole world 
 was thirsting for the life of those frowzy-headed 
 youngsters in the maple. His manner intimated 
 that nobody ever had birdlings before ; indeed, 
 that there never had been, or could be, just such 
 a production as that young family behind the 
 leaves. While they were there, he flirted his 
 tail, jerked himself around, crest standing 
 sharply up, and in every way showed his sense 
 of importance and responsibility. 
 
 As for the young ones, after they had been 
 hopping about the branches a week or so, and 
 papa had grown less madly anxious if one 
 looked at them, they appeared bright and spir- 
 ited, dressed in the subdued and tasteful hues 
 of their mother, with pert little crests and dark
 
 114 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 beaks. They were not allowed on the grass, 
 and they waited patiently on the tree while 
 their provider shelled a kernel and took it up to 
 them. The cardinal baby I found to be a self- 
 respecting individual, who generally waits in 
 patience his parents' pleasure, though he is not 
 too often fed. He is not bumptious nor self- 
 assertive, like many others ; he rarely teases, 
 and is altogether a well-mannered and proper 
 young person. After a while, as the youngsters 
 learned strength and speed on the wing, they 
 came to the table with the grown-ups, and then 
 I saw there were three spruce young redbirds, 
 all under the care of their gorgeous papa. 
 
 No sooner did they appear on the ground 
 than trouble began with the English-sparrow 
 tribe. The grievance of these birds was that 
 they could not manage the tough kernels. They 
 were just as hungry as anybody, and just as 
 well -disposed toward corn, but they had not 
 sufficient strength of beak to break it. They 
 did not, however, go without corn, for all that. 
 Their game was the not uncommon one of avail- 
 ing themselves of the labor of others ; they in- 
 vited themselves to everybody's breakfast-table, 
 though, to be sure, they had to watch their 
 chances in order to secure a morsel, and escape 
 the wrath of the owner thereof. 
 
 The cardinal was at first a specially easy vie-
 
 IMPUDENCE OF THE SPAEROWS. 115 
 
 tim to this plot. He took the whole matter 
 most solemnly, and was so absorbed in the work, 
 that if a bit dropped, in the process of separat- 
 ing it from the shell, as often happened, he did 
 not concern himself about it till he had finished 
 what he had in his mouth, and then he turned 
 one great eye on the ground, for the fragments 
 which had long before been snatched by spar- 
 rows and gone down sparrow throats. The sur- 
 prise and the solemn stare with which he 
 " could hardly believe his eyes " were exceed- 
 ingly droll. After a while he saw through their 
 little game, and took to watching, and when a 
 sparrow appeared too much interested in his 
 operations, he made a feint of going for him, 
 which warned the gamin that he would better 
 look out for himself. 
 
 It did not take these sharp fellows long to 
 discover that the young redbird was the easier 
 prey, and soon every youngster on the ground 
 was attended by a sparrow or two, ready to seize 
 upon any fragment that fell. The parent's way 
 of feeding was to shell a kernel and then give it 
 to one of the little ones, who broke it up and ate 
 it. From waiting for fallen bits, the sparrows, 
 never being repulsed, grew bolder, and finally 
 went so far as actually to snatch the corn out of 
 the young cardinals' beaks. Again and again 
 did I see this performance : a sparrow grab and
 
 116 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 run (or fly), leaving the baby astonished and 
 dazed, looking as if he did not know exactly 
 what had happened, but sure he was in some 
 way bereaved. 
 
 One day, while the cardinal family were eat- 
 ing on the grass, the mother of the brood came 
 to a tree near by. At once her gallant spouse 
 flew up there and offered her the mouthful he 
 had just prepared, then returned to his duties. 
 She was rarely seen on the lawn, and I judged 
 that she was sitting again. 
 
 Sometimes, when the youngsters were alone 
 on the ground, I heard a little snatch of song, 
 two or three notes, a musical word or two of 
 very sweet quality. The woodpecker, autocrat 
 though he assumed to be, did not at first inter- 
 fere with the young birds ; but as they became 
 more and more independent and grown up, he 
 began to consider them fair game, and to come 
 down on them with a rush that scattered them ; 
 not far, however ; they were brave little fellows. 
 
 At last, after four weeks of close attention, 
 the cardinal made up his mind that his young 
 folk were babies no longer, and that they were 
 able to feed themselves. I was interested to see 
 his manner of intimating to his young hopefuls 
 that they had reached their majority. When 
 one begged of him, in his gentle way, the parent 
 turned suddenly and gave him a slight push.
 
 HE FED THE BEGGAR! 117 
 
 The urchin understood, and moved a little far- 
 ther off ; but perhaps the next time he asked he 
 would be fed. They learned the lesson, how- 
 ever, and in less than two days from the first 
 hint they became almost entirely independent. 
 
 One morning- the whole family happened to 
 meet at table. The mother came first, and then 
 the three young ones, all of whom were trying 
 their best to feed themselves. At last came 
 their " natural provider ; " and one of the juve- 
 niles, who found the grains almost unmanage- 
 able, could not help begging of him. He gently 
 but firmly drove the pleader away, as if he said, 
 " My son, you are big enough to feed yourself." 
 The little one turned, but did not go ; he stood 
 with his back toward his parent, and wings still 
 fluttering. Then papa flew to a low branch of 
 the 'spruce-tree, and instantly the infant followed 
 him, still begging with quivering wings. Sud- 
 denly the elder turned, and I expected to see 
 him annihilate that beggar, but, to my surprise, 
 he fed him! He could not hold out against 
 him ! He had been playing the stern parent, 
 but could not keep it up. It was a very pretty 
 and very human-looking performance. 
 
 A day or two after the family had learned to 
 take care of themselves, the original pair, the 
 parents of the pretty brood, came alid went to- 
 gether to the field, while the younglings ap-
 
 118 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 peared sometimes in a little flock, and some- 
 times one alone ; and from that time they were 
 to be rated as grown-up and educated cardinals. 
 A brighter or prettier trio I have not seen. I 
 am almost positive there was but one family 
 of cardinals on the place ; and if I am right, 
 those youngsters had been four weeks out of the 
 nest before they took charge of their own food 
 supply. From what I have seen in the case of 
 other young birds, I have no doubt that is the 
 fact.
 
 X. 
 
 THE CARDINAL'S NEST. 
 
 WHILE I had been studying four o'clock man- 
 ners, grave and gay, other things had happened. 
 Most delightful, perhaps, was my acquaintance 
 with a cardinal family at home. From the first 
 I had looked for a nest, and had suffered two or 
 three disappointments. One pair flaunted their 
 intentions by appearing on a tree before my 
 window, " tsipping " with all their might ; she 
 with her beak full of hay from the lawn below ; 
 he, eager and devoted, assisting by his presence. 
 The important and consequential manner of a 
 bird with building material in mouth is amus- 
 ing. She has no doubt that what she is about 
 to do is the very most momentous fact in the 
 " Sublime Now " (as some college youth has it). 
 Of course I dropped everything and tried to 
 follow the pair, at a distance great enough not 
 to disturb them, yet to keep in sight at least the 
 direction they took, for they are shy birds, and 
 do not like to be spied upon. But I could not 
 have gauged my distance properly ; for, though 
 I thought I knew the exact cedar-tree she had
 
 120 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 chosen, I found, to my dismay and regret after- 
 ward, that no sign of a nest was there, or there- 
 about. 
 
 Another pair went farther, and held out even 
 more delusive hopes ; they actually built a nest 
 in a neighbor's yard, the family in the house 
 maintaining an appearance of the utmost indif- 
 ference, so as not to alarm the birds till they 
 were committed to that nest. For so little does 
 madam regard the labor of building, and so 
 fickle is she hi her fancies, that she thinks no- 
 thing of preparing at least two nests before she 
 settles on one. The nest was made on a big 
 branch of cedar, perhaps seven feet from the 
 ground, a rough affair, as this bird always 
 makes. In it she even placed an egg, and then, 
 for some undiscovered reason, it was abandoned, 
 and they took their domestic joys and sorrows 
 elsewhere. 
 
 But now, at last, word came to me of an occu- 
 pied nest to be seen at a certain house, and I 
 started at once for it. It was up a shady coun- 
 try lane, with a meadow-lark field on one side, 
 and a bobolink meadow on the other. The lark 
 mounted the fence, and delivered his strange 
 sputtering cry, the first I had ever heard 
 from him (or her, for I believe this is the fe- 
 male's utterance). But the dear little bobolink 
 soared around my head, and let fall his happy
 
 NEST AMONG THE ROSES. 121 
 
 trills; then suddenly, as Lowell delightfully 
 pictures him, 
 
 " Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops, 
 
 Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 
 
 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 
 A decorous bird of business, who provides 
 For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, 
 
 And looks from right to left, a farmer mid his crops." 
 
 Nothing less attractive than a cardinal family 
 could draw me away from these rival allure- 
 ments, but I went on. 
 
 The cardinal's bower was the prettiest of the 
 summer, built in a climbing rose which ran riot 
 over a trellis beside a kitchen door. The vine 
 was loaded with buds just beginning to unfold 
 their green wraps to flood the place with beauty 
 and fragrance, and the nest was so carefully 
 tucked away behind the leaves that it could not 
 be seen from the front. Whether from confi- 
 dence in the two or three residents of the cot- 
 tage, or because the house was alone so many 
 hours of the day, the occupants being stu- 
 dents, and absent most of the time, the birds 
 had taken no account of a window which opened 
 almost behind them. From that window one 
 could look into, and touch, if he desired, the 
 little family. But no one who lived there did 
 desire (though I wish to record that one was a 
 boy of twelve or fourteen, who had been taught 
 respect for the lives even of birds), and these
 
 122 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 birds became so accustomed to their human ob- 
 servers that they paid no attention to them. 
 
 The female cardinal is so dainty in looks and 
 manner, so delicate in all her ways, that one 
 naturally expects her to build at least a neat 
 and comely nest, and I was surprised to see a 
 rough-looking affair, similar to the one already 
 mentioned. This might be, in her case, because 
 it was the third nest she had built that sum- 
 mer. One had been used for the first brood. 
 The second had been seized and appropriated 
 to their own use by another pair of birds. (As 
 this was told me, and I cannot vouch for it, I 
 shall not name the alleged thief.) This, the 
 third, was made of twigs and fibres of bark, 
 or what looked like that, and was strongly 
 stayed to the rose stems, the largest of which 
 was not bigger than my little finger, and most 
 of them much smaller. 
 
 On my second visit I was invited into the 
 kitchen to see the family in the rosebush. It 
 appeared that this was " coming-off " day, and 
 one little cardinal had already taken his fate in 
 his hands when I arrived, soon after breakfast. 
 He had progressed on the journey of life about 
 one foot ; and a mere dot of a fellow he looked 
 beside his parents, with a downy fuzz on his 
 head, which surrounded it like a halo, and no 
 sign of a crest. The three nestlings still at
 
 THE FIRST BABY OUT. 123 
 
 home were very restless, crowding, and almost 
 pushing each other out. They could well spare 
 their elder brother, for before he left he had 
 walked all over them at his pleasure ; and how 
 he could help it in those close quarters I do 
 not see. 
 
 While I looked on, papa came with provi- 
 sions. At one time the food consisted of green 
 worms about twice as large as a common knit- 
 ting needle. Three or four of them he held 
 crosswise of his beak, and gave one to each 
 nestling. The next course was a big white grub, 
 which he did not divide, but gave to one, who 
 had considerable difficulty in swallowing it. 
 
 I said the birds did not notice the family, but 
 they very quickly recognized me as a stranger. 
 They stood and glared at me in the cardinal 
 way, and uttered some sharp remonstrance ; but 
 business was pressing, and I was unobtrusive, 
 so they concluded to ignore me. 
 
 The advent of the first redbird baby seemed 
 to give much pleasure, for the head of the family 
 sang a good deal in the intervals of feeding; 
 and both of the pair appeared very happy over 
 it, often alighting beside the wanderer, evidently 
 to encourage him, for they did not always feed. 
 The youngster, after an hour, perhaps, flew 
 about ten feet to a peach-tree, where he strug- 
 gled violently, and nearly fell before he secured
 
 124 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 a hold on a twig. Both parents flew to his 
 assistance, but he did not fall, and soon after 
 he flew to a grape trellis, and, with a little 
 clambering, to a stem of the vine, where he 
 seemed pleased to stay, perhaps because this 
 overlooked the garden whence came all his food. 
 
 I stayed two or three hours with the little 
 family, and then left them; and when I ap- 
 peared the next morning all were gone from 
 the nest. I heard the gentle cries of young red- 
 birds all around, but did not try to look them 
 up, both because I did not want to worry the 
 parents, and because I had already made ac- 
 quaintance with young cardinals in my four 
 o'clock studies. 
 
 The place this discerning pair of birds had 
 selected in which to establish themselves was 
 one of the most charming nooks in the vicinity. 
 Kept free from English sparrows (by persist- 
 ently destroying their nests), and having but 
 a small and quiet family, it was the delight of 
 cardinals and catbirds. Without taking pains 
 to look for them, one might see the nests of two 
 catbirds, two wood doves, a robin or two, and 
 others; and there were beside, thickets, the de- 
 light of many birds, and a row of spruces 
 so close that a whole flock might have nested 
 there in security. In that spot " the quaintly 
 discontinuous kys " of the catbird were in per-
 
 "SPEED THE PARTING GUEST." 125 
 
 f ection ; one song especially was the best I ever 
 heard, being louder and more clear than catbirds 
 usually sing. 
 
 As I turned to leave the grounds, the relieved 
 parent, who had not relished my interest in his 
 little folk, mounted a branch, and, 
 
 " Like a pomegranate flower 
 In the dark foliage of the cedar-tree, 
 Shone out and sang for me." 
 
 And thus I left him.
 
 XI. 
 LITTLE BOY BLUE. 
 
 " The crested blue jay flitting swift." 
 
 To know the little boy blue in his domestic 
 life had been my desire for years. In vain did 
 I search far and wide for a nest, till it began to 
 look almost as if the bird intentionally avoided 
 me. I went to New England, and blue jays dis- 
 appeared as if by magic ; I turned my steps to 
 the Kocky Mountains, and the whole tribe betook 
 itself to the inaccessible hills. In despair I 
 abandoned the search, and set up my tent in the 
 middle country, without a thought of the bonny 
 blue bird. One June morning I seated myself 
 by my window, which looked out upon a goodly 
 stretch of lawn dotted with trees of many kinds, 
 and behold the long-desired object right before 
 my eyes ! 
 
 The blue jay himself pointed it out to me ; 
 unconsciously, however, for he did not notice 
 me in my distant window. From the ground, 
 where I was looking at him, he flew directly to 
 a pine-tree about thirty feet high, and there, 
 near the top, sat his mate on her nest. He
 
 A POLITE JAY. 127 
 
 leaned over her tenderly; she fluttered her 
 wings and opened her mouth, and he dropped 
 into it the tidbit he had brought. Then she 
 stepped to a branch on one side, and he pro- 
 ceeded to attend to the wants of the young 
 family, too small as yet to appear above the 
 edge. 
 
 The pine-tree, which from this moment be- 
 came of absorbing interest, was so far from my 
 window that the birds never thought of me as 
 an observer, and yet so near that with my glass 
 I could see them perfectly. It was also ex- 
 actly before a thick-foliaged maple, that formed 
 a background against which I could watch the 
 life of the nest, wherever the sunlight fell, and 
 whatever the condition of the sky; so happily 
 was placed my blue jay household. 
 
 I observed at once that the jay was very gal- 
 lant and attentive to his spouse. The first 
 mouthful was for her, even when babies grew 
 clamorous, and she took her share of the work 
 of feeding. Nor did he omit this little polite- 
 ness when they went to the nest together, both 
 presumably with food for the nestlings. She 
 was a devoted mother, brooding her bantlings 
 for hours every day, till they were so big that it 
 was hard to crowd them back into the cradle ; 
 and he was an equally faithful father, working 
 from four o'clock in the morning till after dusk,
 
 128 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 a good deal of the time feeding the whole family. 
 I acquired a new respect for Cyanotitta cristata. 
 
 I had not watched the blue jays long before I 
 was struck with the peculiar character of the 
 feathered world about me, the strange absence 
 of small birds. The neighbors were blackbirds 
 (purple grackles), Carolina doves, golden-winged 
 and red-headed woodpeckers, robins and cardinal 
 grosbeaks, and of course English sparrows, all 
 large birds, able to hold their own by force of 
 arms, as it were, except the foreigner, who main- 
 tained his position by impudence and union, a 
 mob being his weapon of offense and defense. 
 Beside him no small bird lived in the vicinity. 
 No vireo hung there her dainty cup, while her 
 mate preached his interminable sermons from 
 the trees about ; no phoebe shouted his woes to 
 an unsympathizing world ; no sweet-voiced gold- 
 finch poured out his joyous soul ; not a song- 
 sparrow tuned his little lay within our borders. 
 Unseen of men, but no doubt sharply defined 
 to clearer senses than ours, was a line barring 
 them out. 
 
 Who was responsible for this state of things ? 
 Could it be the one pair of jays in the pine, or 
 the colony of blackbirds the other side of the 
 house? Should we characterize it as a blue 
 jay neighborhood or a blackbird neighborhood ? 
 The place was well policed, certainly ; robins
 
 SPARROWS AT THE BOTTOM OF IT. 129 
 
 and blue jays united in that work, though their 
 relations with each other bore the character of 
 an armed neutrality, always ready for a few hot 
 words and a little bluster, but never really com- 
 ing to blows. We never had the pleasure of 
 seeing a stranger among us. We might hear 
 him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as 
 the eager listener fancied he might alight in 
 sight, there would burst upon the air the screech 
 of a jay or the war-cry of a robin, accompanied 
 by the precipitate flight of the whole clan, and 
 away would go the stranger in a most sensational 
 manner, followed by outcries and clamor enough 
 to drive off an army of feathered brigands. This 
 neighborhood, if the accounts of his character 
 are to be credited, should be the congenial home 
 of the kingbird, tyrant flycatcher he is named ; 
 but as a matter of fact, not only were the smaller 
 flycatchers conspicuous by their absence, but the 
 king himself was never seen, and the flying 
 tribes of the insect world, so far as dull-eyed 
 mortals could see, grew and flourished. 
 
 Close scrutiny of every movement of wings, 
 however, revealed one thing, namely, that any 
 small bird who appeared within our precincts 
 was instantly, without hesitation, and equally 
 without unusual noise or special publicity, driven 
 out by the English sparrow ; and I became con- 
 vinced that he, and he alone, was responsible for
 
 130 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 the presence of none but large birds, who could 
 defy him. 
 
 One of the prettiest sights about the pine-tree 
 homestead was the way the jay went up to it. 
 He never imitated the easy style of his mate, 
 who simply flew to a branch below the three that 
 held her treasure, and hopped up the last step. 
 Not he ; not so would his knightly soul mount 
 to the castle of his sweetheart and his babies. 
 He alighted much lower, often at the foot of the 
 tree, and passed jauntily up the winding way that 
 led to them, hopping from branch to branch, 
 pausing on each, and circling the trunk as he 
 went ; now showing his trim violet-blue coat, 
 now his demure Quaker-drab vest and black 
 necklace ; and so he ascended his spiral stair. 
 
 There is nothing demure about the blue jay, 
 let me hasten to say, except his vest; there is 
 no pretension about him. He does not go around 
 with the meek manners of the dove, and then let 
 his angry passions rise, in spite of his reputation, 
 as does that " meek and gentle " fellow-creature 
 on occasion. The blue jay takes his life with 
 the utmost seriousness, however it may strike a 
 looker-on. While his helpmeet is on the nest, it 
 is, according to the blue jay code, his duty, as 
 well as it is plainly his pleasure, to provide her 
 with food, which consequently he does ; later, it 
 is his province not only to feed, but to protect
 
 THE VALUE OF TAILS. 131 
 
 the family, which also he accomplishes with 
 much noise and bluster. Before the young are 
 out comes his hardest task, keeping the secret of 
 the nest, which obliges him to control his natu- 
 rally boisterous tendencies ; but even in this he 
 is successful, as I saw in the case of a bird whose 
 mate was sitting in an apple-tree close beside a 
 house. There, he was the soul of discretion, and 
 so subdued in manner that one might be in the 
 vicinity all day and never suspect the presence 
 of either. All the comings and goings took 
 place in silence, over the top of the tree, and I 
 have watched the nest an hour at a time without 
 being able to see a sign of its occupancy, except 
 the one thing a sitting bird cannot hide, the tail. 
 And, by the way, how providential from the 
 bird student's point of view that birds have 
 tails ! They can, it is true, be narrowed to the 
 width of one feather and laid against a conven- 
 ient twig, but they cannot be wholly suppressed, 
 nor drawn down out of sight into the nest with 
 the rest of the body. 
 
 When the young blue jays begin to speak for 
 themselves, and their vigilant protector feels 
 that the precious secret can no longer be kept, 
 then he arouses the neighborhood with the an- 
 nouncement that here is a nest he is bound to 
 protect with his life ; that he is engaged in per- 
 forming his most solemn duty, and will not be
 
 132 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 disturbed. His air is that so familiar in bigger 
 folk, of daring the whole world to " knock a chip 
 off his shoulder," and he goes about with an 
 appearance of important business on hand very 
 droll to see. 
 
 The bearing of the mother of the pine-tree 
 brood was somewhat different from that of her 
 mate, and by their manners only could the pair 
 be distinguished. Whatever may be Nature's 
 reason for dressing the sexes unlike each other 
 in the feathered world, which I will leave for 
 the wise heads to settle, it is certainly an im- 
 mense advantage to the looker-on in birddom. 
 When a pair are facsimiles of each other, as 
 are the jays, it requires the closest observation 
 to tell them apart ; indeed, unless there is some 
 defect in plumage, which is not uncommon, it is 
 necessary to penetrate their personal characteris- 
 tics, to become familiar with their idiosyncrasies 
 of habit and manner. In the pine-tree family, 
 the mother had neither the presence of mind nor 
 the bluster of the partner of her joys. When I 
 came too near the nest tree, she greeted me with 
 a plaintive cry, a sort of " craw ! craw ! " at the 
 same time " jouncing" herself violently, thus pro- 
 testing against my intrusion ; while he saluted 
 me with squawks that made the welkin ring. 
 Neither of them paid any attention to me, so 
 long as I remained upon a stationary bench not
 
 BLUE JAY TALK. 133 
 
 far from their tree ; they were used to seeing 
 people in that place, and did not mind them. It 
 was the unexpected that they resented. Having 
 established our habits, birds in general insist 
 that we shall govern ourselves by them, and not 
 depart from our accustomed orbit. 
 
 On near acquaintance, I found the jay pos- 
 sessed of a vocabulary more copious than that of 
 any other bird I know, though the flicker does 
 not lack variety of expression. When some 
 aspiring scientist is ready to study the language 
 of birds, I advise him to experiment with the 
 blue jay. He is exceedingly voluble, always 
 ready to talk, and not in the least backward in 
 exhibiting his accomplishments. The low-toned, 
 plaintive sounding conversation of the jays with 
 each other, not only beside the nest, but when 
 flying together or apart, or in brief interviews 
 in the lilac bush, pleased me especially, because 
 it was exactly the same prattle that a pet blue 
 jay was accustomed to address to me ; and it 
 confirmed what I had always believed from his 
 manner, that it was his most loving and intimate 
 expression, the tone in which he addresses his 
 best beloved. 
 
 Beside the well-known squawk, which Thoreau 
 aptly calls " the brazen trump of the impatient 
 jay," the shouts and calls and war-cries of the 
 bird can hardly be numbered, and I have no
 
 134 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 doubt each has its definite meaning. More 
 rarely may be heard a clear and musical two- 
 note cry, sounding like " ke-lo ! ke-lo ! " This 
 seems to be something special in the jay lan- 
 guage, for not only is it peculiar and quite un- 
 like every other utterance, but I never saw the 
 bird when he delivered it, and I was long in tra- 
 cing it home to him. Aside from the cries of 
 war and victory, jays have a great variety of 
 notes of distress ; they can put more anguish 
 and despair into their tones than any other liv- 
 ing creature of my acquaintance. Some, indeed, 
 are so moving that the sympathetic hearer is sure 
 that, at the very least, the mother's offspring are 
 being murdered before her eyes ; and on rushing 
 out, prepared to risk his life in their defense, he 
 finds, perhaps, that a child has strayed near the 
 tree, or something equally dreadful has occurred. 
 Jays have no idea of relative values ; they could 
 not make more ado over a heart-breaking calamity 
 than they do over a slight annoyance. Some of 
 their cries, notably that of the jay baby, sound 
 like the wail of a human infant. As to one 
 curious utterance in the jay repertoire, I could 
 not quite make up my mind whether it was a 
 real call to arms, or intended as a joke on the 
 neighborhood. When a bird, without visible 
 provocation, suddenly burst out with this loud 
 two-note call, instantly every feathered individ-
 
 UNEXPLAINED EXCITEMENT. 135 
 
 ual was on the alert, sprang to arms, as it 
 were. Blue jays joined in, robins hurried to the 
 tops of the tallest trees and added their excited 
 notes, with jerking wings and tail, and at the 
 second or third repetition the whole party pre- 
 cipitated itself as one bird upon what ? No- 
 thing that I could discover.
 
 XII. 
 STORY OF THE NESTLINGS. 
 
 WHILE I was studying the manners and cus- 
 toms of the bird in blue, babies were growing 
 up in the pine-tree nest. Five days after I be- 
 gan to observe, I saw little heads above the 
 edge. On the sixth day they began, as mothers 
 say, to " take notice," stirring about in a lively 
 way, clambering up into sight, and fluttering 
 their draperies over the edge. Now came busy 
 and hungry times in the jay family ; the mother 
 added her forces, and both parents worked in- 
 dustriously from morning till night. 
 
 On the seventh day I was up early, as usual, 
 and, also as usual, my first act was to admire 
 the view from my window. I fancied it was the 
 most beautiful in the early morning, when the 
 sun, behind the rampart of locust and other 
 trees, threw the yard into deep shade, painting 
 a thousand shadow pictures on the grass ; but 
 at still noon, when every perfect tree stood on 
 its own shadow, openings looked dark and mys- 
 terious, and a bird was lost in the depths, then I 
 was sure it was never so lovely ; again at night,
 
 EVERY ONE WANTED TO BE ON TOP. 137 
 
 when wrapped in darkness, and all silent except 
 the subdued whisper of the pine, with its 
 
 " Sound of the Sea, 
 
 O mournful tree, 
 
 In thy boughs forever clinging 1 ," 
 
 I knew it could not be surpassed. I was up 
 early, as I said, when the dove was cooing to his 
 mate in the distance, and before human noises 
 had begun, and then I heard the baby cry from 
 the pine-tree, a whispered jay squawk, con- 
 stantly repeated. 
 
 On this day the first nestling mounted the 
 edge of his high nursery, and fluttered his wings 
 when food approached. Every night after that 
 it grew more and more difficult to settle the 
 household in bed, for everybody wanted to be on 
 top ; and no sooner would one arrange himself 
 to his mind than some " under one," not relish- 
 ing his crushed position, would struggle out, step 
 over his brothers and sisters, and take his place 
 on top, and then the whole thing would have to 
 be done over. I think that mamma had often 
 to put a peremptory end to these difficulties by 
 sitting down on them, for frequently it was a 
 very turbulent-looking nest when she calmly 
 placed herself upon it. 
 
 Often, in those days, I wished I could put 
 myself on a level with that little castle in the 
 air, and look into it, filled to the brim with
 
 138 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 beauty as I knew it was. But I had not long 
 to wait, for speedily it became too full, and ran 
 over into the outside world. On the eighth day 
 one ambitious youngster stepped upon the 
 branch beside the nest and shook himself out, 
 and on the ninth came the plunge into the wide, 
 wide world. While I was at breakfast he made 
 his first effort, and on my return I saw him on 
 a branch about a foot below the nest, the last 
 step on papa's winding stair. Here he beat his 
 wings and plumed himself vigorously, rejoicing, 
 no doubt, in his freedom and in plenty of room. 
 Again and again he nearly lost his balance, in 
 his violent attempts to dress his beautiful 
 plumage, and remove the last remnant of nest 
 mussiness. But he did not fall, and at last he 
 began to look about him. One cannot but won- 
 der what he thought when he 
 
 " First opened wondering eyes and found 
 A world of green leaves all around," 
 
 looking down upon us from his high perch, 
 complete to the little black necklace, and lack- 
 ing only length of tail of being as big as his 
 parents. 
 
 After half an hour of restless putting to 
 rights, the little jay sat down patiently to wait 
 for whatever might come to him. The wind got 
 up and shook him well, but he rocked safely on 
 his airy seat. Then some one approached. He
 
 SHOULD HE GO BACK? 139 
 
 leaned over with mouth open, and across the 
 yard I heard his coaxing voice. But alas ! 
 though he was on the very threshold, the food- 
 bearer omitted that step, and passed him by. 
 Then the little one looked up wistfully, appar- 
 ently conscious of being at a disadvantage. Did 
 he regret the nest privileges he had abandoned ? 
 Should he retrace his steps and be a nestling ? 
 That the thought passed through his head was 
 indicated by his movements. He raised himself 
 on his legs, turned his face to his old home, and 
 started up, even stepped one small twig nearer. 
 But perish the thought ! he would not go back ! 
 He settled himself again on his seat. 
 
 All things come in time to him who can wait, 
 and the next provision stopped at the little wan- 
 derer. His father alighted beside him and fed 
 him two mouthfuls. Thus fortified, his ambi- 
 tion was roused, and his desire to see more, to 
 do more. He began to jump about on his 
 perch, facing first this way, then that ; he crept 
 to the outer end of the branch he was on, and 
 was lost to view behind a thick clump of pine 
 needles. In a few minutes he returned, consid- 
 ered other branches near, and, after some study, 
 did really go to the nearest one. Then, step by 
 step, very deliberately, he mounted the winding 
 stair of his father, using, however, every little 
 twig that the elder had vaulted over at a bound.
 
 140 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 Finally he reached the branch opposite his 
 birthplace, only the tree - trunk between. The 
 trunk was small, home was invitingly near, he 
 was tired ; the temptation was too great, and in 
 a minute he was cuddled down with his brothers, 
 having been on a journey of an hour. In the 
 nest, all this time, there had been a hurry and 
 skurry of dressing, as though the house were to 
 be vacated, and no one wished to be late. After 
 a rest and probably a nap, the ambitious young 
 jay took a longer trip : he flew to the next tree, 
 and, I believe, returned no more. 
 
 The next day was spent by all the nestlings 
 in hopping about the three branches on which 
 their home was built, making beautiful pictures 
 of themselves every moment ; but whenever the 
 bringer of supplies drew near, each little one 
 hastened to scramble back to the nest, to be 
 ready for his share. The last day in the old 
 home had now arrived. One by one the bird- 
 lings flew to the maple, and turned their backs 
 on their native tree forever ; and that night the 
 " mournful tree " was entirely deserted. 
 
 The exit was not accomplished without its 
 excitement. After tea, as I was congratulating 
 myself that they were all safely out in the world, 
 without accident, suddenly there arose a terrible 
 outcry, robin and blue jay voices in chorus. I 
 looked over to the scene of the fray, and saw a
 
 THE BABY CLIMBED A TREE. 141 
 
 young jay on the ground, and the parents frantic 
 with anxiety. Naturally, my first impulse was 
 to go to their aid, and I started ; but I was 
 saluted with a volley of squawks that warned 
 me not to interfere. I retired meekly, leaving 
 the birds to deal with the difficulty as they best 
 could, while from afar I watched the little fel- 
 low as he scrambled around in the grass. He 
 tried to fly, but could not rise more than two 
 feet. Both the elders were with him, but 
 seemed unable to help him, and night was com- 
 ing on. I resolved, finally, to " take my life in 
 my hands," brave those unreasoning parents, 
 and place the infant out of the way of cats and 
 boys. 
 
 As I reached the doorstep I saw that the 
 youngster had begun to climb the trunk of a 
 locust-tree. I stood in amazement and saw that 
 baby climb six feet straight up the trunk. He 
 did it by flying a few inches, clinging to the 
 bark and resting, then flying a few inches more. 
 I watched, breathless, till he got nearly to the 
 lowest branch, when alas ! his strength or his 
 courage gave out, and he fell back to the 
 ground. But he pulled himself together, and 
 after a few minutes more of struggling through 
 the grass he came to the trunk of the maple 
 next his native pine. Up this he went in the 
 same way, till he reached a branch, where I saw
 
 142 IN" THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 him sitting with all the dignity of a young jay 
 (old jays have no dignity). While he was wrest- 
 ling with fate and his life was in the balance, the 
 parents had kept near him and perfectly silent, 
 unless some one came near, when they filled the 
 air with squawks, and appeared so savage that 
 I honestly believe they would have attacked any 
 one who had tried to lend a hand. 
 
 But still the little blue-coat had not learned 
 sufficient modesty of endeavor, for the next 
 morning he found himself again in the grass. 
 He tried climbing, but unfortunately selected a 
 tree with branches higher than he could hold 
 out to reach; so he fell back to the ground. 
 Then came the inexorable demands of breakfast, 
 with which no one who has been up since four 
 o'clock will decline to comply. On my return, 
 the straggler was mounted on a post that held a 
 tennis net, three or four feet from the ground. 
 One of the old birds was on the rope close by 
 him, and there I left them. Once more I saw 
 him fall, but I concluded that since he had 
 learned to climb, and the parents would not ac- 
 cept my assistance any way, he must take care of 
 himself. I suppose he was the youngest of the 
 brood, who could not help imitating his elders, 
 but was not strong enough to do as they did. 
 On the following day he was able to keep his 
 place, and he came to the ground no more.
 
 IN THEIR BRAND-NEW SUITS. 143 
 
 From that day I saw, and, what was more 
 evident, heard the jay babies constantly, though 
 they wandered far from the place of their birth. 
 Their voices waxed stronger day by day ; from 
 morning to night they called vigorously ; and 
 very lovely they looked as they sat on the 
 branches in their brand-new fluffy suits, with 
 their tails a little spread, and showing the snowy 
 borderings beautifully. Twenty-two days after 
 they bade farewell to the old home before my 
 window they were still crying for food, still fol- 
 lowing their hard-working parents, and, though 
 flying with great ease, never coming to the 
 ground (that I could see), and apparently hav- 
 ing not the smallest notion of looking out for 
 themselves.
 
 XIII. 
 BLUE JAY MANNERS. 
 
 EAKLY in my acquaintance with the jay fam- 
 ily, wishing to induce the birds of the vicinity 
 to show themselves, I procured a quantity of 
 shelled corn, and scattered a few handfuls under 
 my window every night. This gave me oppor- 
 tunity to note, among other things, the jay's 
 way of conducting himself on the ground, and 
 his table manners. To eat a kernel of dry corn, 
 he flew with it to a small branch, placed it be- 
 tween his feet (the latter of course being close 
 together), and, holding it thus, drew back his 
 head and delivered a blow with that pickaxe 
 beak of his that would have broken a toe if he 
 had missed by the shadow of an inch the grain 
 for which it was intended. I was always ner- 
 vous when I saw him do it, for I expected an 
 accident, but none ever happened that I know 
 of. When the babies grew clamorous all over 
 the place, the jay used to fill his beak with the 
 whole kernels. Eight were his limit, and those 
 kept the mouth open, with one sticking out at 
 the tip. Thus loaded he flew off, but was back
 
 IMPORTANT BUSINESS ON HAND. 145 
 
 in two minutes for another supply. The red- 
 headed woodpecker, who claimed to own the 
 corn-field, seemed to think this a little grasping, 
 and protested against such a wholesale perform- 
 ance ; but the overworked jay simply jumped 
 one sido when he came at him, and went right 
 on picking up corn. When he had time to 
 spare from his arduous duties, he sometimes in- 
 dulged his passion for burying things by carry- 
 ing a grain off on the lawn with an air of 
 most important business, and driving it into the 
 ground, hammering it well down out of sight. 
 
 The blue jay's manner of getting over the 
 ground was peculiar, and especially his way of 
 leaving it. He proceeded by high hops, bound- 
 ing up from each like a rubber ball ; and when 
 ready to fly he hopped farther and bounded 
 higher each time, till it seemed as if he were 
 too high to return, and so took to his wings. 
 That is exactly the way it looked to an ob- 
 server ; for there is a lightness, an airiness 
 of bearing about this apparently heavy bird 
 impossible to describe, but familiar to those who 
 have watched him. 
 
 Some time after the blue jay family had taken 
 to roaming about the grounds, I had a pleasing 
 little interview with one of them in the rasp- 
 berry patch. This was a favorite resort of the 
 neighboring birds, where I often betook myself
 
 146 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 to see who came to the feast. This morning I 
 was sitting quietly under a spruce-tree, when 
 three blue jays came flying toward me with noise 
 and outcries, evidently in excitement over some- 
 thing. The one leading the party had in his 
 beak a white object, like a piece of bread, and 
 was uttering low, complaining cries as he flew ; 
 he passed on, and the second followed him ; but 
 the third seemed struck by my appearance, and 
 probably felt it his duty to inquire into my 
 business, for he alighted on a tree before me, 
 not ten feet from where I sat. He began in the 
 regular way, by greeting me with a squawk ; 
 for, like some of his bigger (and wiser ?) fel- 
 low-creatures, he assumed that a stranger must 
 be a suspicious personage, and an unusual posi- 
 tion must mean mischief. I was very comfort- 
 able, and I thought I would see if I could not 
 fool him into thinking me a scarecrow, compan- 
 ion to those adorning the " patch " at that mo- 
 ment. I sat motionless, not using my glass, 
 but looking him squarely in the eyes. This 
 seemed to impress him ; he ceased squawking, 
 and hopped a twig nearer, stopped, turned one 
 calmly observant eye on me, then quickly changed 
 to the other, as if to see if the first had not de- 
 ceived him. Still I did not move, and he was 
 plainly puzzled to make me out. He came 
 nearer and nearer, and I moved only my eyes to
 
 INTERVIEW WITH THE BLUE JAY. 147 
 
 keep them on his. All this time he did not 
 utter a sound, but studied me as closely, and 
 to all appearances as carefully, as ever I had 
 studied him. Obviously he was in doubt what 
 manner of creature it was, so like the human 
 race, yet so unaccountably quiet. He tried 
 to be unconcerned, while still not releasing me 
 from strict surveillance ; he dressed his feathers 
 a little, uttering a soft whisper to himself, as if 
 he said, " Well, I never ! " then looked me over 
 again more carefully than before. This panto- 
 mime went on for half an hour or more ; and no 
 one who had looked for that length of time into 
 the eyes of a blue jay could doubt his intelli- 
 gence, or that he had his thoughts and his well- 
 defined opinions, that he had studied his ob- 
 server very much as she had studied him, and 
 that she had not fooled him in the least. 
 
 The little boy blue is one of the birds suffer- 
 ing under a bad name whom I have wished to 
 know better, to see if perchance something might 
 be done to clear up his reputation a bit. I am 
 not able to say that he never steals the eggs of 
 other birds, though during nearly a month of 
 hard work, when, if ever, a few eggs would have 
 been a welcome addition to his resources, and 
 sparrows were sitting in scores on the place, I 
 did not see or hear anything of the sort. I 
 have heard of his destroying the nest, and pre-
 
 148 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 sumably eating the eggs or young of the English 
 sparrow, but the hundred or two who raised 
 their broods and squawked from morning to 
 night in the immediate vicinity of the pine-tree 
 household never intimated that they were dis- 
 turbed, and never showed hostility to their 
 neighbors in blue. Moreover, there is undoubt- 
 edly something to be said on the jay's side. 
 Even if he does indulge in these little eccen- 
 tricities, what is he but a "collector"? And 
 though he does not claim to be working " in the 
 interest of science," which bigger collectors in- 
 variably do, he is working in the interest of 
 life, and life is more than science. Even a blue 
 jay's life is to him as precious as ours to us, 
 and who shall say that it is not as useful as 
 many of ours in the great plan ? 
 
 The only indications of hostilities that I ob- 
 served in four weeks' close study, at the most 
 aggressive time of bird life, nesting-time, I shall 
 relate exactly as I saw them, and the record will 
 be found a very modest one. In this case, cer- 
 tainly, the jay was no more offensive than the 
 meekest bird that has a nest to defend, and far 
 less belligerent than robins and many others. 
 On one occasion a strange blue jay flew up to 
 the nest in the pine. I could not discover that 
 he had any evil intention, except just to see 
 what was going on, but one of the pair flew at
 
 SELF-WILLED BLOSSOMS. 149 
 
 him with loud cries, which I heard for some 
 time after the two had disappeared in the dis- 
 tance, and when our bird returned, he perched 
 on an evergreen, bowing and "jouncing" vio- 
 lently, his manner plainly defying the enemy to 
 " try it again." At another time I observed 
 a savage fight, or what looked like it, between 
 two jays. I happened not to see the beginning, 
 for I was particularly struck that morning with 
 the behavior of a bouquet of nasturtiums w r hich 
 stood in a vase on my table. I never was fond 
 of these flowers, and I noticed then for the first 
 time how very self-willed and obstinate they 
 were. No matter how nicely they were arranged, 
 it would not be an hour before the whole bunch 
 was in disorder, every blossom turning the way 
 it preferred, and no two looking in the same 
 direction. I thought, when I first observed this, 
 that I must be mistaken, and I took them out 
 and rearranged them as I considered best ; but 
 the result was always the same, and I began to 
 feel that they knew altogether too much for 
 their station in the vegetable world. I was try- 
 ing to see if I could discover any method in 
 their movements, when I was startled by a flash- 
 ing vision of blue down under the locusts, and, 
 on looking closely, saw two jays flying up like 
 quarrelsome cocks, only not together, but al- 
 ternately, so that one was in the air all the
 
 150 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 time. They flew three feet high, at least, all 
 their feathers on end, and looking more like 
 shapeless masses of blue feathers than like 
 birds. They did not pause or rest till one 
 seemed to get the other down. I could not see 
 from my window well enough to be positive, 
 but both were in the grass together, and only 
 one in sight, who stood perfectly quiet. He 
 appeared to be holding the other down, for occa- 
 sionally there would be a stir below, and re- 
 newed vigilance on the part of the one I could 
 see. Several minutes passed. I became very 
 uneasy. Was he killing him? I could stand 
 it no longer, so I ran down. But my coming 
 was a diversion, and both flew. When I reached 
 the place, one had disappeared, and the other 
 was hopping around the tree in great excite- 
 ment, holding in his beak a fluffy white feather 
 about the size of a jay's breast feather. I did 
 not see the act, and I cannot absolutely declare 
 it, but I have no doubt that he pulled that 
 feather from the breast of his foe as he held 
 him down ; how many more with it I could not 
 tell, for I did not think of looking until it was 
 too late. 
 
 Again one day, somewhat later, when blue jay 
 and catbird babies were rather numerous, I saw 
 a blue jay dive into a lilac bush much frequented 
 by catbirds, young and old together. Instantly
 
 A MEEK CAT. 151 
 
 there arose a great cry of distress, as though 
 some one were hurt, and a rustling of leaves, 
 proclaiming that a chase, if not a fight, was in 
 progress. I hurried downstairs, and as I ap- 
 peared the jay flew, with two catbirds after him, 
 still crying in a way I had never heard before. 
 I expected nothing less than to find a young cat- 
 bird injured, but I found nothing. Whether the 
 blue jay really had touched one, or it was a 
 mere false alarm on the part of the very excit- 
 able catbirds, I could not tell. This is the only 
 thing I have seen in the jay that might have 
 been an interference with another bird's rights ; 
 and the catbirds made such a row when I came 
 near their babies that I strongly suspect the 
 only guilt of the jay was alighting in the lilac 
 they had made their headquarters. 
 
 The little boy blue in the apple-tree, already 
 spoken of, did not get his family off with so little 
 adventure as his pine-tree neighbor. The young- 
 ling of this nest came to the ground and stayed 
 there. The people of the house returned him to 
 the tree several times, but every time he fell 
 again. Three or four days he wandered about 
 the neighborhood, the parents rousing the coun- 
 try with their uproar, and terrorizing the house- 
 hold cat to such a point of meekness that no 
 sooner did a jay begin to squawk than he ran to 
 the door and begged to come in. At last, out of
 
 152 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 mercy, the family took the little fellow into the 
 house, when they saw that he was not quite right 
 in some way. One side seemed to be nearly 
 useless ; one foot did not hold on ; one wing was 
 weak ; and his breathing seemed to be one-sided. 
 The family, seeing that he could not take care of 
 himself, decided to adopt him. He took kindly 
 to human care and human food, and before the 
 end of a week had made himself very much at 
 home. He knew his food provider, and the 
 moment she entered the room he rose on his 
 weak little legs, fluttered his wings violently, 
 and presented a gaping mouth with the jay baby 
 cry issuing therefrom. Nothing was ever more 
 droll than this sight. He was an intelligent 
 youngster, knew what he wanted, and when he 
 had had enough. He would eat bread up to a 
 certain point, but after that he demanded cake 
 or a berry, and his favorite food was an egg. 
 He was exceedingly curious about all his sur- 
 roundings, examined everything with great care, 
 and delighted to look out of the window. He 
 selected his own sleeping - place, the upper 
 one of a set of bookshelves, and refused to 
 change ; and he watched the movements of a 
 wounded woodcock as he ran around the floor 
 with as much interest as did the people. Under 
 human care he grew rapidly stronger, learned to 
 fly more readily and to use his weak side ; and
 
 RETURNED TO HIS PARENTS. 153 
 
 every day he was allowed to fly about in the trees 
 for hours. Once or twice, when left out, he re- 
 turned to the house for food and care ; but at 
 last came a day when he returned no more. No 
 doubt he was taken in charge again by his 
 parents, who, it was probable, had not left the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 After July came in, and baby blue jays could 
 hardly be distinguished from their parents, my 
 studies took me away from the place nearly all 
 day, and I lost sight of the family whose 
 acquaintance had made my June so delightful.
 
 . XIV. 
 
 THE GREAT CAROLINIAN. 
 
 ALL through June of that summer I studied 
 the birds in the spacious inclosure around my 
 " Inn of Rest." But as that month drew near 
 its end, 
 
 " The happy birds that change their sky 
 To build and brood, that live their lives 
 From land to land," 
 
 almost disappeared. Blue jay babies wandered 
 far off, where I could hear them it is true, but 
 where owing to the despair into which my 
 appearance threw the whole jay family I 
 rarely saw them ; orchard and Baltimore orioles 
 had learned to fly, and carried their ceaseless 
 cries far beyond my hearing ; catbirds and car- 
 dinals, doves and golden-wings, all had raised 
 their broods and betaken themselves wherever 
 their fancy or food drew them, certainly without 
 the bounds of my daily walks. It was evident that 
 I must seek fresh fields, or remove my quarters 
 to a more northerly region, where the sun is less 
 ardent and the birds less in haste with their 
 nesting.
 
 THE ENCHANTING GLEN. 155 
 
 Accordingly I sought a companion who should 
 also be a guide, and turned my steps to the only 
 promising place in the vicinity, a deep ravine, 
 through which ran a little stream that was called 
 a river, and dignified with a river's name, yet 
 rippled and babbled, and conducted itself pre- 
 cisely like a brook. 
 
 The Glen, as it was called, was a unique pos- 
 session for a common work-a-day village in the 
 midst of a good farming country. Long ago 
 would its stately trees have been destroyed, its 
 streamlet set to turning wheels, and Nature 
 forced to express herself on those many acres, in 
 corn and potatoes, instead of her own graceful 
 and varied selection of greenery ; or, mayhap, its 
 underbrush cut out, its slopes sodded, its springs 
 buried in pipes and put to use, and the whole 
 "improved" into dull insipidity, all this, but 
 for the will of one man who held the title to the 
 grounds, and rated it so highly, that, though 
 willing to sell, no one could come up to his 
 terms. Happy delusion ! that blessed the whole 
 neighborhood with an enchanting bit of nature 
 untouched by art. Long may he live to keep 
 the deeds in his possession, and the grounds in 
 their own wild beauty. 
 
 The place was surrounded by bristling barbed 
 fences, and trespassers were pointedly warned 
 off, so when one had paid for the privilege, and
 
 156 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 entered the grounds, he was supposed to be safe 
 from intrusion, except of others who had also 
 bought the right. The part easily accessible to 
 hotel and railroad station was the scene of con- 
 stant picnics, for which the State is famous, but 
 that portion which lay near my place of study 
 was usually left to the lonely kingfisher and 
 the cows. There the shy wood dwellers set up 
 their households, and many familiar upland 
 birds came with their fledglings ; that was the 
 land of promise for bird-lovers, and there one of 
 them decided to study. 
 
 We began with the most virtuous resolves. 
 We would come at five o'clock in the morning ; 
 we would catch the birds at their breakfast. 
 We did ; it was a lovely morning after a heavy 
 rain, on which we set out to explore the ravine 
 for birds. The storm in passing had taken the 
 breeze with it, and not a twig had stirred since. 
 Every leaf and grass blade was loaded with rain- 
 drops. Walking in the grass was like wading 
 in a stream ; to touch a bush was to evoke a 
 shower. But though our shoes were wet through, 
 and our garments well sprinkled, before we 
 reached the barbed fence, over or under or 
 through or around which we must pass to our 
 goal, we would not be discouraged ; we went on. 
 
 As to the fence, let me, in passing, give my 
 fellow drapery-bearers a hint. Carry a light
 
 CRUEL BARBED WIRE. 157 
 
 shawl, or even a yard of muslin, to lay across 
 the wire you can step over (thus covering the 
 mischievous barbs), while a good friend holds 
 up with strong hand the next wire, and you slip 
 through. Thus you may pass this cruel device 
 of man without accident. 
 
 Having circumvented the fence, the next task 
 was to descend the steep sides of the ravine. 
 The difficulty was, not to get down, for that 
 could be done almost anywhere, but to go 
 right side up ; to land on the feet and not on 
 the head was the test of sure - f ootedness and 
 climbing ability. We conquered that obstacle, 
 cautiously creeping down rocky steps, and over 
 slippery soil, steadying ourselves by bushes, 
 clasping small tree-trunks, scrambling over big- 
 ones that lay prone upon the ground, and thus 
 we safely reached the level of the stream. Then 
 we passed along more easily, stooping under 
 low trees, crossing the beds of tiny brooks, en- 
 circling clumps of shrubbery (and catching the 
 night's cobwebs on our faces), till we reached a 
 fallen tree-trunk that seemed made for resting. 
 There we seated ourselves, to breathe, and to 
 see who lived in the place. 
 
 One of the residents proclaimed himself at 
 once, 
 
 " To left and right 
 The cuckoo told his name to all the hills,"
 
 158 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 and in a moment we saw him, busy with his 
 breakfast. His manner of hunting was inter- 
 esting ; he stood perfectly still on a branch, his 
 beak pointed upward, but his head so turned 
 that one eye looked downward. When some- 
 thing attracted him, he almost fell off his perch, 
 seized the morsel as he passed, alighted on a 
 lower branch, and at once began looking around 
 again. There was no frivolity, no flitting about 
 like a little bird ; his conduct was grave and 
 dignified, and he was absolutely silent, except 
 when at rare intervals he mounted a branch and 
 uttered his call, or song, if one might so call it. 
 He managed his long tail with grace and ex- 
 pression, holding it a little spread as he moved 
 about, thus showing the white tips and " cor- 
 ners." 
 
 While we were absorbed in cuckoo affairs 
 the sun peeped over the trees, and the place 
 was transfigured. Everything, as I said, was 
 charged with water, and looking against the 
 sun, some drops hanging from the tip of a leaf 
 glowed red as rubies, others shone out blue as 
 sapphires, while here and there one scintillated 
 with many colors like a diamond, now flashing 
 red, and now yellow or blue. 
 
 " The humblest weed 
 Wore its own coronal, and gayly bold 
 Waved jeweled sceptre."
 
 A BOOFED-OVER NEST. 159 
 
 In that spot we sat an hour, and saw many 
 birds, with whom it was evidently a favorite 
 hunting-ground. But no one seemed to live 
 there ; every one appeared to be passing through; 
 and realizing as we did, that it was late in the 
 season, our search for nests in use was rather 
 half-hearted anyway. As our breakfast -time 
 drew near we decided to go home, having found 
 nothing we cared to study. Just as we were 
 taking leave of the spot I heard, nearly at my 
 back, a gentle scolding cry, and glancing 
 around, my eyes fell upon two small birds run- 
 ning down the trunk of a walnut sapling. A 
 few inches above the ground one of the pair 
 disappeared, and the other, still scolding, flew 
 away. I hastened to the spot and there I 
 found my great Carolinian. 
 
 The nest was made in a natural cavity in the 
 side of a stump six or eight inches in diameter 
 and a foot high. It seemed to be of moss, com- 
 pletely roofed over, and stooping nearer its level 
 I saw the bird, looking flattened as if she had 
 been crushed, but returning my gaze, bravely 
 resolved to live or die with her brood. I noted 
 her color, and the peculiar irregular line over 
 her eye, and then I left her, though I did not 
 know who she was. Nothing would have been 
 easier than to put my hand over her door and 
 catch her, but nothing would have induced me
 
 160 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 to do so if I never knew her name. Time 
 enough for formal introductions later in our 
 acquaintance, I thought, and if it happened 
 that we never met again, what did I care how 
 she was named in the books ? 
 
 I did not at first even suspect her identity, 
 for who would expect to find the great Carolina 
 wren a personage of less than six inches ! even 
 though he were somewhat familiar with the 
 vagaries of name-givers, who call one bird after 
 the cat, whom he in no way resembles, and an- 
 other after the bull, to whom the likeness is, 
 if possible, still less. What was certain was 
 that the nest belonged to wrens, and was admir- 
 ably placed for study ; and what I instantly 
 resolved was to improve my acquaintance with 
 the owners thereof. 
 
 The little opening in the woods, which be- 
 came the Wren's Court, when their rank was 
 discovered, was a most attractive place, shaded 
 enough to be pleasant, while yet leaving a 
 goodly stretch of blue sky in sight, bounded on 
 one side by immense forest trees walnut, but- 
 ternut, oak, and others which looked as if 
 they had stood there for generations; on the 
 other side, the babbling stream, up and down 
 which the kingfisher flew and clattered all day. 
 One way out led to the thicket where a wood- 
 thrush was sitting in a low tree, and the other,
 
 AN IDEAL NOOK. 161 
 
 by the Path Difficult, up to the world above. 
 The seat, across the court from the nest, had 
 plainly been arranged by some kind fate on 
 purpose for us. It was the trunk of a tree, 
 which in falling failed to quite reach the 
 ground, and so had bleached and dried, and it 
 was shaded and screened from observation by 
 vigorous saplings which had sprung up about 
 it. The whole was indeed an ideal nook, well 
 worthy to be named after its distinguished resi- 
 dents. 
 
 Thoreau was right in his assertion that one 
 may see all the birds of a neighborhood by sim- 
 ply waiting patiently in one place, and into that 
 charming spot came " sooner or later " every 
 bird I had seen in my wanderings up and down 
 the ravine. There sang the scarlet tanager 
 every morning through July, gleaming among 
 the leaves of the tallest trees, his olive-clad 
 spouse nowhere to be seen, presumably occupied 
 with domestic affairs. There the Acadian fly- 
 catcher pursued his calling, fluttering his wings 
 and uttering a sweet little murmur when he 
 alighted. Into that retired corner came the 
 cries of flicker and blue jay from the high 
 ground beyond. On the edge sang the indigo- 
 bird and the wood-pewee, and cardinal and 
 wood-thrush song formed the chorus to all the 
 varied notes that we heard.
 
 162 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 Upon our entrance the next morning, my 
 first glance at the nest was one of dismay the 
 material seemed to be pulled out a little. Had 
 it been robbed ! had some vagabond squirrel 
 thrust lawless paws into the little home ! I 
 looked closely; no, there sat, or rather there 
 lay the little mother. But she did not relish 
 this second call. She flew, fluttering and trail- 
 ing on the ground, as if hurt, hoping, of course, 
 to attract us away from her nest. Seeing that 
 of no avail, however, which she quickly did, 
 she retreated to a low branch, threw back her 
 head, and uttered a soft " chur-r-r," again and 
 again repeated, doubtless to her mate. But 
 that personage did not make his appearance, 
 and we examined the nest. There were five 
 eggs, white, very thickly and evenly specked 
 with fine dots of dark color. An end of one 
 that stuck up was plain white, perhaps the 
 others were the same ; we did not inquire too 
 closely, for what did we care for eggs, except as 
 the cradles of the future birds ? 
 
 Very soon we retired to our seat across the 
 court and became quiet, to wait for what might 
 come. Suddenly, with almost startling effect, 
 
 " A bird broke forth and sung 
 And trilled and quavered and shook his throat." 
 
 It was a new voice to us, loud and clear, and 
 the song, consisting of three clauses, sounded
 
 SHE BAN UP THE TRUNK. 163 
 
 like " Whit-e-ar ! Whit-e-ar ! Whit-e-ar !" then 
 a pause, and the same repeated, and so on in- 
 definitely. It came nearer and still nearer, 
 and in a moment we saw the bird, a tiny crea- 
 ture, red-brown on the back, light below the 
 image of the little sitter in the stump, as we 
 remarked with delight ; we hoped he was her 
 mate. He did not seem inclined to go to the 
 nest, but stayed on a twig of a dead branch 
 which hung from a large tree near by. 
 
 While the stranger was pouring out his rhap- 
 sody, head thrown back, tail hanging straight 
 down, and wings slightly drooped, I noticed a 
 movement by the nest, and fixed my eyes upon 
 that. The little dame had stolen out of her 
 place, and now began the ascent of the sapling 
 which started out one side of her small stump. 
 Up the trunk she went with perfect ease, run- 
 ning a few steps, and then pausing a moment 
 before she took the next half-dozen. She did 
 not go bobbing up like a woodpecker, nor did 
 she steady herself with her tail, like that fre- 
 quenter of tree-trunks ; she simply ran up that 
 almost perpendicular stick as a fly runs up the 
 wall. Meanwhile her mate, if that he were, 
 kept up his ringing song, till she reached the 
 top of the sapling, perhaps seven or eight feet 
 high, and flew over near him. In an instant 
 the song ceased, and the next moment two small
 
 164 IZV THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 birds flew over our heads, and we heard chat- 
 ting and churring, and then silence. 
 
 Without this hint from the wren we should 
 rarely have seen her leave the nest ; we should 
 naturally have watched for wings, and none 
 might come or go, while she was using her feet 
 instead. She returned in the same way ; flying 
 to the top, or part way up her sapling, she ran 
 down to her nest as glibly as she had run up. 
 The walnut-trunk was the ladder which led to 
 the outside world. This pretty little scene was 
 many times repeated, in the days that we spent 
 before the castle of our Carolinians ; the male 
 announcing himself afar with songs, and ap- 
 proaching gradually, while his mate listened to 
 the notes that had wooed her, and now again 
 coaxed her away from her sitting, for a short 
 outing with him. Sometimes, though rarely, 
 she came out without this inducement, but dur- 
 ing her sitting days she usually went only upon 
 his invitation. 
 
 Before many days we had fully identified the 
 pair. The song had puzzled me at first, for 
 though extraordinary in volume for a bird of 
 his size, and possessing that indefinable wren 
 quality, that abandon and unexpectedness, as if 
 it were that instant inspired, it had yet few 
 notes, and I missed the exquisite tremolo that 
 makes the song of the winter-wren so bewitch-
 
 HIS TWO SONGS. 165 
 
 ing. But I " studied him up," and learned that 
 his finest and most characteristic song is uttered 
 in the spring only. After nesting has begun, 
 he gives merely these musical calls, which, 
 though delightful, do not compare say the 
 books with his ante-nuptial performance. I 
 was too late for that, but I was glad and thank- 
 ful for these. 
 
 Moreover, the wren varied his songs as the 
 days went on. There were from two to five 
 notes in a clause, never more, and commonly 
 but three. This clause he repeated again and 
 again during the whole of one visit; but the 
 next time he came he had a new one, which 
 likewise he kept to while he stayed. Again, 
 when, some days later, he took part in feeding, 
 he frequently changed the song as he left the 
 nest. Struck by the variety he gave to his few 
 notes, after some days I began to take them 
 down in syllables as they expressed themselves 
 to my ear, for they were sharp and distinct. Of 
 course, these syllables resemble his sound about 
 as a dried flower resembles the living blossom, 
 but they serve the same purpose, to reproduce 
 them in memory. In that way I recorded in 
 three days eighteen different arrangements of 
 his notes. Doubtless there were many more ; 
 indeed, he seemed to delight in inventing new 
 combinations, and his taste evidently agreed
 
 166 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 with mine, for when he succeeded in evolving a 
 particularly charming one, he did not easily 
 change it. One that specially pleased me I put 
 down as " Shame-ber-ee ! " and this was his 
 favorite, too, for after the day he began it, he 
 sang it oftener than any other. It had a pecu- 
 liarly joyous ring, the second note being a third 
 below the first, and the third fully an octave 
 higher than the second. I believe he had just 
 then struck upon it, his enjoyment of it was so 
 plain to see. 
 
 The Wren's Court was a distracting spot to 
 study one pair of small birds. So many others 
 came about, and always, it seemed, in some 
 crisis in wren affairs, when I dared not take my 
 eyes from my glass, lest I lose the sequence of 
 events. There appeared sometimes to be a 
 thousand whispering, squealing, and smacking 
 titmice in the trees over my head, and a whole 
 regiment of great-crested flycatchers and others 
 on one side. I was glad I was familiar with all 
 the flicker noises, or I should have been driven 
 wild at these moments, so many, so various, and 
 so peculiar were their utterances ; likewise 
 thankful that I knew the row made by the jay 
 on the bank above was not a sign of dire dis- 
 tress, but simply the tragic manner of the 
 family. 
 
 Again, when the wind blew, it was impossible
 
 GBEAT-CBESTS AT HOME. 167 
 
 to see the little folk that chattered and whis- 
 pered and " dee-dee'd " overhead, and though 
 we were absolutely certain a party of tufted tits 
 and chickadees and black and white creepers, 
 who always seemed to travel in company, were 
 frolicking about, we could not distinguish them 
 from the dancing and fluttering leaves. 
 
 When the day was favorable, and the wren 
 had gone his way, foraging in silence over the 
 low ground at our back, and an old stump that 
 stood there, and the sitter had settled herself in 
 her nest for another half hour, we could look 
 about at whoever happened to be there. Thus 
 I made further acquaintance with the great- 
 crested flycatcher. Hitherto I had known these 
 birds only as they travel through a neighbor- 
 hood not their own, appearing on the tops of 
 trees, and crying out in martial tones for the 
 inhabitants to bring on their fighters, a chal- 
 lenge to all whom it may concern. It was a 
 revelation, then, to see them quietly at home like 
 other birds, setting up claims to a tree, driving 
 strangers away from it, and spending their time 
 about its foot, seeking food near the ground, 
 and indulging in frolics or fights, whichever 
 they might be, with squealing cries and a rush- 
 ing flight around their tree. In the latter part 
 of our study, the great-crest babies were out, 
 noisy little fellows, who insisted on being fed as
 
 168 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 peremptorily as their elders demand their rights 
 and privileges. 
 
 To make the place still more maddening for 
 study, the birds seemed to sweep through the 
 woods in waves. For a long time not a peep 
 would be heard, not a feather would stir; then 
 all at once 
 
 " The air would throb with wings," 
 
 and birds would pour in from all sides, half a 
 dozen at a time, making us want to look six 
 ways at once, and rendering it impossible to 
 confine ourselves to one. Then, after half an 
 hour of this superabundance, one by one would 
 slip out, and by the time we began to realize it, 
 we were alone again. 
 
 We had watched the wren for nine days when 
 there came an interruption. It happened thus : 
 A little farther up the glen we had another 
 study, a wood-thrush nest in a low tree, and 
 every day, either coming or going, we were ac- 
 customed to spend an hour watching that. Our 
 place of observation was a hidden nook in a pile 
 of rocks, where we were entirely concealed by 
 thick trees, through which, by a judicious thin- 
 ning out of twigs and leaves, we had made peep- 
 holes, for the thrush mamma would not tolerate 
 us in her sight. To reach our seats and not 
 alarm the suspicious little dame, we always 
 entered from the back, slowly and cautiously
 
 FRIGHTENED AWAY. 169 
 
 climbed the rocks by a rude path which already 
 existed, and slipped in under cover of our leafy 
 screen. 
 
 On the morning of the tenth day we entered 
 the ravine from the upper end, and made our 
 first call upon the thrush. We had been seated 
 in silence for ten or fifteen minutes, and I was 
 beginning to get uneasy because no bird came 
 to the nest, when a diversion occurred that 
 drove thrush affairs out of our minds. We 
 heard footsteps ! It must be remembered that 
 we were alone in this solitary place, far from a 
 house, and naturally we listened eagerly. The 
 steps drew nearer, and then we heard loud 
 breathing. We exchanged glances of relief 
 it was a cow ! But while we were congratu- 
 lating ourselves began a crashing of branches, a 
 fiercer breathing, a rush, and a low bellow ! 
 
 This was no meek cow ! we turned pale, at 
 any rate we felt pale, but we tried to encour- 
 age each other by suggesting in hurried whis- 
 pers that he surely would not see us. Alas ! 
 the next instant he broke through the bushes, 
 and to our horror started at once up our path 
 to the rocks ; in a moment he would be upon 
 us ! We rose hastily, prepared to sell our lives 
 dearly, when, as suddenly as he had come, he 
 turned and rushed back. Whether the sight 
 of us was too much for his philosophy, or
 
 170 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 whether he had gone for reinforcements, we 
 did not inquire. We instantly lost our interest 
 in birds and birds' nests ; we gathered up our 
 belongings and fled, not stopping to breathe till 
 we had put the barbiest of barbed wire fences 
 between us and the foe. 
 
 Once outside, however, we paused to con- 
 sider : To give up our study was not to be 
 thought of ; to go every day in fear and dread 
 was equally intolerable. I wrote to the author- 
 ities of whom I had purchased the right to enter 
 the place. They promptly denied the existence 
 of any such animal on the premises. I replied 
 to the effect that " seeing is believing," but they 
 reaffirmed their former statement, assuring me 
 that there were none but harmless cows in the 
 glen. I did not want to waste time in an un- 
 profitable correspondence, and I did want to see 
 the wrens, and at last a bright thought came, 
 I would hire an escort, a country boy used to 
 cattle, and warranted not afraid of them. I 
 inquired into the question of day's wages, I 
 looked about among the college students who 
 were working their way to an education, and I 
 found an ideal protector, an intelligent and 
 very agreeable young man, brought up on a 
 farm, and just graduated, who was studying up 
 mathematics preparatory to school-teaching in 
 the fall. The bargain was soon made, and the
 
 A PROTECTOR SECURED. 171 
 
 next morning we started again for the glen, our 
 guardian armed with his geometry and a big 
 club. Three days, however, had been occupied 
 in perfecting this arrangement, and I ap- 
 proached the spot with anxiety; indeed, I am 
 always concerned till I see the whole family I 
 am watching, after only a night's interval, and 
 know they have survived the many perils which 
 constantly threaten bird-life, both night and day.
 
 XV. 
 
 THE WRENLINGS APPEAR. 
 
 THE moment we entered the court I saw there 
 was news. My eyes being attracted by a little 
 commotion on a dogwood - tree, I saw a saucy 
 tufted titmouse chasing with cries one of the 
 wrens who had food in its beak. With most 
 birds this proclaims the arrival of the young 
 family as plainly as if a banner had been hung 
 on the castle walls. Whether the tit was after 
 the food, or trying to drive the wren off his own 
 ground, we could not tell, nor did we much care ; 
 the important fact was that babies were out in 
 the walnut-tree cottage. The food bearer went 
 to the nest, and in a moment came up the ladder, 
 so joyous and full of song that he could not 
 wait to get off his own tree, but burst into a 
 triumphant ringing "Whit-e-ar!" that must 
 have told his news to all the world who had 
 ears to hear. 
 
 The mother did not at once give up her 
 brooding, nor did I wonder when I peeped into 
 the nest while she was off with her spouse, and 
 saw what appeared to be five big mouths with a
 
 JO Y OF THE PARENTS. 173 
 
 small bag of skin attached to each. Nothing 
 else could be seen. She sat an hour at a time, 
 and then her mate would come and call her off 
 for a rest and a change, while he skipped down 
 the ladder and fed the bairns. His way in this 
 matter, as in everything else, was characteristic. 
 He never went to the nest till he had called her 
 off by his song. It was not till several days 
 later, when she had given up brooding, that I 
 ever saw the pair meet at the nest, and then it 
 seemed to be accidental, and one of them always 
 left immediately. 
 
 During the first few days the young parents 
 came and went as of old, by way of the ladder, 
 and I learned to know them apart by their way 
 of mounting that airy flight of steps. He was 
 more pert in manner, held his head and tail more 
 jauntily, though he rarely pointed his tail to the 
 sky, as do some of the wren family. He went 
 lightly up in a dancing style which she entirely 
 lacked, sometimes jumping to a small shoot that 
 grew up quite near the walnut, and running up 
 that as easily as he did the tree. Her ascent 
 was of a business character ; she was on duty, 
 head and tail level with her body, no airs what- 
 ever. He was so full of happiness in these early 
 days that frequently he coidd not take time to go 
 to the top, but, having reached a height of two 
 or three feet, he flew, and at once burst into
 
 174 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 rapturous song, even sang while flying over to 
 the next tree. From this time they almost 
 abandoned the ladder they had been so fond of, 
 and flew directly to the nest from the ground, 
 where they got all their food. This change was 
 not because they were hard worked ; I never saw 
 birds who took family cares more easily. At the 
 expiration of three days the mother brooded no 
 more, and indeed it would have troubled her to 
 find a place for herself, the nest was so full. 
 
 Every morning on entering the court I called 
 at the nest, and always found five yellow beaks 
 turned to the front. On the third day the heads 
 were covered with slate-colored down; on the 
 fourth, wing-feathers began to show among the 
 heads, but the body was still perfectly bare ; on 
 the fifth, the eyes opened on the green world 
 about them, they were then certainly five days 
 old, and may have been seven ; owing to our 
 unfortunate absence at the critical time I cannot 
 be sure. On the seventh day the red-brown of 
 the back began to show, and the white of the 
 breast made itself visible, while the heads began 
 to look feathery instead of fuzzy. Even then, 
 however, they took no notice when I put my 
 finger on them. 
 
 Long before this time the manner of the 
 parents had changed. In the first place, they 
 were more busy ; foraging industriously on the
 
 EXCITEMENT IN THE FAMILY. 175 
 
 ground, coming within ten or fifteen feet of us, 
 without appearing to see us at all. In fact they 
 had, after the first day, paid no attention to us, 
 for we never had disturbed them, never went to 
 the nest till sure that both were away, and kept 
 still and quiet in our somewhat distant seat. 
 
 About this time they began to show more 
 anxiety in their manner. The first exhibition 
 was on the fourth day since we knew the young 
 were hatched (and let me say that I believe 
 they were just out of the shell the morning that 
 we found the father feeding). On this fourth 
 day the singer perched near the nest-tree, three 
 or four feet from the ground, and began a very 
 loud wren " dear-r-r-r ! dear-r-r-r ! dear-r-r-r ! " 
 constantly repeated. He jerked himself about 
 with great apparent excitement, looking always 
 on the ground as if he saw an enemy there. We 
 thought it might be a cat we had seen prowling 
 about, but on examination no cat was there. 
 Gradually his tone grew lower and lower, and 
 he calmed down so far as a wren can calm, 
 though he did not cease his cries. I did not 
 know he could be still so long, but I learned 
 more about wren possibilities in that line some- 
 what later. 
 
 During this performance his mate came with 
 food in her beak, and evidently saw nothing 
 alarming, for she went to the nest with it. Still
 
 176 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 he stood gazing on the ground. Sometimes he 
 flew down and returned at once, then began 
 moving off, a little at a time, still crying, ex- 
 actly as though he were following some one who 
 went slowly. The call, when low, was very 
 sweet and tender; very mournful too, and we 
 got much wrought up over it, wishing as bird 
 students so often do that we could do some- 
 thing to help. He was roused at last by the 
 intrusion of a bird into his domain, and his dis- 
 comfiture of this foe seemed to dispel his un- 
 happy state of mind, for he at once broke out in 
 joyous song, to our great relief. That was not 
 the last exhibition of the wren's idiosyncrasy; 
 he repeated it day after day, and finally he went 
 so far as to interpolate low " dear-r-r's " into his 
 sweetest songs. Perhaps that was his conception 
 of his duty as protector to the family ; if so, he 
 was certainly faithful in doing it. It was ludi- 
 crously like the attitude of some people under 
 similar circumstances. 
 
 While the young father was manifesting his 
 anxiety in this way, the mother showed hers in 
 another ; she took to watching, hardly leaving 
 the place at all. When she had her babies well 
 fed for the moment, she went up the trunk a 
 little, in a loitering way that I had never seen 
 her indulge in before, and a loitering wren is 
 a curiosity. It was plain that she simply wished
 
 A CEREMONIOUS APPROACH. 177 
 
 to pass away the time. She stepped from the 
 trunk upon a twig on one side, stayed a little 
 while, then passed to one on the other side, 
 lingered a few moments, and so she went on. 
 When she arrived at the height of two feet she 
 perched on a small dead twig, and remained a 
 long time certainly twenty minutes abso- 
 lutely motionless. It was hard to see her, and 
 if I had not watched her progress from the first, 
 I should not have suspected her presence. A 
 leaf would hide her, even the crossing of two 
 twigs was ample screen, and when she was still 
 it was hopeless to look for her. The only way 
 we were able to keep track of either of the pair 
 was by their incessant motions. 
 
 The Great Carolinian had a peculiar custom 
 which showed that his coming with song was a 
 ceremony he would not dispense with. He would 
 often start off singing, gradually withdraw till 
 fifty or seventy-five feet away, singing at every 
 pause, and then, if one watched him closely, he 
 might see him stop, drop to the ground, and hunt 
 about in silence. When he was ready to come 
 again, he would fly quietly a little way off, and 
 then begin his singing and approaching, as if he 
 had been a mile away. He never sang when on 
 the ground after food, but so soon as he finished 
 eating, he flew to a perch at least two feet high, 
 generally between six and ten, and sometimes as 
 high as twenty feet, and sang.
 
 178 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 After a day or two of the wren's singular un- 
 easiness, we discovered at least one object of his 
 concern. It was a chipmunk, whom we had often 
 noticed perched on the highest point of the lit- 
 tle ledge of rocks near the nest'. He seemed to 
 be attending strictly to his own affairs, but after 
 a good deal of " dear-r-r " ing, the wren flew 
 furiously at him, almost, if not quite, hitting 
 him, and doing it again and again. The little 
 beast did not relish this treatment and ran off, 
 the bird following and repeating the assault. 
 This was undoubtedly the foe that he had been 
 troubled about all the time. 
 
 On the tenth or eleventh day of their lives 
 (as I believe) I examined the babies in the 
 nest a little more closely than before. I even 
 touched them with my finger on head and beak. 
 They looked sleepily at me, but did not resent 
 it. If the mother were somewhat bigger, I 
 should suspect her of giving them " soothing 
 syrup," for they had exactly the appearance of 
 being drugged. They were not overfed ; I never 
 saw youngsters so much let alone. The parents 
 had nothing like the work of the robin, oriole, 
 or blue jay. They came two or three times, 
 and then left for half an hour or more, yet the 
 younglings were never impatient for food. 
 
 The morning that the young wrens had 
 reached the age of twelve days (that we knew
 
 A NESTFUL OF WOODEN BABIES. 179 
 
 of) was the 22d of July, and the weather was 
 intensely warm. On the 21st we had watched all 
 day to see them go, sure that they were per- 
 fectly well able. Obviously it is the policy of 
 this family to prepare for a life of extraordi- 
 nary activity by an infancy of unusual stillness. 
 Never were youngsters so perfectly indifferent 
 to all the world. In storm or sunshine, in day- 
 light or darkness, they lay there motionless, 
 caring only for food, and even that showed 
 itself only by the fact that all mouths were 
 toward the front. The under one of the pile 
 seemed entirely contented to be at the bottom, 
 and the top ones not to exult in their posi- 
 tion ; in fact, so far as any show of interest 
 in life was concerned, they might have been 
 a nestful of wooden babies. 
 
 On this morning, as we dragged ourselves 
 wearily over the hot road to the ravine, we 
 resolved that no handful of wrenlings should 
 force us over that road again. Go off this day 
 they should, if as my comrade remarked 
 " we had to raise them by hand." My first 
 call was at the nest, indifferent whether parents 
 were there or not, for I had become desperate. 
 There they lay, lazily blinking at me, and fill- 
 ing the nest overfull. The singer came rushing 
 down a branch, bristled up, blustering, and 
 calling " Dear-r-r-r ! " at me, and I hoped he
 
 180 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 would be induced to hurry up his very leisurely 
 brood. 
 
 We took our usual seats and waited. Both 
 parents remained near the homestead, and little 
 singing was indulged in ; this morning there 
 was serious business on hand, as any one could 
 see. We were desirous of seeing the first sign 
 of movement, so we ' resolved to cut away the 
 last few leaves that hid the entrance to the nest. 
 We had not done it before, partly not to annoy 
 the birds, and partly not to have them too easily 
 discovered by prowlers. 
 
 Miss R- went to the stump, and cut away 
 
 half a dozen leaves and twigs directly before 
 their door. The young ones looked at her, but 
 did not move. Then, as I had asked her to do, 
 she pointed a parasol directly at the spot, so 
 that I, in my distant seat, might locate the nest 
 exactly. This seemed to be the last straw that 
 the birdlings could endure ; two of them flew 
 off. One went five or six feet away, the other 
 to the ground close by. Then she came away, 
 and we waited again. In a moment two more 
 ventured out and alighted on twigs near the 
 nest. Then the mother came home, and acted 
 as surprised as though she had never expected 
 to have them depart. She went from a twig be- 
 side the tree to the nest, and back, about a dozen 
 times, as if she really could not believe her eyes.
 
 HOME-LOVING WBENLINGS. 181 
 
 Anxious to see everything that went on, we 
 moved our seats nearer, but this so disconcerted 
 the pair that we did not stay long. It was long 
 enough to hear the wren baby-cry, a low insect- 
 like noise, and to see something that surprised 
 and no less disgusted me, namely, every one of 
 those babies hurry back to the tree, climb the 
 trunk, and scramble back into the nest ! the 
 whole exit to be begun again ! It could not be 
 their dislike of the " cold, cold world," for a 
 cold world would be a luxury that morning. 
 
 Of any one who would go back into that 
 crowded nest, with the thermometer on the ram- 
 page as it was then, I had my opinion, and I 
 began to think I did n't care much about wrens 
 anyway; we stayed, however, as a matter of 
 habit, and I suppose they all had a nap after 
 their tremendous exertion. But they manifestly 
 got an idea into their heads at last, a taste of 
 life. After a proper amount of consideration, 
 one of the nestlings took courage to move again, 
 and went so far as a twig that grew beside the 
 door, looked around on the world from that post 
 for a while, then hopped to another, and so on 
 till he encircled the home stump. But when he 
 came again in sight of that delectable nest, 
 he could not resist it, and again he added him- 
 self to the pile of birds within. This youth was 
 apparently as well feathered as his parents, and,
 
 182 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 except in length of tail, looked exactly like 
 them ; many a bird baby starts bravely out in 
 life not half so well prepared for it as this little 
 wren. 
 
 After nearly three hours of waiting, we made 
 up our minds that these young folk must be out 
 some time during the day, unless they had de- 
 cided to take up permanent quarters in that 
 hole in the stump, and what was more to the 
 point, that the weather was too warm to await 
 their very deliberate movements. So we left 
 them, to get off the best way they could without 
 us, or to stay there all their lives, if they so 
 desired. 
 
 The nest, which at first was exceedingly pic- 
 turesque and I had resolved to bring it away, 
 with the stump that held it was now so de- 
 molished that I no longer coveted it. The last 
 and sweetest song of the wren, " Shame-ber-ee ! " 
 rang out joyously as we turned our faces to the 
 north, and bade a long farewell to the Great 
 Carolinians.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE APPLE-TREE NEST. 
 
 All day long in the elm, on their swaying perches swinging, 
 New-fledged orioles utter their restless, querulous notes. 
 HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. 
 
 THE little folk let out the secret, as little folk 
 often do, and after they had called attention to 
 it, I was surprised that I had not myself seen 
 the pretty hammock swinging high up in the 
 apple boughs. 
 
 It was, however, in a part of the grounds I 
 did not often visit, partly because the trees 
 close by, which formed a belt across the back of 
 the place, grew so near together that not a 
 breath of air could penetrate, and it was intol- 
 erable in the hot June days, and partly because 
 my appearance there always created a panic. 
 So seldom did a human being visit that neg- 
 lected spot, that the birds did not look for 
 guests, and a general stampede followed the 
 approach of one. 
 
 On the eventful day of my happy discovery I 
 was returning from my daily call upon a blue 
 jay who had set up her home in an apple-tree
 
 184 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 in a neighbor's yard. The moment I entered 
 the grounds I noticed a great outcry. It was 
 loud ; it was incessant ; and it was of many 
 voices. Following the sound, I started across 
 the unmown field, 
 
 " Through the bending grasses, 
 
 Tall and lushy green, 
 All alive with tiny things, 
 Stirring feet and whin-ing wings 
 
 Just an instant seen," 
 
 and soon came in sight of the nest near the top- 
 most twig of an old apple-tree. 
 
 It was about noon of a bright, sunny day, and 
 I could see only that the nest was straw-color, 
 apparently run over with little ones, and both 
 the parents were industriously feeding. The 
 cries suggested the persistence of young orioles, 
 but it was not a Baltimore's swinging cradle, 
 and the old birds were so shy, coming from be- 
 hind the leaves, every one of which turned 
 itself into a reflector for the sunlight, that I 
 could not identify them. 
 
 Later in the day I paid them another visit, 
 and finding a better post of observation under 
 the shade of a sweet-briar bush, I saw at once 
 they were orchard orioles, and that the young 
 ones were climbing to the edge of the nest ; I 
 had nearly been too late ! 
 
 Four o'clock was the unearthly hour at which
 
 I HARDENED MY HEART. 185 
 
 I rose next morning to pursue my acquaintance 
 with the little family in the apple-tree, fearful 
 lest they should get the start of me. The young- 
 sters were calling vociferously, and both parents 
 were very busy attending to their wants and 
 trying to stop their mouths, when I planted my 
 seat before their castle in the air, and proceeded 
 to inquire into their manners and customs. My 
 call was, as usual, not received with favor. The 
 mother, after administering the mouthful she 
 had brought, alighted on a twig beside the nest 
 and gave me a " piece of her mind." I admit- 
 ted my bad manners, but I could not tear my- 
 self away. The anxious papa, very gorgeous in 
 his chestnut and black suit, scenting danger 
 to the little brood in the presence of the bird- 
 student with her glass, at once abandoned the 
 business of feeding, and devoted himself to the 
 protection of his family, which indeed was 
 his plain duty. His way of doing this was to 
 take his position on the tallest tree in the vicin- 
 ity, and fill the serene morning air with his cry 
 of distress, a two-note utterance, with a pathetic 
 inflection which could not fail to arouse the 
 sympathy of all who heard it. It was not ex- 
 cited or angry, but it proclaimed that here was 
 distress and danger, and it had the effect of 
 making me ashamed of annoying him. But I 
 hardened my heart, as I often have to do in my
 
 186 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 study, and kept my seat. Occasionally he re- 
 turned to the lower part of his own tree, to see 
 if the monster had been scared or shamed away, 
 but finding me stationary, he returned to his 
 post and resumed his mournful cry. 
 
 At length the happy thought came to me that 
 I might select a position a little less conspicu- 
 ous, yet still within sight, so I moved my seat 
 farther off, away back under a low-branched 
 apple-tree, where a redbird came around with 
 sharp " tsip's " to ascertain my business, and a 
 catbird behind the briar-bush entertained me 
 with delicious song. The oriole accepted my 
 retirement as a compromise, and returned to his 
 domestic duties, coming, as was natural and 
 easiest, on my side of the tree. His habit was 
 to cling to the side of the nest, showing his 
 black and red-gold against it, while his mate 
 alighted on the edge, and was seen a little above 
 it. After feeding, both perched on neighboring 
 twigs and looked about for a moment before 
 the next food-hunting trip. I thought the father 
 of the family exhibited an air of resignation, as 
 if he concluded that, since the babies made so 
 much noise, there was no use in trying longer 
 to preserve the secret. 
 
 As a matter of fact, both our orioles need a 
 good stock of patience as well as of resignation, 
 for the infants of both are unceasing in their
 
 A MUTUAL SURPRISE. 187 
 
 cries, and fertile in inventing variations in man- 
 ner and inflection, that would deceive those most 
 familiar with them. Two or three times in the 
 weeks that followed, I rushed out of the house 
 to find some very distressed bird, who, I was 
 sure, from the cries, must be impaled alive on a 
 butcher-bird's meat-hook, or undergoing torture 
 at the hands or beak of somebody. It was 
 rather dangerous going out at that time (just at 
 dusk), for it was the chosen hour for young 
 men and maidens, of whom there were several, 
 to wander about under the trees. Often, before 
 I gave up going out at that hour, my glass, 
 turned to follow a flitting wing, would bring 
 before niy startled gaze a pair of sentimental 
 young persons, who doubtless thought I was spy- 
 ing upon them. My only safety was in direct- 
 ing my glass into the trees, where nothing but 
 wings could be sentimental, and if a bird flitted 
 below the level of branches, to consider him lost. 
 On following up the cry, I always found a 
 young oriole and a hard-worked father feeding 
 him. The voice did not even suggest an oriole 
 to me, until I had been deceived two or three 
 times and understood it. 
 
 The young ones of the orchard oriole's nest 
 lived up to the traditions of the family by being 
 inveterate cry-babies, and making so much noise 
 they could be heard far around. Sometimes
 
 188 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 their mother addressed them in a similar tone 
 to their own, but the father resigned himself to 
 the inevitable, and fed with dogged persever- 
 ance. 
 
 The apple-tree nest looked in the morning 
 sun of a bright flax color, and two of the young 
 were mounted on the edge, dressing their yellow 
 satin breasts, and gleaming in the sunshine like 
 gold. 
 
 A Baltimore oriole, passing over, seemed to be 
 attracted by a familiar quality of sound, for he 
 came down, alighted about a foot from the nest, 
 and looked with interest upon the charming 
 family scene. The protector of the pretty brood 
 was near, but he kept his seat, and made no 
 objections to the friendly call. Indeed, he flew 
 away while the guest was still there, and having 
 satisfied his curiosity, the Baltimore also de- 
 parted upon his own business. 
 
 When the sun appeared over the tree-tops, 
 he came armed with all his terrors. The breeze 
 dwindled and died ; the very leaves hung life- 
 less on the trees, and though, knowing that 
 
 " Somewhere the wind is blowing, 
 
 Though here where I gasp and sigh 
 Not a breath of air is stirring, 
 Not a cloud in the burning sky," 
 
 the memory might comfort me, it did not in 
 the slightest degree make me comfortable I
 
 THE BABIES 1 LADDER. 189 
 
 wilted, and retired before it. How the birds 
 could endure it and carry on their work, I could 
 not understand. 
 
 At noon I ventured out over the burning 
 grass. The first youngster had left the nest, 
 and was shouting from a tree perhaps twenty 
 feet beyond the native apple. The others were 
 fluttering on the edge, crying as usual. As is 
 the customary domestic arrangement with many 
 birds, the moment the first one flew, the father 
 stopped coming to the nest, and devoted himself 
 to the straggler, which was a little hard on the 
 mother that hot day, for she had four to feed. 
 
 While I looked on, the second infant mus- 
 tered up courage to start on the journey of life. 
 A tall twig led from the nest straight up into 
 the air, and this was the ladder he mounted. 
 Step by step he climbed one leaf-stem after 
 another, with several pauses to cry and to eat, 
 and at last reached the topmost point, where he 
 turned his face to the west, and took his first 
 survey of the kingdoms of the earth. A brother 
 nestling was close behind him, and the pretty 
 pair, seeing no more steps above them, rested 
 a while from their labors. In the mean time 
 the first young oriole had gone farther into the 
 trees, and papa with him. 
 
 The little dame worked without ceasing, 
 though it must have been an anxious time, with
 
 190 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 nestlings all stirring abroad. I noticed that she 
 fed oftenest the birdlings who were out, whether 
 to strengthen them for further effort, or to 
 offer an inducement to those in the nest to come 
 up higher where food was to be had, she did 
 not tell. I observed, also, that when she came 
 home she did not, as before, alight on the level 
 of the little ones, but above them. Perhaps 
 this was to coax them upward ; at any rate, it 
 had that effect : they stretched up and mounted 
 the next stem above, and so they kept on as- 
 cending. About three o'clock I was again 
 obliged to surrender to the power of the sun, 
 and retire for a season to a place he could not 
 enter, the house. 
 
 Some hours passed before I made my next 
 call, and I found that oriole matters had not 
 rested, if I had; the two nestlings had taken 
 flight to the tree the first one had chosen, and 
 three were on the top twig above the nest, which 
 latter swung empty and deserted. Mamma was 
 feeding the three in her own tree, while papa 
 attended as usual to the outsiders, and found 
 leisure to drop in a song now and then. 
 
 While I watched, number three took his life 
 in his hands (as it were) and launched out 
 upon the air. He reached a tree not so far 
 away as his brothers had chosen, and his mother 
 sought him out and fed him there. But he did
 
 SINGING GOOD-BY. 191 
 
 not seem to be satisfied with his achievement, or 
 possibly he found the position rather lonely; 
 at any rate, the next use of his wings was to 
 return to his native apple, to the lower part. 
 During this visit, the mother of the little brood, 
 seeing, I suppose, her labors growing lighter, 
 indulged herself and delighted me with a scrap 
 of song, very sweet, as the song of the female 
 oriole always is. 
 
 It was with forebodings that I approached 
 the tree the next morning, foreboding speedily 
 confirmed the whole family was gone ! Either 
 I had not stayed late enough or I had not got 
 up early enough to see the flitting ; that song, 
 then, meant something it was my good-by. 
 
 Indeed it turned out to be my farewell, as I 
 thought, for the whole tribe seemed to have 
 vanished. Usually it is not difficult to hunt up 
 a little bird family in its wanderings, during the 
 month following its leaving the nest, but this 
 one I could neither see nor hear, and I was very 
 sure those oriole babies had not so soon out- 
 grown their crying ; they must have been struck 
 dumb or left the place. 
 
 Nearly three weeks later I was wandering 
 about in what was called the glen, half a mile 
 or more from where the apple-tree babies had 
 first seen the light. It was a wild spot, a ra- 
 vine, through which ran a stream, where many
 
 192 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 wood-birds sang and nested. On approaching 
 a linden-tree loaded with blossoms, and hum- 
 ming with swarms of bees, I was saluted with 
 a burst of loud song, interspersed with scold- 
 ing. No one but an orchard oriole could so 
 mix things, and sure enough! there he was, 
 scrambling over the flowers. Something he 
 found to his taste, whether the blossoms or the 
 insects, I could not decide. On waiting a little, 
 I heard the young oriole cry, much subdued 
 since nesting days, and the tender " ye-ep " of 
 the parent. The whole family was evidently 
 there together, and I was very glad to see them 
 once more. 
 
 The nest, which I had brought down, was a 
 beautiful structure, made, I think, of very fine 
 excelsior of a bright straw-color. It was sus- 
 pended in an upright fork of four twigs, and 
 lashed securely to three of them, while a few 
 lines were passed around the fourth. Though 
 it was in a fork, it did not rest on it, but was 
 suspended three inches above it, a genuine 
 hanging nest. It was three inches deep and 
 wide, but drawn in about the top to a width of 
 not more than two inches, with a bit of cotton 
 and two small feathers for bedding. How five 
 babies could grow up in that little cup is a 
 problem. The material was woven closely to- 
 gether, and in addition stitched through and
 
 THE ORIOLE BABIE& HOME. 193 
 
 through, up and down, to make a firm struc- 
 ture. Around and against it hung still six 
 apples, defrauded of their manifest destiny, and 
 remaining the size of hickory -nuts. Three twigs 
 that ran up were cut off, but the fourth was left, 
 the tallest, the one sustaining the burden of the 
 nest, and upon which the young birds, one after 
 another, had mounted to take their first flight. 
 This pretty hammock, in its setting of leaves 
 and apples, still swinging from the apple boughs, 
 I brought home as a souvenir of a charming 
 bird study.
 
 XVII. 
 CEDAR-TREE LITTLE FOLK. 
 
 "is there that the wild dove has her nest, 
 
 And whenever the branches stir, 
 She presses closer the eggs to her breast, 
 
 And her mate looks down on her. 
 
 CLAKE BEATBICB COFFEY. 
 
 ONE of the voices that helped to make my 
 June musical, and one more constantly heard 
 than any other, was that of the 
 
 " Mourning dove who grieves and grieves, 
 And lost ! lost ! lost ! still seems to say," 
 
 as the poet has it. 
 
 Now, while I dearly love the poets, and al- 
 ways long to enrich my plain prose with gems 
 from their verse, it is sometimes a little embar- 
 rassing, because one is obliged to disagree with 
 them. If they would only look a little into the 
 ways of birds, and not assert, in language so 
 musical that one can hardly resist it, that 
 
 " The birds come back to last year's nests," 
 when rarely was a self-respecting bird known 
 to shirk the labor of building anew for every 
 family ; or sing, with Sill,
 
 THE POETS' BIRDS. 195 
 
 " He has lost his last year's love, I know," 
 
 when he did not know any such thing ; and 
 add, 
 
 " A thrush forgets in a year," 
 
 which I call a libel on one of our most intelli- 
 gent birds ; or cry, with another singer, 
 " O voiceless swallow," 
 
 when not one of the whole tribe is defrauded of 
 a voice, and at least one is an exquisite singer ; 
 or accuse the nightingale of the -superfluous 
 idiocy of holding his (though they always say 
 her) breast to a thorn as he sings, as if he were 
 so foolish as to imitate some forms of human 
 self-torture, if they would only be a little 
 more sure of their facts, what a comfort it 
 would be to those who love both poets and 
 birds! 
 
 No bird in our country is more persistently 
 misrepresented by our sweet singers than the 
 Carolina or wood dove mourning dove, as he 
 is popularly called ; and in this case they are 
 not to be blamed, for prose writers, even natural 
 history writers, are quite as bad. 
 
 " His song consists," says one, " of four 
 notes : the first seems to be uttered with an in- 
 spiration of the breath, as if the afflicted crea- 
 ture were just recovering its voice from the last 
 convulsive sob of distress, and followed by three 
 long, deep, and mournful meanings, that no
 
 196 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 person of sensibility can listen to without sym- 
 pathy." " The solemn voice of sorrow," an- 
 other writer calls it. All this is mere sentimen- 
 tality, pure imagination ; and if the writers 
 could sit, as I have, under the tree when the 
 bird was singing, they would change their opin- 
 ion, though they would thereby lose a pretty 
 and attractive sentiment for their verse. I be- 
 lieve there is 
 
 " No beast or bird in earth or sky, 
 Whose voice doth not with gladness thrill," 
 
 though it may not so express itself to our senses. 
 Certainly the coo of the dove is anything but 
 sad when heard very near. It has a rich, far-off 
 sound, expressing deep serenity, and a happiness 
 beyond words. 
 
 First in the morning, and last at night, all 
 through June, came to me the song of the dove. 
 As early as four o'clock his notes began, and 
 then, if I got up to look out on the lawn, where 
 I had spread breakfast for him and other feath- 
 ered friends, I would see him walking about 
 with dainty steps on his pretty red toes, looking 
 the pink of propriety in his Quaker garb, his 
 satin vest smooth as if it had been ironed down, 
 and quite worthy his reputed character for 
 meekness and gentleness. 
 
 But I wanted to see the dove far from the 
 " madding crowd " of blackbirds, blue jays, and
 
 GRAVE BABY DOVES. 197 
 
 red-heads, who, as well as himself, took corn for 
 breakfast, and I set out to look him up. At 
 first the whole family seemed to consist of the 
 young, just flying about, sometimes accompanied 
 by their mother. Apparently the fathers of the 
 race were all off in the cooing business. 
 
 So early as the second of June I came upon 
 my first pair of young doves, two charming little 
 creatures, sitting placidly side by side. Grave, 
 indeed, and very much grown-up looked these 
 drab-coated little folk, silent and motionless, 
 returning my gaze with an innocent openness 
 that, it seemed to me, must disarm their most 
 bitter enemy. When I came upon such a pair, 
 as I frequently did, on the low branch of an 
 apple-tree or a limb of their native cedar, I 
 stopped instantly to look at them. Not an eye- 
 lid of the youngsters would move; if a head 
 were turned as they heard me coming, it would 
 remain at precisely that angle as long as I had 
 patience to stay. They were invariably sitting 
 down with the appearance of being prepared to 
 stay all day, and almost always side by side, 
 though looking in different directions, and one 
 was always larger than the other. A lovely 
 and picturesque group they never failed to 
 make, and as for any show of hunger or impa- 
 tience, one could hardly imagine they ever felt 
 either. In every way they were a violent con-
 
 198 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 trast to all their neighbors, the boisterous blue 
 jays, lively catbirds, blustering robins, and vul- 
 gar-mannered blackbirds. 
 
 Sometimes I chanced upon a mother sitting 
 by her youngling, and although when I found 
 her alone she always flew, beside her little 
 charge she was dignified and calm in bearing, 
 and looked at me with fearless eyes, relying, 
 as it appeared, upon absolute stillness, and the 
 resemblance of her color to the branches, to 
 escape observation ; a ruse which must generally 
 be successful. 
 
 The nest, the remains of which I often saw 
 on the tree where I found an infant, was the 
 merest apology, hardly more than a platform, 
 just enough to hold the pair of eggs which they 
 are said always to contain. Indeed, no baby 
 but a serene dove, with the repose of thirty gen- 
 erations behind it, could stay in it till his wings 
 grew. As it is, he must be forced to perch, 
 whether ready or not, for the structure cannot 
 hold together long. The wonder is that the 
 eggs do not roll out before they are hatched. 
 
 Several things made the bird an interesting 
 subject for study ; his reputation for meekness, 
 his alleged silence, except at wooing time, 
 and the halo of melancholy with which the poets 
 have invested him. I resolved to make acquaint- 
 ance with my gentle neighbor, and I sought
 
 THE DOVE'S HEADQUARTERS. 199 
 
 and found a favorite retreat of the silent family. 
 This was a grove away down in the southeast 
 corner of the grounds, little visited by people, 
 and beloved by birds of several kinds. Till 
 June was half over, the high grass, that I could 
 not bear to trample, prevented exploration in 
 that direction, but as soon as it was cut I made 
 a trip to the little grove, and found it a sort of 
 doves' headquarters, and there, in many hours 
 of daily study, I learned to know him a little, 
 and respect him a good deal. 
 
 It was a delightful spot the doves had chosen 
 to live in, and so frequented by birds that 
 whichever way I turned my face, in two minutes 
 I wished I had turned it the other, or that I had 
 eyes in the back of my head. With reason, too, 
 for the residents skipped around behind me, and 
 all the interesting things went on at my back. 
 I could hear the flit of wings, low, mysterious 
 sounds, whispering, gentle complaints and hush- 
 ings, but if I turned lo ! the scene shifted, 
 and the drama of life was still enacted out of 
 my sight. Yet I managed, in spite of this diffi- 
 culty, to learn several things I did not know 
 before. 
 
 No one attends to his own business more 
 strictly than the dove. On the ground, where 
 he came for corn, he seemed to see no other 
 bird, and paid not the slightest heed to me in
 
 200 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 my window, but went about his own affairs in 
 the most matter-of-fact way. Yet I cannot 
 agree with the common opinion, which has made 
 his name a synonym for all that is meek and 
 gentle. He has a will of his own, and a " mild 
 but firm " way of securing it. Sometimes, when 
 all were busy at the corn, one of my Quaker- 
 clad guests would take a notion, for what reason 
 I could not discover, that some other dove must 
 not stay, and he would drive him (or her) off. 
 He was not rude or blustering, like the robin, 
 nor did he make offensive remarks, after the 
 manner of a blackbird ; he simply signified his 
 intention of having his neighbor go, and go he 
 did, nolens volens. 
 
 It was droll to see how this " meek and gentle " 
 fellow met blackbird impudence. If one of the 
 sable gentry came down too near a dove, the 
 latter gave a little hop and rustled his feathers, 
 but did not move one step away. For some 
 occult reason the blackbird seemed to respect 
 this mild protest, and did not interfere again. 
 
 Would one suspect so solemn a personage of 
 joking? yet what else could this little scene 
 mean ? A blackbird was on the ground eating, 
 when a dove flew down and hovered over him as 
 though about to alight upon him. It evidently 
 impressed the blackbird exactly as it did me, 
 for he scrambled out from under, very hastily.
 
 IS THE DOVE SPEECHLESS! 201 
 
 But the dove had no intention of the sort ; he 
 came calmly down on one side. 
 
 The first dove baby who accompanied its 
 parent to the ground to be fed was the model 
 of propriety one would expect from the demure 
 infant already mentioned. He stood crouching 
 to the ground in silence, fluttering his wings a 
 little, but making no sound, either of begging, 
 or when fed. A blackbird came to investigate 
 this youngster, so different from his importunate 
 offspring, upon which both doves flew. 
 
 There is a unique quality claimed for the 
 dove : that with the exception of the well-known 
 coo in nesting time he is absolutely silent, and 
 that the noise which accompanies his flight is 
 the result of a peculiar formation of the wing 
 that causes a whistle. Of this I had strong 
 doubts. I could not believe that a bird who has 
 so much to say for himself during wooing and 
 nesting time could be utterly silent the rest of 
 the year ; nor, indeed, do I believe that any liv- 
 ing creature, so highly organized as the feathered 
 tribes, can be entirely without expression. 
 
 I thought I would experiment a little, and 
 one day, observing that a young dove spent most 
 of his time alone on a certain cedar-tree, where 
 a badly used-up nest showed that he had prob- 
 ably been hatched, or feeding on the ground 
 near it, I resolved to see if I could draw him out.
 
 202 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 I passed Mm six times a day, going and coming 
 from my meals, and I always stopped to look at 
 him a scrutiny which he bore unmoved, in 
 dove fashion. So one morning, when I stood 
 three feet from him, I began a very low whistle 
 to him. He was at once interested, and after 
 about three calls he answered me, very low, it 
 is true, but still unmistakably. Though he re- 
 plied, however, it appeared to make him uneasy, 
 for while he had been in the habit of submitting 
 to my staring without being in any way discon- 
 certed, he now began to fidget about. He stood 
 up, changed his place, flew to a higher branch, 
 and in a few moments to the next tree ; all the 
 time, however, answering my calls. 
 
 I was greatly interested in my new acquaint- 
 ance, and the next day I renewed my advances. 
 As before, he answered, looking bright and 
 eager, as I had never seen one of his kind look, 
 and after three or four replies he became uneasy, 
 as on the previous day, and in a moment he flew. 
 But I was surprised and startled by his starting 
 straight for me. I thought he would certainly 
 alight on me, and such, I firmly believe, was his 
 inclination, but he apparently did not quite dare 
 trust me, so he passed over by a very few inches, 
 and perched on the tree I was under. Then 
 still replying to me he flew to the ground not 
 six feet from me, and step by step, slowly moved
 
 COAXING A BABY DOVE. 203 
 
 away perhaps fifteen feet, when he turned and 
 flew back to his own tree beside me. I was 
 pleased to notice that the voice of this talkative 
 dovekin was of the same quality as the " whis- 
 tling " said to be of the wings, when a dove flies. 
 The last interview I had with the dear baby, 
 I found him sitting with his back toward me, 
 but the instant I whistled he turned around to 
 face me, and seated himself again. He replied 
 to me, and fluttered his wings slightly, yet he 
 soon became restless, as usual. He did not fly, 
 however, and he answered louder than he had 
 done previously, but I found that my call must 
 be just right to elicit a response. I might 
 whistle all day and he would pay no attention, 
 till I uttered a two-note call, the second note a 
 third above the first and the two slurred together. 
 I was delighted to find that even a dove, and a 
 baby at that, could " talk back." He was unique 
 in other ways ; for example, in being content to 
 pass his days in, and around, his own tree. I do 
 not believe he had ever been farther than a 
 small group of cedars, ten feet from his own. I 
 always found him there, though he could fly per- 
 fectly well. This interview was, I regret to say, 
 the last ; the next morning my little friend was 
 nowhere to be seen. Perhaps mamma thought 
 he was getting too friendly with one of a race 
 capable of eating a baby dove.
 
 204 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 
 
 After this episode in my dove acquaintance, I 
 was more than ever interested in getting at tne 
 mode of expression in the family, and I listened 
 on every occasion. One day two doves alighted 
 over my head when I was sitting perfectly still, 
 and I distinctly heard very low talk, like that of 
 my lost baby ; there was, in addition, a note or 
 two like the coo, but exceedingly low. I could 
 not have heard a sound ten feet from the tree, 
 nor if I had been stirring myself. I observed 
 also that a dove can fly in perfect silence ; and, 
 moreover, that the whistle of the wings some- 
 times continues after the bird has become still. 
 I heard the regular coo the whole four-note 
 performance both in a whisper and in the 
 ordinary tone, and the latter, though right over 
 my head, sounded a mile away. At the end of 
 my month's study I was convinced that the dove 
 is far from being a silent bird ; on the contrary, 
 he is quite a talker, with the " low, sweet voice " 
 so much desired in other quarters. And further, 
 that the whistling is not produced wholly (if at 
 all) by the wings, and it is a gross injustice to 
 assert that he is not capable of expressing him- 
 self at all times and seasons.
 
 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE.
 
 Up ! If thou knew'st who calls 
 
 To twilight parks of beach and pine 
 
 High o'er the river intervals, 
 
 Above the plowman's highest line, 
 
 Over the owner's farthest walls ! 
 
 Up ! where the airy citadel 
 
 O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell !
 
 XVIII. 
 
 IN A PASTURE. 
 
 THE word " pasture," as used on the shore of 
 the Great Salt Lake, conveys no true idea to one 
 whose associations with that word have been 
 formed in States east of the Eocky Mountains. 
 Imagine an extensive inclosure on the side of a 
 mountain, with its barren - looking soil strewn 
 with rocks of all sizes, from a pebble to a 
 bowlder, cut across by an irrigating ditch or 
 a mountain brook, dotted here and there by sage 
 bushes, and patches of oak-brush, and wild roses, 
 and one has a picture of a Salt Lake pasture. 
 Closely examined, it has other peculiarities. 
 There is no half way in its growths, no shading 
 off, so to speak, as elsewhere ; not an isolated 
 shrub, not a solitary tree, flourishes in the strange 
 soil, but trees and shrubs crowd together as if 
 for protection, and the clump, of whatever size 
 or shape, ends abruptly, with the desert coming 
 up to its very edge. Yet the soil, though it 
 seems to be the driest and most unpromising of 
 baked gray mud, needs nothing more than a lit-
 
 208 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 tie water, to clothe itself luxuriantly ; the course 
 of a brook or even an irrigating ditch, if perma- 
 nent, is marked by a thick and varied border of 
 greenery. What the poor creatures who wan- 
 dered over those dreary wastes could find to eat 
 was a problem to be solved only by close obser- 
 vation of their ways. 
 
 "H. H." said some years ago that the mag- 
 nificent yucca, the glory of the Colorado mesas, 
 was being exterminated by wandering cows, who 
 ate the buds as soon as they appeared. The cat- 
 tle of Utah or their owners have a like 
 crime to answer for ; not only do they constantly 
 feed upon rose-buds and leaves, notwithstanding 
 the thorns, but they regale themselves upon 
 nearly every flower-plant that shows its head ; 
 lupines were the chosen dainty of my friend's 
 horse. The animals become expert at getting 
 this unnatural food ; it is curious to watch the 
 deftness with which a cow will go through a cur- 
 rant or gooseberry bush, thrusting her head far 
 down among the branches, and carefully picking 
 off the tender leaves, while leaving the stems 
 untouched, and the matter-of-course way in which 
 she will bend over and pull down a tall sapling, 
 to despoil it of its foliage. 
 
 In a pasture such as I have described, on the 
 western slope of one of the Rocky Mountains, 
 desolate and forbidding though it looked, many
 
 AN ECCENTRIC COSTUME. 209 
 
 hours of last summer's May and June "went 
 their way," if not 
 
 '' As softly as sweet dreams go down the night," 
 
 certainly with interest and pleasure to two bird- 
 students whose ways I have sometimes chroni- 
 cled. 
 
 Most conspicuous, as we toiled upward toward 
 our breezy pasture, was a bird whose chosen 
 station was a fence a wire fence at that. He 
 was a tanager ; not our brilliant beauty in scarlet 
 and black, but one far more gorgeous and eccen- 
 tric in costume, having, with the black wings and 
 tail of our bird, a breast of shining yellow and 
 a cap of crimson. His occupation on the sweet 
 May mornings that he lingered with us, on his 
 way up the mountains for the summer, was the 
 familiar one of getting his living, and to that he 
 gave his mind without reserve. Not once did 
 he turn curious eyes upon us as we sauntered 
 by or rested awhile to watch him. Eagerly his 
 pretty head turned this way and that, but not 
 for us ; it was for the winged creatures of the 
 air he looked, and when one that pleased his 
 fancy fluttered by he dashed out and secured it, 
 returning to a post or the fence just as absorbed 
 and just as eager for the next one. Every time 
 he alighted it was a few feet farther down the 
 fence, and thus he worked his way out of our 
 sight, without seeming aware of our existence.
 
 210 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 This was not stupidity on the part of the crim- 
 son-head, nor was it foolhardiness ; it was simply 
 trust in his guardian, for he had one, one who 
 watched every movement of ours with close at- 
 tention, whose vigilance was never relaxed, and 
 who appeared, when we saw her, to be above the 
 need of food. A plain personage she was, clad in 
 modest, dull yellow, the female tanager. She 
 was probably his mate ; at any rate, she gradu- 
 ally followed him down the fence, keeping fifteen 
 or twenty feet behind him, all the time with an 
 eye on us, ready to give warning of the slightest 
 aggressive movement on our part. It would be 
 interesting to know how my lord behaves up in 
 those sky-parlors where their summer homes are 
 made. No doubt he is as tender and devoted 
 as most of his race (all his race, I would say, 
 if Mr. Torrey had not shaken our faith in the 
 ruby-throat), and I have no doubt that the little 
 red-heads in the nest will be well looked after 
 and fed by their fly-catching papa. 
 
 Far different from the cool unconcern of the 
 crimson-headed tanager were the manners of an- 
 other red-headed dweller on the mountain. The 
 green-tailed towhee he is called in the books, 
 though the red of his head is much more con- 
 spicuous than the green of his tail. In this 
 bird the high-bred repose of his neighbor was 
 replaced by the most fussy restlessness. When
 
 STRANGE WAYS OF GULLS. 211 
 
 we surprised him on the lowest wire of the 
 fence, he was terribly disconcerted, not to say 
 thrown into a panic. He usually stood a mo- 
 ment, holding his long tail up in the air, flirted 
 his wings, turned his body this way and that in 
 great excitement, then hopped to the nearest 
 bowlder, slipped down behind it, and ran off 
 through the sage bushes like a mouse. More 
 than this we were never able to see, and where 
 he lived and how his spouse looked we do not 
 know to this day. 
 
 Most interesting of the birds that we saw on 
 our daily way to the pasture were the gulls ; 
 great, beautiful, snowy creatures, who looked 
 strangely out of place so far away from the sea- 
 shore. Stranger, too, than their change of resi- 
 dence was their change of manners from the 
 wild, unapproachable sea-birds, soaring and div- 
 ing, and apparently spending their lives on wings 
 such as the poet sings, 
 
 " When I had wings, my brother, 
 
 Such wings were mine as thine ; " 
 
 and of whose lives he further says, 
 
 " What place man may, we claim it, 
 But thine, whose thought may name it ? 
 Free birds live higher than freemen, 
 And gladlier ye than we." 
 
 From this high place in our thoughts, from this 
 realm of poetry and mystery, to come down al-
 
 212 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 most to the tameness of the barnyard fowl is a 
 marvelous transformation, and one is tempted to 
 believe the solemn announcement of the Salt 
 Lake prophet, that the Lord sent them to his 
 chosen people. 
 
 The occasion of this alleged special favor to 
 the Latter Day Saints was the advent, about 
 twenty years ago, of clouds of grasshoppers, be- 
 fore which the crops of the Western States and 
 Territories were destroyed as by fire. It was 
 then, in their hour of greatest need, when the 
 food upon which depended a whole people was 
 threatened, that these beautiful winged messen- 
 gers appeared. In large flocks they came, from 
 no one knows where, and settled, like so many 
 sparrows, all over the land, devouring almost 
 without ceasing the hosts of the foe. The crops 
 were saved, and all Deseret rejoiced. Was it 
 any wonder that a people trained to regard the 
 head of their church as the direct representative 
 of the Highest should believe these to be really 
 birds of God, and should accordingly cherish 
 them ? Well would it be for themselves if other 
 Christian peoples were equally believing, and 
 protected and cherished other winged messen- 
 gers, sent just as truly to protect their crops. 
 
 The shrewd man who wielded the destinies 
 of his people beside the Salt Lake secured the 
 future usefulness of what they considered the
 
 THE GULL TRANSFORMED. 213 
 
 miraculous visitation by fixing a penalty of five 
 dollars upon the head of every gull in the Terri- 
 tory. And now, the birds having found con- 
 genial nesting-places on solitary islands in the 
 lake, their descendants are so fearless and so 
 tame that they habitually follow the plow like 
 a flock of chickens, rising from almost under the 
 feet of the indifferent horses and settling down 
 at once in the furrow behind, seeking out and eat- 
 ing greedily all the worms and grubs and larvae 
 and mice and moles that the plow has disturbed 
 in its passage. The Mormon cultivator has 
 sense enough to appreciate such service, and no 
 man or boy dreams of lifting a finger against 
 his best friend. 
 
 Extraordinary indeed was this sight to eyes 
 accustomed to seeing every bird who attempts to 
 render like service shot and snared and swept 
 from the face of the earth. Our hearts warmed 
 toward the " Sons of Zion," and our respect for 
 their intelligence increased, as we hurried down 
 to the field to see this latter-day wonder. 
 
 Whether the birds distinguished between 
 " saints " and sinners, or whether their confi- 
 dence extended only to plow-boys, they would 
 not let us come near them. But our glasses 
 brought them close, and we had a very good 
 study of them, finding exceeding interest in their 
 ways : their quaint faces as they flew toward
 
 214 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 us ; their dignified walk ; their expression of dis- 
 approval, lifting the wings high above the back 
 till they met ; their queer and constant cries in 
 the tone of a child who whines ; and, above all, 
 their use of the wonderful wings, " half wing, 
 half wave," Mrs. Spofford calls them. 
 
 To rise from the earth upon these beautiful 
 great arms, seemed to be not so easy as it looks. 
 Some of the graceful birds lifted them, and ran 
 a little before leaving the ground, and all of 
 them left both legs hanging, and both feet jerk- 
 ing awkwardly at every wing-beat, for a few mo- 
 ments on starting, before they carefully drew 
 each flesh-colored foot up into its feather pillow, 
 
 ' ' And gray and silver up the dome 
 
 Of gray and silver skies went sailing," 
 
 in ever - widening circles, without moving a 
 feather that we could perceive. It was charm- 
 ing to see how nicely they folded down their 
 splendid wings on alighting, stretching each one 
 out, and apparently straightening every feather 
 before laying it into its place. 
 
 Several hours this interesting flock accom- 
 panied the horses and man around the field, tak- 
 . ing possession of each furrow as it was laid open, 
 and chattering and eating as fast as they could ; 
 and the question occurred to me, if a field that is 
 thoroughly gleaned over every spring furnishes 
 so great a supply of creatures hurtful to vegeta-
 
 BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY. 215 
 
 tion, what must be the state of grounds which 
 are carefully protected from such gleaning, on 
 which no bird is allowed to forage? 
 
 & 
 
 As noon approached, the hour when " birds 
 their wise siesta take," although the plow did 
 not cease its monotonous round, the birds retired 
 in a body to the still untouched middle of the 
 field, and settled themselves for their "noon- 
 ing," dusting themselves their snowy plumes ! 
 like hens on an ash heap, sitting about in 
 knots like parties of ducks, preening and shak- 
 ing themselves out, or going at once to sleep, ac- 
 cording to their several tastes. Half an hour's 
 rest sufficed for the more active spirits, and 
 then they treated us, their patient observers, to 
 an aerial exhibition. A large number, perhaps 
 three quarters of the flock, rose in a body and 
 began a spiral flight. Higher and higher they 
 went, in wider and wider circles, till, against 
 the white clouds, they looked like a swarm of 
 midges, and against the blue the eye could not 
 distinguish them. Then from out of the sky 
 dropped one after another, leaving the soaring 
 flock looking wonderfully ethereal and gauzy in 
 the clear air, with the sun above him, almost 
 like a spirit bird gliding motionless through the 
 ether till he alighted at last quietly beside his fel- 
 lows on the ground. In another half hour they 
 were all behind the plow again, hard at work.
 
 216 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 When we had looked our fill, we straightway 
 sought out and questioned some of the wise men 
 among the " peculiar people." This is what we 
 learned : that when plowing is over the birds 
 retire to their home, an island in the lake, 
 where, being eminently social birds, their nests 
 are built in a community. Their beneficent ser- 
 vice to mankind does not end with the plowing 
 season, for when that is over they turn their at- 
 tention to the fish that are brought into the lake 
 by the fresh-water streams, at once strangled by 
 its excess of salt, and their bodies washed up on 
 the shore. What would become of the human 
 residents if that animal deposit were left for 
 the fierce sun to dispose of, may perhaps be im- 
 agined. The gull should, indeed, be a sacred 
 bird in Utah. 
 
 What drew us first to the pasture which we 
 came to at last was our search for a magpie's 
 nest. The home of this knowing fellow is the 
 Rocky Mountain region, and, naturally, he was 
 the first bird we thought of looking for. There 
 would be no difficulty in finding nests, we 
 thought, for we came upon magpies everywhere 
 in our walks. Now one alighted on a fence-post 
 a few yards ahead of us, earnestly regarding our 
 approach, tilting upward his long, expressive 
 tail, the black of his plumage shining with bril- 
 liant blue reflections, and the white fairly daz-
 
 A MAGPIE'S NEST. 217 
 
 zling the eyes. Again we caught glimpses of 
 two or three of the beautiful birds walking 
 about on the ground, holding their precious tails 
 well up from the earth, and gleaning indus- 
 triously the insect life of the horse pasture. At 
 one moment we were saluted from the top of a 
 tall tree, or shrieked at by one passing over our 
 heads, looking like an immense dragonfly against 
 the sky. Magpie voices were heard from morn- 
 ing till night ; strange, loud calls of " mag ! 
 mag ! " were ever in our ears. " Oh, yes," we 
 had said, " we must surely go out some morning 
 and find a nest." 
 
 First we inquired. Everybody knew where 
 they built, in oak-brush or in apple-trees, but 
 not a boy in that village knew where there was 
 a nest. Oh, no, not one ! A man. confessed to 
 the guilty secret, and, directed by him, we took 
 a long walk through the village with its queer 
 little houses, many of them having the two front 
 doors which tell the tale of Mormondom within ; 
 up the long sidewalk, with a beautiful bounding 
 mountain brook running down the gutter, as if 
 it were a tame irrigating ditch, to a big gate in 
 a " combination fence." What this latter might 
 be we had wondered, but relied upon knowing 
 it when we saw it, and we did : it was a fence 
 of laths held together by wires woven between 
 them, and we recognized the fitness of the name
 
 218 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 instantly. Then on through the big gate, down 
 a long lane, where we ran the gauntlet of the 
 family cows ; over or under bars, where awaited 
 us a tribe of colts with their anxious mammas ; 
 and at last to the tree and the nest. There our 
 guide met us and climbed up to explore. Alas ! 
 the nest robber had anticipated us. 
 
 Slowly we took our way home, resolved to ask 
 no more help, but to seek for ourselves, for the 
 nest that is known is the nest that is robbed. 
 So the next morning, armed with camp-chairs 
 and alpenstocks, drinking-cups and notebooks, 
 we started up the mountain, where we could at 
 least find solitude, and the fresh air of the hills. 
 We climbed till we were tired, and then, as was 
 our custom, sat down to rest and breathe, and 
 see who lived in that part of the world. With- 
 out thought of the height we had reached, we 
 turned our backs to the mountain, rising bare 
 and steep before us, and behold ! the outlook 
 struck us dumb. 
 
 There at our feet lay the village, smothered in 
 orchards and shade-trees, the locusts, just then 
 huge bouquets of graceful bloom and delicious 
 odor, buzzing with hundreds of bees and hum- 
 ming-birds ; beyond was a stretch of cultivated 
 fields in various shades of green and brown ; 
 and then the lake, beautiful and wonderful 
 Salt Lake, glowing with exquisite colors, now
 
 BEAUTIFUL SALT LAKE. 219 
 
 hyacinth blue, changing in places to tender 
 green or golden brown, again sparkling like a 
 vast bed of diamonds. In the foreground lay 
 Antelope Island, in hues of purple and bronze, 
 with its chain of hills and graceful sky-line ; 
 and resting on the horizon beyond were the 
 peaks of the grand Oquirrhs, capped with snow. 
 Well might we forget our quest while gazing 
 on this .impressive scene, trying to fix its various 
 features in our memories, to be an eternal pos- 
 session. 
 
 We were recalled to the business in hand by 
 the sudden appearance on the top of a tree be- 
 low us of one of the birds we sought. The 
 branch bent and swayed as the heavy fellow 
 settled upon it, and in a moment a comrade 
 came, calling vigorously, and alighted on a 
 neighboring branch. A few minutes they re- 
 mained, with flirting tails, conversing in garru- 
 lous tones, then together they rose on broad 
 wings, and passed away away over the fields, 
 almost out of sight, before they dropped into a 
 patch of oak-brush. After them appeared others, 
 and we sat there a long time, hoping to see at 
 least one that had its home within our reach. 
 But every bird that passed over turned its face 
 to the mountains ; some seemed to head for the 
 dim Oquirrhs across the lake, while others dis- 
 appeared over the top of the Wasateh behind
 
 220 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 us ; not one paused in our neighborhood, except- 
 ing long enough to look at us, and express its 
 opinion in loud and not very polite tones. 
 
 It was then and there that we noticed our 
 pasture ; the entrance was beside us. Shall we 
 go in ? was always the question before an in- 
 closure. We looked over the wall. It was 
 plainly the abode of horses, meek workaday be- 
 ings, who certainly would not resent our intru- 
 sion. Oak-brush was there in plenty, and that 
 is the chosen home of the magpie. We hesi- 
 tated ; we started for the gate. It was held in 
 place by a rope elaborately and securely tied in 
 many knots ; but we had learned something 
 about the gates of this " promised land," that 
 between the posts and the stone wall may usu- 
 ally be found space enough to slip through 
 without disturbing the fastenings. 
 
 In that country no one goes through a gate 
 who can possibly go around it, and well is it 
 indeed for the stranger and the wayfarer in 
 " Zion " that such is the custom, for the idiosyn- 
 crasies of gates were endless ; they agreed only in 
 never fitting their place and never opening prop- 
 erly. If the gate was in one piece, it sagged so 
 that it must be lifted ; or it had lost one hinge, 
 and fell over on the rash individual who loos- 
 ened the fastenings ; or it was about falling to 
 pieces, and must be handled like a piece of
 
 IDIOSYNCEASIES OF GATES. 221 
 
 choice bric-a-brac. If it had a latch, it was 
 rusty or did not fit ; and if it had not, it was 
 fastened, either by a board slipped in to act as a 
 bar and never known to be of proper size, or in 
 some occult way which would require the skill of 
 " the lady from Philadelphia " to undo. If it 
 was of the fashion that opens in the middle, each 
 individual gate had its particular "kink," which 
 must be learned by the uninitiated before he 
 or, what is worse, she could pass. Many were 
 held together by a hoop or link of iron, dropped 
 over the two end posts ; but whether the gate 
 must be pulled out or pushed in, and at exactly 
 what angle it would consent to receive the link, 
 was to be found out only by experience. 
 
 But not all gates were so simple even as this : 
 the ingenuity with which a variety of fastenings, 
 all to avoid the natural and obvious one of a 
 hook and staple, had been evolved in the 
 rural mind was fairly startling. The energy and 
 thought that had been bestowed upon this little 
 matter of avoiding a gate-hook would have built 
 a bridge across Salt Lake, or tunneled the Uin- 
 tas for an irrigating ditch. 
 
 Happily, we too had learned to " slip through," 
 and we passed the gate with its rope puzzle, and 
 the six or eight horses who pointed inquiring 
 ears toward their unwonted visitors, and has- 
 tened to get under cover before the birds, if any 
 lived there, should come home.
 
 222 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 The oak-brash, -which we then approached, is 
 a curious and interesting form of vegetation. It 
 is a mass of oak-trees, all of the same age, grow- 
 ing as close as they can stand, with branches 
 down to the ground. It looks as if each patch 
 had sprung from a great fall of acorns from one 
 tree, or perhaps were shoots from the roots of a 
 perished tree. The clumps are more or less 
 irregularly round, set down in a barren piece of 
 ground, or among the sage bushes. At a dis- 
 tance, on the side of a mountain, they resemble 
 patches of moss of varying shape. When two 
 or three feet high, one is a thick, solid mat ; 
 when it reaches an altitude of six to eight feet, 
 it is an impenetrable thicket ; except, that is, 
 when it happens to be in a pasture. Horses 
 and cattle find such scanty pickings in the fields, 
 that they nibble every green thing, even oak 
 leaves, and so they clear the brush as high as 
 they can reach. When therefore it is fifteen 
 feet high, there is a thick roof the animals are 
 not able to reach, and one may look through a 
 patch to the light beyond. The stems and lower 
 branches, though kept bare of leaves, are so 
 close together and so intertwined and tangled, 
 that forcing one's way through it is an impos- 
 sibility. But the horses have made and kept 
 open paths in every direction, and this turns it 
 into a delightful grove, a cool retreat, which 
 others appreciate as well as the makers.
 
 A WISE AND CANNY BIRD. 223 
 
 Selecting a favorable-looking clump of oak- 
 brush, we attempted to get in without using the 
 open horse paths, where we should be in plain 
 sight. Melancholy was the result ; hats pulled 
 off, hair disheveled, garments torn, feet tripped, 
 and wounds and scratches innumerable. Sev- 
 eral minutes of hard work and stubborn endur- 
 ance enabled us to penetrate not more than half 
 a dozen feet, when we managed, in some sort of 
 fashion, to sit down, on opposite sides of the 
 grove. Then, relying upon our " protective 
 coloring" (not evolved, but carefully selected 
 in the shops), we subsided into silence, hoping 
 not to be observed when the birds came home, 
 for there was the nest before us. 
 
 A wise and canny builder is Madam Mag, for 
 though her home must be large to accommodate 
 her size, and conspicuous because of the shallow- 
 ness of the foliage above her, it is, in a way, a 
 fortress, to despoil which the marauder must en- 
 counter a weapon not to be despised, a stout 
 beak, animated and impelled by indignant moth- 
 erhood. The structure was made of sticks, and 
 enormous in size ; a half -bushel measure would 
 hardly hold it. It was covered, as if to protect 
 her, and it had two openings under the cover, 
 toward either of which she could turn her face. 
 It looked like a big, coarsely woven basket 
 resting in a crotch up under the leaves, with a
 
 224 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 nearly close cover supported by a small branch 
 above. The sitting bird could draw herself 
 down out of sight, or she could defend herself 
 and her brood, at either entrance. 
 
 In my retreat, I had noted all these points 
 before any sign of life appeared in the brush. 
 Then there came a low cry of " mag ! mag ! " 
 and the bird entered near the ground. She 
 alighted on a dead branch, which swung back 
 and forth, while she kept her balance with her 
 beautiful tail. She did not appear to look 
 around ; apparently she had no suspicions and 
 did not notice us, sitting motionless and breath- 
 less in our respective places. Her head was 
 turned to the nest, and by easy stages and with 
 many pauses, she made her way to it. I could 
 not see that she had a companion, for I dared 
 not stir so much as a finger; but while she 
 moved about near the nest there came to the 
 eager listeners on the ground low and tender 
 utterances in the sweetest of voices, whether 
 one or two I know not, and at last a song, a 
 true melody, of a yearning, thrilling quality 
 that few song-birds, if any, can excel. I was as- 
 tounded ! Who would suspect the harsh- voiced, 
 screaming magpie of such notes ! I am certain 
 that the bird or birds had no suspicion of listen- 
 ers to the home talk and song, for after we were 
 discovered, we heard nothing of the sort.
 
 SHE DISCOVERED ME. 225 
 
 This little episode ended, madam slipped into 
 her nest, and all became silent, she in her place 
 and I in mine. If this state of things could 
 only remain ; if she would only accept me as a 
 tree-trunk or a misshapen bowlder, and pay no 
 attention to me. what a beautiful study I should 
 have ! Half an hour, perhaps more, passed 
 without a sound, and then the silence was broken 
 by magpie calls from without. The sitting bird 
 left the nest and flew out of the grove, quite 
 near the ground ; I heard much talk and chatter 
 in low tones outside, and they flew. I slipped 
 out as quickly as possible, wishing indeed that I 
 had wings as she had, and went home, encour- 
 aged to think I should really be able to study 
 the magpie. 
 
 But I did not know my bird. The next day, 
 before I knew she was about, she discovered 
 me, though it was plain that she hoped I had 
 not discovered her. Instantly she became silent 
 and wary, coming to her nest over the top of 
 the trees, so quietly that I should not have 
 known it except for her shadow on the leaves. 
 No talk or song now fell upon my ear ; calls 
 outside were few and subdued. Everything was 
 different from the natural unconsciousness of 
 the previous day ; the birds were on guard, and 
 henceforth I should be under surveillance. 
 
 From this moment I lost my pleasure in the
 
 226 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 study, for I feel little interest in the actions of 
 a bird under the constraint of an unwelcome 
 presence, or in the shadow of constant fear and 
 dread. What I care to see is the natural life, 
 the free, unstudied ways of birds who do not 
 notice or are not disturbed by spectators. Nor 
 have I any pleasure in going about the country 
 staring into every tree, and poking into every 
 bush, thrusting irreverent hands into the myste- 
 ries of other lives, and rudely tearing away the 
 veils that others have drawn around their pri- 
 vate affairs. That they are only birds does not 
 signify to me ; for me they are fellow-creatures ; 
 they have rights, which I am bound to respect. 
 
 I prefer to make myself so little obvious, or 
 so apparently harmless to a bird, that she will 
 herself show me her nest, or at least the leafy 
 screen behind which it is hidden. Then, if I 
 take advantage of her absence to spy upon her 
 treasures, it is as a friend only, a friend who 
 respects her desire for seclusion, who never lays 
 profane hands upon them, and who shares the 
 secret only with one equally reverent and lov- 
 ing. Naturally I do not find so many nests as 
 do the vandals to whom nothing is sacred, but 
 I enjoy what I do find, in a way it hath not 
 entered into their hearts to conceive. 
 
 In spite of my disinclination, we made one 
 more call upon the magpie family, and this time
 
 A MAGPIE EECEPTION. 227 
 
 we had a reception. This bird is intelligent 
 and by no means a slave to habit ; because he 
 has behaved in a certain way once, there is no 
 law, avian or divine, that compels him to repeat 
 that conduct on the next occasion. Nor is it 
 safe to generalize about him, or any other bird 
 for that matter. One cannot say, " The magpie 
 does thus and so," because each individual mag- 
 pie has his own way of doing, and circumstances 
 alter cases, with birds as well as with people. 
 
 On this occasion we placed ourselves boldly, 
 though very quietly, in the paths that run 
 through the oak-brush. We had abandoned all 
 attempt at concealment ; we could hope only for 
 tolerance. The birds readily understood ; they 
 appreciated that they were seen and watched, 
 and their manners changed accordingly. The 
 first one of the black-and-white gentry who 
 entered the grove discovered my comrade, and 
 announced the presence of the enemy by a loud 
 cry, in what somebody has aptly called a " fron- 
 tier tone of voice." Instantly another appeared 
 and added his remarks ; then another, and still 
 another, till within five minutes there were ten 
 or twelve excited magpies, shouting at the top of 
 their voices, and hopping and flying about her 
 head, coming ever nearer and nearer, as if they 
 meditated a personal attack. I did not really 
 fear it, but I kept close watch, while remain-
 
 228 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 ing motionless, in the hope that they would 
 not notice me. Vain hope ! nothing could es- 
 cape those sharp eyes when once the bird was 
 aroused. After they had said what they chose 
 to my friend, who received the taunts and abuse 
 of the infuriated mob in meek silence, lifting 
 not her voice to reply, they turned the stream of 
 their eloquence upon me. 
 
 I was equally passive, for indeed I felt that 
 they had a grievance. We have no right to 
 expect birds to tell one human being from 
 another, so long as we, with all our boasted in- 
 telligence, cannot tell one crow or one magpie 
 from another ; and all the week they had suffered 
 persecution at the hands of the village boys. 
 Young magpies, nestlings, were in nearly every 
 house, and the birds had endured pillage, and 
 doubtless some of them death. I did not blame 
 the grieved parents for the reception they gave 
 us; from their point of view we belonged to 
 the enemy. 
 
 After the storm had swept by, and while we 
 sat there waiting to see if the birds would re- 
 turn, one of the horses of the pasture made his 
 appearance on the side where I sat, now eating 
 the top of a rosebush, now snipping off a flower 
 plant that had succeeded in getting two leaves 
 above the ground, but at every step coming 
 nearer me. It was plain that he contemplated
 
 A MINIATURE PARADISE. 229 
 
 retiring to this shady grove, and, not so observ- 
 ing as the magpies, did not see that it was al- 
 ready occupied. When he was not more than 
 ten feet away, I snatched off my sun hat and 
 waved it before him, not wishing to make a 
 noise. He stopped instantly, stared wildly for 
 a moment, as if he had never seen such an 
 apparition, then wheeled with a snort, flung out 
 his heels in disrespect, and galloped off down 
 the field. 
 
 The incident was insignificant, but the result 
 was curious. So long as we stayed in that bit 
 of brush, not a horse attempted to enter, though 
 they all browsed around outside. They avoided 
 it as if it were haunted, or, as my comrade 
 said, " filled with beckoning forms." Nor was 
 that all ; I have reason to think they never 
 again entered that particular patch of brush, for, 
 some weeks after we had abandoned the study 
 of magpies and the pasture altogether, we found 
 the spot transformed, as if by the wand of en- 
 chantment. From the burned-up desert outside 
 we stepped at once into a miniature paradise, 
 to our surprise, almost our consternation. Ex- 
 cepting the footpaths through' it, it bore no 
 appearance of having ever been a thoroughfare. 
 Around the foot of every tree had grown up 
 clumps of ferns or brakes, a yard high, luxu- 
 riant, graceful, and exquisite in form and color ;
 
 230 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 and peeping out from under them were flowers, 
 dainty wildings we had not before seen there. 
 A bit of the tropics or a gem out of fairyland 
 it looked to our sun and sand weary eyes. Out- 
 side were the burning sun of June, a withering 
 hot wind, and yellow and dead vegetation; 
 within was cool greenness and a mere rustle of 
 leaves whispering of the gale. It was the love- 
 liest bit of greenery we saw on the shores of 
 the Great Salt Lake. It was marvelous ; it was 
 almost uncanny. 
 
 Our daily trips to the pasture had ceased, 
 and other birds and other nests had occupied 
 our thoughts for a week or two, when we re- 
 solved to pay a last visit to our old haunts, to 
 see if we could learn anything of the magpies. 
 We went through the pasture, led by the voices 
 of the birds away over to the farther side, and 
 there, across another fenced pasture, we heard 
 them plainly, calling and chattering and making 
 much noise, but in different tones from any we 
 had heard before. Evidently a magpie nursery 
 had been established over there. We fancied 
 we could distinguish maternal reproof and lov- 
 ing baby talk, beside the weaker voices of the 
 young, and we went home rejoicing to believe, 
 that in spite of nest robbers, and the fright we 
 had given them, some young magpies were grow- 
 ing up to enliven the world another summer.
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WILD ROSE PATH. 
 
 "Shall I call thee Bird, 
 Or but a wandering Voice ? " 
 
 WORDSWORTH'S lines are addressed to the 
 cuckoo of the Old World, a bird of unenviable 
 reputation, notorious for imposing his most 
 sacred duties upon others ; naturally, therefore, 
 one who would not court observation, and whose 
 ways would be somewhat mysterious. But the 
 American representative of the family is a bird 
 of different manners. Unlike his namesake 
 across the water, our cuckoo never or so 
 rarely as practically to be never shirks the 
 labor of nest-building and raising a family. He 
 has no reason to skulk, and though always a shy 
 bird, he is no more so than several others, and 
 in no sense is he a mystery. 
 
 There is, however, one American bird for 
 whom Wordsworth's verse might have been 
 written ; one whose chief aim seems to be, re- 
 versing our grandmothers' rule for little people, 
 to be heard, and not seen. To be seen is, with
 
 232 BESIDE THE GEEAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 this peculiar fellow, a misfortune, an accident, 
 which he avoids with great care, while his voice 
 rings out loud and clear above all others in the 
 shrubbery. I refer to the yellow-breasted chat 
 (Icteria virens), whose summer home is the 
 warmer temperate regions of our country, from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and whose 
 unbirdlike utterances prepare one to believe the 
 stories told of his eccentric actions ; this, for 
 example, by Dr. Abbott : 
 
 " Aloft in the sunny air he springs ; 
 
 To his timid mate he calls ; 
 With dangling legs and fluttering wings 
 On the tangled smilax falls ; 
 He mutters, he shrieks 
 
 A hopeless cry ; 
 You think that he seeks 
 
 In peace to die, 
 
 But pity him not ; 't is the ghostly chat, 
 An imp if there is one, he sure of that." 
 
 I first knew the chat if one may be said to 
 know a creature so shy in a spot I have else- 
 where described, a deserted park at the foot 
 of Cheyenne Mountain. I became familiar 
 with his various calls and cries (one can hardly 
 call them songs) ; I secured one or two fleeting 
 glimpses of his graceful form ; I sought and 
 discovered the nest, which thereupon my Lady 
 Chat promptly abandoned, though I had not 
 laid a finger upon it ; and last of all, I had tho
 
 " THE GHOSTLY CHAT." 233 
 
 sorrow and shame of knowing that my curiosity 
 had driven the pair from the neighborhood. 
 This was the Western form of Icteria, differing 
 from the Eastern only in a greater length of 
 tail, which several of our Rocky Mountain birds 
 affect, for the purpose, apparently, of puzzling 
 the ornithologist. 
 
 Two years after my unsuccessful attempt to 
 cultivate friendly relations with "the ghostly 
 chat," the middle of May found me on the shore 
 of the Great Salt Lake, where I settled myself 
 at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, at that 
 point bare, gray, and unattractive, showing miles 
 of loose bowlders and great patches of sage-bush. 
 In the monotonous stretches of this shrub, each 
 plant of which looks exactly like every other, 
 dwelt many shy birds, as well hidden as bobo- 
 links in the meadow grass, or meadow-larks in 
 the alfalfa. 
 
 But on this mountain side no friendly cover 
 existed from which I could spy out bird secrets. 
 Whatever my position, and wherever I placed 
 myself, I was as conspicuous as a tower in the 
 middle of a plain ; again, no shadow of protec- 
 tion was there from the too ardent sun of Utah, 
 which drew the vitality from my frame as it did 
 the color from my gown ; worse than these, the 
 everywhere present rocks were the chosen haunts 
 of the one enemy of a peaceful bird lover, the
 
 234 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 rattlesnake, and I hesitated to pursue the bird, 
 because I invariably forgot to watch and listen 
 for the reptile. Bird study under these con- 
 ditions was impossible, but the place presented 
 a phase of nature unfamiliar to me, and for a 
 time so fascinating that every morning my steps 
 turned of themselves " up the stony pathway to 
 the hills." 
 
 The companion of my walks, a fellow bird- 
 student, was more than fascinated ; she was en- 
 raptured. The odorous bush had associations 
 for her ; she reveled in it ; she inhaled its fra- 
 grance as a delicious perfume ; she filled her 
 pockets with it ; she lay for hours at a time on 
 the ground, where she could bask in the sun- 
 shine, and see nothing but the gray leaves around 
 her and the blue sky above. 
 
 I can hardly tell what was the fascination for 
 me. It was certainly not the view of the moun- 
 tains, though mountains are beyond words in my 
 affections. The truth is, the Rocky Mountains, 
 many of them, need a certain distance to make 
 them either picturesque or dignified. The range 
 then daily before our eyes, the Wasatch, was, 
 to dwellers at its feet, bleak, monotonous, and 
 hopelessly prosaic. The lowest foothills, being 
 near, hid the taller peaks, as a penny before the 
 eye will hide a whole landscape. 
 
 Let me not, however, be unjust to the moun-
 
 A WONDERFUL PICTURE. 235 
 
 tains I love. There is a range which satisfies 
 my soul, and will rest in my memory forever, a 
 beautiful picture, or rather a whole gallery of 
 pictures. I can shut my eyes and see it at this 
 moment, as I have seen it a thousand times. 
 In the early morning, when the level sun shines 
 on its face, it is like one continuous mountain 
 reaching across the whole western horizon ; it 
 has a broken and beautiful sky line; Pike's 
 Peak looms up toward the middle, and lovely 
 Cheyenne ends it in graceful slope on the south ; 
 lights and shadows play over it ; its colors 
 change with the changing sky or atmosphere, 
 sometimes blue as the heavens, sometimes misty 
 as a dream ; it is wonderfully beautiful then. 
 But wait till the sun gets higher ; look again at 
 noon, or a little later. Behold the whole range 
 has sprung into life, separated into individuals ; 
 gorges are cut where none had appeared ; chasms 
 come to light ; canons and all sorts of di visions 
 are seen ; foothills move forward to their proper 
 places, and taller peaks turn at angles to each 
 other ; shapes and colors that one never sus- 
 pected come out in the picture : the transfor- 
 mation is marvelous. But the sun moves on, 
 the magical moment passes, each mountain slips 
 back into line, and behold, you see again the 
 morning's picture. 
 
 Indulge me one moment, while I try to show
 
 236 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 you the last picture impressed ujjon my memory 
 as the train bore me, unwilling, away. It was 
 cloudy, a storm was coming up, and the whole 
 range was in deep shadow, when suddenly 
 through some rift in the clouds a burst of sun- 
 shine fell upon the " beloved mountain " Chey- 
 enne, and upon it alone. In a moment it was 
 
 a smiling picture, 
 
 " Glad 
 With light as with a garment it was clad ; " 
 
 all its inequalities, its divisions, its irregulari- 
 ties emphasized, its greens turned greener, its 
 reds made more glowing, an unequaled gem 
 for a parting gift. 
 
 To come back to Utah. One morning, on 
 our way up to the heights, as we were passing a 
 clump of oak-brush, a bird cry rang out. The 
 voice was loud and clear, and the notes were of 
 a peculiar character : first a " chack " two or 
 three times repeated, then subdued barks like 
 those of a distressed puppy, followed by hoarse 
 " mews " and other sounds suggesting almost 
 any creature rather than one in feathers. But 
 with delight I recognized the chat ; my enthu- 
 siasm instantly revived. I unfolded my camp 
 chair, placed myself against a stone wall on the 
 opposite side of the road, and became silent and 
 motionless as the wall itself. 
 
 My comrade, on the contrary, as was her
 
 THE CHAT 8 VOCABULARY. 237 
 
 custom, proceeded with equal promptness to 
 follow the bird' up, to hunt him out. She 
 slipped between the barbed wires which, quite 
 unnecessarily, one would suppose, defended the 
 bleak pasture from outside encroachment, and 
 passed out of sight down an obscure path that 
 led into the brush where the bird was hidden. 
 Though our ways differ, or rather, perhaps, be- 
 cause our ways differ, we are able to study in 
 company. Certainly this circumstance proved 
 available in circumventing the wily chat, and 
 that happened which had happened before : in 
 fleeing from one who made herself obvious to 
 him, he presented himself, an unsuspecting vic- 
 tim, to another who sat like a statue against the 
 wall. To avoid his pursuer, the bird slipped 
 through the thick foliage of the low oaks, and 
 took his place on the outside, in full view of me, 
 but looking through the branches at the move- 
 ments within so intently that he never turned 
 his eyes toward me. This gave me an opportu- 
 nity to study his manners that is rare indeed, 
 for a chat off his guard is something incon- 
 ceivable. 
 
 He shouted out his whole repertoire (or so it 
 seemed) with great vehemence, now " peeping " 
 like a bird in the nest, then " chacking " like a 
 blackbird, mewing as neatly as pussy herself, 
 and varying these calls by the rattling of cas-
 
 238 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 tanets and other indescribable sounds. His 
 perch was half way down the bush ; his trim 
 olive-drab back and shining golden breast were 
 in their spring glory, and he stood nearly 
 upright as he sang, every moment stretching 
 up to look for the invader behind the leaves. 
 The instant she appeared outside, he vanished 
 within, and I folded my chair and passed on. 
 His disturber had not caught a glimpse of him. 
 
 My next interview with a chat took place a 
 day or two later. Between the cottage which 
 was our temporary home and the next one was a 
 narrow garden bordered by thick hedges, rasp- 
 berry bushes down each side, and a mass of 
 flowering shrubs next the street. From my seat 
 within the house, a little back from the open 
 window, I was startled by the voice of a chat 
 close at hand. Looking cautiously out, I saw 
 him in the garden, foraging about under cover 
 of the bushes, near the ground, and there for 
 some time I watched him. He had not the 
 slightest repose of manner ; the most ill-bred 
 tramp in the English sparrow family was in 
 that respect his superior, and the most nervous 
 and excitable of wrens could not ^outdo him in 
 posturing, jerking himself up, flirting his tail, 
 and hopping from twig to twig. When musi- 
 cally inclined, he perched on the inner side of 
 the bushes against the front fence, a foot or two
 
 THE CHATS SEC BET. 239 
 
 above the ground, and within three feet of any 
 one who might pass, but perfectly hidden. 
 
 The performance of the chat was exceedingly 
 droll ; first a whistle, clear as an oriole note, 
 followed by chacks that would deceive a red- 
 wing himself, and then, oddest of all, the laugh 
 of a feeble old man, a weak sort of " yah ! yah ! 
 yah ! " If I had not seen him in the act, I 
 could not have believed the sound came from a 
 bird's throat. He concluded with a low, almost 
 whispered " chur-r-r," a sort of private chuckle 
 over his unique exhibition. After a few min- 
 utes' singing he returned to his foraging on the 
 ground, or over the lowest twigs of the bushes, 
 all the time bubbling over with low joyous notes, 
 his graceful head thrown up, and his beautiful 
 golden throat swelling with the happy song. 
 The listener and looker behind the screen was 
 charmed to absolute quiet, and the bird so ut- 
 terly unsuspicious of observers that he was per- 
 fectly natural and at his ease, hopping quickly 
 from place to place, and apparently snatching 
 his repast between notes. 
 
 The chat's secret of invisibility was thus 
 plainly revealed. It is not in his protective 
 coloring, for though his back is modest of hue, 
 his breast is conspicuously showy ; nor is it in his 
 size, for he is almost as large as an oriole ; it ia 
 in his manners. The bird I was watching never
 
 240 BESIDE THE GEEAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 approached the top of a shrub, but invariably 
 perched a foot or more below it, and his move- 
 ments, though quick, were silence itself. No 
 rustle of leaves proclaimed his presence ; indeed, 
 he seemed to avoid leaves, using the outside 
 twigs near the main stalk or trunk, where they 
 are usually quite bare, and no flit of wing or 
 tail gave warning of his change of position. 
 There was a seemingly natural wariness and 
 cautiousness in every movement and attitude, 
 that I never saw equaled in feathers. 
 
 Then, too, the clever fellow was so constantly 
 on his guard and so alert that the least stir at- 
 tracted his attention. Though inside the house, 
 as I said, not near the window, and further 
 veiled by screens, I had to remain as nearly 
 motionless as possible, and use my glass with 
 utmost caution. The smallest movement sent 
 him into the bushes like a shot, or rather, 
 like a shadow, for the passage was always noise- 
 less. Suspicion once aroused, the bird simply 
 disappeared. One could not say of him, as of 
 others, that he flew, for whether he used his 
 wings, or melted away, or sank into the earth, it 
 would be hard to tell. All I can be positive 
 about is, that whereas one moment he was there, 
 the next he was gone. 
 
 After this exhibition of the character of the 
 chat, his constant watchfulness, his distrust, his
 
 BEWITCHED AGAIN. 241 
 
 love of mystery, it may appear strange that I 
 should try again to study him at home, to find his 
 nest and see his family. But there is something 
 so bewitching in his individuality, that, though 
 I may be always baffled, I shall never be dis- 
 couraged. Somewhat later, when it was evident 
 that his spouse had arrived and domestic life had 
 begun, and I became accustomed to hearing a 
 chat in a certain place every day as I passed, I 
 resolved to make one more effort to win his con- 
 fidence, or, if not that, at least his tolerance. 
 
 The chat medley for which I was always lis- 
 tening came invariably from one spot on my 
 pathway up the mountain. It was the lower end 
 of a large horse pasture, and near the entrance 
 stood a small brick house, in which no doubt 
 dwelt the owner, or care-taker, of the animals. 
 The wide gate, in a common fashion of that 
 country, opened in the middle, and was fastened 
 by a link of iron which dropped over the two 
 centre posts. The rattle of the iron as I touched 
 it, on the morning I resolved to go in, brought 
 to the door a woman. She was rather young, 
 with hair cut close to her head, and wore a dark 
 cotton gown, which was short and scant of skirt, 
 and covered with a " checked apron." She was 
 evidently at work, and was probably the mistress, 
 since few in that "working-bee" village kept 
 maids.
 
 242 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 I made my request to go into the pasture to 
 look at the birds. 
 
 " Why, certainly," she said, with a courtesy 
 that I have found everywhere in Utah, though 
 with a slow surprise growing in her face. " Come 
 right in." 
 
 I closed and fastened the gate, and started on 
 past her. Three feet beyond the doorsteps I was 
 brought to a standstill : the ground as far as I 
 could see was water- soaked ; it was like a satu- 
 rated sponge. Utah is dominated by Irrigation ; 
 she is a slave to her water supply. One going 
 there from the land of rains has much to learn 
 of the possibilities and the inconveniences of 
 water. I was always stumbling upon it in new 
 combinations and unaccustomed places, and I 
 never could get used to its vagaries. Books 
 written in the interest of the Territory indulge 
 in rhapsodies over the fact that every man is his 
 own rain-maker ; and I admit that the arrange- 
 ment has its advantages to the cultivator. But 
 judging from the standpoint of an outsider, I 
 should say that man is not an improvement upon 
 the original providence which distributes the staff 
 of life to plants elsewhere, spreading the vital 
 fluid over the whole land, so evenly that every 
 grass blade gets its due share ; and as all parts 
 are wet at once, so all are dry at the same time, 
 and the surplus, if there be any, runs in well-
 
 AL FRESCO HOUSEKEEPING. 243 
 
 appointed ways, with delight to both eye and ear. 
 All this is changed when the office of Jupiter 
 Pluvius devolves upon man; different indeed are 
 his methods. A man turns a stream loose in 
 a field or pasture, and it wanders whither it will 
 over the ground. The grass hides it, and the 
 walker, bird-student or botanist, steps splash 
 into it without the slightest warning. This is 
 always unpleasant, and is sometimes disastrous, 
 as when one attempts to cross the edge of a field 
 of some close-growing crop, and instantly sinks 
 to the top of the shoes in the soft mud. 
 
 On the morning spoken of, I stopped before 
 the barrier, considering how I should pass it, 
 when the woman showed me a narrow passage 
 between the house and the stone wall, through 
 which I could reach the higher ground at the 
 back. I took this path, and in a moment was in 
 the grove of young oaks which made her out-of- 
 doors kitchen and yard. A fire was burning 
 merrily in the stove, which stood under a tree ; 
 frying-pans and baking-tins, dippers and dish- 
 cloths, hung on the outer wall of her little house, 
 and the whole had a camping-out air that was 
 captivating, and possible only in a rainless land. 
 I longed to linger and study this open-air house- 
 keeping ; if that woman had only been a bird ! 
 
 But I passed on through the oak-grove back 
 yard, following a path the horses had made, till
 
 244 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 I reached an open place where I could overlook 
 the lower land, filled with clumps of willows with 
 their feet in the water, and rosebushes 
 
 " O'erburdened with their weight of flowers, 
 And drooping 'neath their own sweet scent." 
 
 A bird was singing as I took my seat, a gros- 
 beak, perhaps the one who had entertained me 
 in the field below, while I had waited hour after 
 hour for his calm-eyed mate to point out her 
 nest. He sang there from the top of a tall tree, 
 and she busied herself in the low bushes, but up 
 to that time they had kept their secret well. He 
 was a beautiful bird, in black and orange-brown 
 and gold, the black-headed grosbeak ; and his 
 song, besides being very pleasing, was interest- 
 ing because it seemed hard to get out. It was 
 as if he had conceived a brilliant and beautiful 
 strain, and found himself unable to execute it. 
 But if he felt the incompleteness of his perform- 
 ance as I did, he did not let it put an end to his 
 endeavor. I sat there listening, and he came 
 nearer, even to a low tree over my head ; and as 
 I had a glimpse or two of his mate in a tangle 
 of willow and roses far out in the wet land, I 
 concluded he was singing to her, and not to me. 
 Now that he was so near, I heard more than I 
 had before, certain low, sweet notes, plainly not 
 intended for the public ear. This undertone 
 song ended always in " sweet ! sweet ! sweet I "
 
 VAGARIES OF IRRIGATION. 245 
 
 usually followed by a trill, and was far more- 
 effective than his state performances. Some- 
 times, after the " sweet " repeated half a dozen 
 times, each note lower than the preceding one, 
 he ended with a sort of purr of contentment. 
 
 I became so absorbed in listening that I had 
 almost forgotten the object of my search, but I 
 was suddenly recalled by a loud voice at one 
 side, and the lively genius of the place was on 
 hand in his usual role. Indeed, he rather sur- 
 passed himself in mocking and taunting cries 
 that morning, either because he wished, as my 
 host, to entertain me, or, what was more prob- 
 able, to reproach me for disturbing the serenity 
 of his life. Whatever might have been his mo- 
 tive, he delighted me, as always, by the spirit 
 and vigor with which he poured out his chacks 
 and whistles and rattles and calls. Then I tried 
 to locate him by following up the sound, picking 
 my way through the bushes, and among the strag- 
 gling arms of the irrigating stream. After some 
 experiments, I discovered that he was most con- 
 cerned when I came near an impenetrable tangle 
 that skirted the lower end of the lot. I say 
 "near:" it was near "as the crow flies," but 
 for one without wings it may have been half a 
 mile ; for between me and that spot was a great 
 gulf fixed, the rallying point of the most erratic? 
 of wandering streamlets, and so given over to its
 
 246 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 vagaries that no bird-gazer, however enthusias- 
 tic, and indifferent to wet feet and draggled gar- 
 ments, dared attempt to pass. There I was forced 
 to pause, while the bird flung out his notes as if 
 in defiance, wilder, louder, and more vehement 
 than ever. 
 
 In that thicket, I said to myself, as I took my 
 way home, behind that tangle, if I can manage to 
 reach it, I shall find the home of the chat. The 
 situation was discouraging, but I was not to be 
 discouraged; to reach that stronghold I was 
 resolved, if I had to dam up the irrigator, build 
 a bridge, or fill up the quagmire. 
 
 No such heroic treatment of the difficulty was 
 demanded ; my problem was very simply solved. 
 As I entered the gate the next morning, my 
 eyes fell upon an obscure footpath leading away 
 from the house and the watery way beyond it, 
 down through overhanging wild roses, and under 
 the great tangle in which the chat had hidden. 
 It looked mysterious, not to say forbidding, and, 
 from the low drooping of the foliage above, it 
 was plainly a horse path, not a human way. 
 But it was undoubtedly the key to the secrets 
 of the tangle, and I turned into it without hesi- 
 tation. Stooping under the branches hanging 
 low with their fragrant burden, and stopping 
 every moment to loosen the hold of some hin- 
 dering thorn, I followed in the footsteps of my
 
 AN ENCHANTING NOOK. 247 
 
 four-footed pioneers till I reached the lower end 
 of the marsh that had kept me from entering on 
 the upper side. On its edge I placed my chair 
 and seated myself. 
 
 It was an ideal retreat ; within call if help 
 were needed, yet a solitude it was plain no hu- 
 man being, in that land where (according to the 
 Prophet) every man, woman, and child is a 
 working bee, ever invaded ; 
 
 " A leafy nook 
 Where wind never entered, nor branch ever shook," 
 
 known only to my equine friends and to me. I 
 exulted in it ! No discoverer of a new land, no 
 stumbler upon a gold mine, was ever more ex- 
 hilarated over his find than I over my solitary 
 wild rose path. 
 
 The tangle was composed of a varied growth. 
 There seemed to have been originally a strag- 
 gling row of low trees, chokecherry, peach, 
 and willow, which had been surrounded, over- 
 whelmed, and almost buried by a rich growth 
 of shoots from their own roots, bound and ce- 
 mented together by the luxuriant wild rose of 
 the West, which grows profusely everywhere it 
 can get a foothold, stealing up around and be- 
 tween the branches, till it overtops and fairly 
 smothers in blossoms a fair-sized oak or other 
 tree. Besides these were great ferns, or brakes, 
 three or four feet high, which filled up the edges
 
 248 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 of the thicket, making it absolutely impervious 
 to the eye, as well as to the foot of any straggler. 
 Except in the obscure passages the horses kept 
 open, no person could penetrate my jungle. 
 
 I had hardly placed myself, and I had not 
 noted half of these details, when it became 
 evident that my presence disturbed somebody. 
 A chat cried out excitedly, " chack ! chack ! 
 whe-e-w ! " whereupon there followed an angry 
 squawk, so loud and so near that it startled me. 
 I turned quickly, and saw madam herself, all 
 ruffled as if from the nest. She was plainly as 
 much startled as I was, but she scorned to flee. 
 She perked up her tail till she looked like an 
 exaggerated wren ; she humped her shoulders ; 
 she turned this way and that, showing in every 
 movement her anger at my intrusion ; above all, 
 she repeated at short intervals that squawk, like 
 an enraged hen. Hearing a rustle of wings on 
 the other side, I turned my eyes an instant, and 
 when I looked again she had gone ! She would 
 not run while I looked at her, but she had the 
 true chat instinct of keeping out of sight. 
 
 She did not desert her grove, however. The 
 canopy over my head, the roof to my retreat, 
 was of green leaves, translucent, almost trans- 
 parent. The sun was the sun of Utah ; it cast 
 strong shadows, and not a bird could move with- 
 out my seeing it. I could see that she remained
 
 MADAM ON GUARD. 249 
 
 on guard, hopping and flying silently from one 
 point of view to another, no doubt keeping close 
 watch of me all the time. 
 
 Meanwhile tne chat himself had not for a 
 moment ceased calling. For some time his voice 
 would sound quite near ; then it would draw off, 
 growing more and more distant, as if he were 
 tired of watching one who did absolutely nothing. 
 But he never got far away before madam recalled 
 him, sometimes by the squawk alone, sometimes 
 preceding it by a single clear whistle, exactly in 
 his own tone. At once, as if this were a signal, 
 which doubtless it was, his cries redoubled 
 in energy, and seemed to come nearer again. 
 
 Above the restless demonstrations of the chats 
 I could hear the clear, sweet song of the West- 
 ern meadow-lark in the next field. Well indeed 
 might his song be serene ; the minstrel of the 
 meadow knew perfectly well that his nest and 
 nestlings were as safely hidden in the middle 
 of the growing lucern as if in another planet ; 
 while the chat, on the contrary, was plainly 
 conscious of the ease with which his homestead 
 might be discovered. A ruthless destroyer, a 
 nest -robbing boy, would have had the whole 
 thing in his pocket days ago. Even I, if I had 
 not preferred to have the owners show it to me j 
 if I had not made excuses to myself, of the 
 marsh, of bushes too low to go under ; if I had
 
 250 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 not hated to take it by force, to frighten the 
 little folk I wished to make friends with, 
 even I might have seen the nest long before that 
 morning. Thus I meditated as, after waiting an 
 hour or two, I started for home. 
 
 Outside the gate I met my fellow-student, and 
 we went on together. Our way lay beside an old 
 orchard that we had often noticed in our walks. 
 The trees were not far apart, and so overgrown 
 that they formed a deep shade, like a heavy 
 forest, which was most attractive when every- 
 thing outside was baking in the June sun. It 
 was nearly noon when we reached the gate, and 
 looking into a place 
 
 " So curtained with trunks and boughs 
 That in hours when the ringdove cooes to his spouse 
 The sun to its heart scarce a waycould win," 
 
 we could not resist its inviting coolness ; we 
 went in. 
 
 As soon as we were quiet, we noticed that 
 there were more robins than we had heretofore 
 seen in one neighborhood in that part of the 
 world; for our familiar bird is by no means 
 plentiful in the Rocky Mountain countries, 
 where grassy lawns are rare, and his chosen 
 food is not forthcoming. The old apple-trees 
 seemed to be a favorite nesting-place, and be- 
 fore we had been there five minutes we saw 
 that there were at least two nests within fifty
 
 THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 251 
 
 feet of us, and a grosbeak singing his love song, 
 so near that we had hopes of finding his home, 
 also, in this secluded nook. 
 
 The alighting of a bird low down on the 
 trunk of a tree, perhaps twenty feet away, 
 called the attention of my friend to a neighbor 
 we had not counted upon, a large snake, with, 
 as we noted with horror, the color and markings 
 of the dreaded rattler. He had, as it seemed, 
 started to climb one of the leaning trunks, and 
 when he had reached a point where the trunk 
 divided into two parts, his head about two feet 
 up, and the lower part of his body still on the 
 ground, had stopped, and now rested thus, mo- 
 tionless as the tree itself. It may be that it was 
 the sudden presence of his hereditary enemy 
 that held him apparently spellbound, or it" is 
 possible that this position served his own pur- 
 poses better than any other. Our first impulse 
 was to leave his lordship in undisputed pos- 
 session of his shady retreat ; but the second 
 thought, which held us, was to see what sort of 
 reception the robins would give him. There 
 was a nest full of young on a neighboring tree, 
 and it was the mother who had come down to 
 interview the foe. Would she call her mate ? 
 Would the neighbors come to the rescue? 
 Should we see a fight, such as we had read of ? 
 We decided to wait for the result.
 
 252 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 Strange to say, however, this little mother did 
 not call for help. Not one of the loud, disturbed 
 cries with which robins greet an innocent bird- 
 student or a passing sparrow hawk was heard 
 from her; though her kinsfolk sprinkled the 
 orchard, she uttered not a sound. For a moment 
 she seemed dazed ; she stood motionless, staring 
 at the invader as if uncertain whether he were 
 alive. Then she appeared to be interested ; she 
 came a little nearer, still gazing into the face 
 of her enemy, whose erect head and glittering 
 eyes were turned toward her. We could not 
 see that he made the slightest movement, while 
 she hopped nearer and nearer ; sometimes on 
 one division of the trunk, and sometimes on the 
 other, but always, with every hop, coming a lit- 
 tle nearer. She did not act frightened nor at 
 all anxious ; she simply seemed interested, and 
 inclined to close investigation. Was she fasci- 
 nated? Were the old stories of snake power 
 over birds true ? Our interest was most intense ; 
 we did not take our eyes from her; nothing 
 could have dragged us away then. 
 
 Suddenly the bird flew to the ground, and, so 
 quickly that we did not see the movement, the 
 head of the snake was turned over toward her, 
 proving that it was the bird, and not us, he was 
 watching. Still she kept drawing nearer till 
 she was not more than a foot from him, when our
 
 AN EXCITING SCENE. 253 
 
 sympathy with the unfortunate creature, who 
 apparently was unable to tear herself away, over- 
 came our scientific curiosity. " Poor thing, she '11 
 be killed ! Let us drive her away ! " we cried. 
 We picked up small stones which we threw 
 toward her ; we threatened her with sticks ; we 
 " shooed " at her with demonstrations that would 
 have quickly driven away a robin in possession 
 of its senses. Not a step farther off did she 
 move ; she hopped one side to avoid our mis- 
 siles, but instantly fluttered back to her doom. 
 Meanwhile her mate appeared upon the scene, 
 hovering anxiously about in the trees overhead, 
 but not coming near the snake. 
 
 By this time we had lost all interest in the 
 question whether a snake can charm a bird to its 
 destruction ; we thought only of saving the little 
 life in such danger. We looked around for 
 help ; my friend ran across the street to a house, 
 hurriedly secured the help of a man with a heavy 
 stick, and in two minutes the snake lay dead on 
 the ground. 
 
 The bird, at once relieved, flew hastily to her 
 nest, showing no signs of mental aberration, or 
 any other effect of the strain she had been under. 
 The snake was what the man called a "bull 
 snake," and so closely resembled the rattler in 
 color and markings that, although its extermi- 
 nator had killed many of the more famous rep-
 
 254 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 tiles, lie could not tell, until it was stretched out 
 in death, which of the two it was. This tragedy 
 spoiled the old orchard for me, and never again 
 did I enter its gates. 
 
 Down the wild rose path I took my way the 
 next morning. Silently and quickly I gained 
 my seat of yesterday, hoping to surprise the chat 
 family. No doubt my hope was vain ; noiseless, 
 indeed, and deft of movement must be the hu- 
 man being who could come upon this alert bird 
 unawares. He greeted me with a new note, a 
 single clear call, like " ho ! " Then he proceeded 
 to study me, coming cautiously nearer and nearer, 
 as I could see out of the corner of my eye, while 
 pretending to be closely occupied with my note- 
 book. His loud notes had ceased, but it is not 
 in chat nature to be utterly silent ; many low 
 sounds dropped from his beak as he approached. 
 Sometimes it was a squawk, a gentle imitation 
 of that which rang through the air from the 
 mouth of his spouse ; again it was a hoarse sort 
 of mewing, followed by various indescribable 
 sounds in the same undertone ; and then he 
 would suddenly take himself in hand, and be 
 perfectly silent for half a minute. 
 
 After a little, madam took up the matter, ut- 
 tering her angry squawk, and breaking upon 
 my silence almost like a pistol shot. At once I 
 forgot her mate, and though he retired to a little
 
 / AM INTERVIEWED. 255 
 
 distance and resumed his brilliant musical per- 
 formance, I did not turn my head at his beguile- 
 ments. She was the business partner of the firm 
 whose movements I wished to follow. She must, 
 sooner or later, go to her nest, while he might 
 deceive me for days. Indeed, I strongly sus- 
 pected him of that very thing, and whenever he 
 became bolder in approaching, or louder and 
 more vociferous of tongue, I was convinced that 
 it was to cover her operations. I redoubled my 
 vigilance in watching for her, keeping my eyes 
 open for any slight stirring of a twig, tremble of 
 a leaf, or quick shadow near the ground that 
 should point her out as she skulked to her nest. 
 I had already observed that whenever she uttered 
 her squawks he instantly burst into energetic 
 shouts and calls. I believed it a concerted ac- 
 tion, with the intent of drawing my attention 
 from her movements. 
 
 On this day the disturbed little mother her- 
 self interviewed me. First she came silently 
 under the green canopy, in plain sight, stood a 
 moment before me, jerking up her beautiful long 
 tail and letting it drop slowly back, and posing 
 her mobile body in different positions ; then sud- 
 denly flying close past me, she alighted on one 
 side, and stared at me for half a dozen seconds. 
 Then, evidently, she resolved to take me in hand. 
 She assumed the role of deceiver, with all the
 
 256 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 wariness of her family ; her object being, as I 
 suppose, carefully to point out where her nest 
 was not. She circled about me, taking no pains 
 to avoid my gaze. Now she squawked on the 
 right ; then she acted " the anxious mother " on 
 the left; this time it was from the clump of 
 rosebushes in front that she rose hurriedly, as if 
 that was her home ; again it was from over my 
 head, in the chokecherry-tree, that she bustled 
 off, as if she had been " caught in the act." It 
 was a brilliant, a wonderful performance, a 
 thousand times more effective than trailing or 
 any of the similar devices by which an uneasy 
 bird mother draws attention from her brood. It 
 was so well done that at each separate manoeuvre 
 I could hardly be convinced by my own eyes 
 that the particular spot indicated did not conceal 
 the little homestead I was seeking. Several 
 times I rose triumphant, feeling sure that " now 
 indeed I do know where it is," and proceeded at 
 once to the bush she had pointed out with so 
 much simulated reluctance, parted the branches, 
 and looked in, only to find myself deceived again. 
 Her acting was marvelous. With just the prop- 
 erly anxious, uneasy manner, she would steal 
 behind a clump of leaves into some retired spot 
 admirably adapted for a chat's nest, and after 
 a moment sneak out at the other side, and fly 
 away near the ground, exactly as all bird-stu-
 
 THE CHAT TRIUMPHANT. 257 
 
 dents have seen bird mothers do a thousand 
 times. 
 
 After this performance a silence fell upon the 
 tangle and the solitary nook in which I sat, 
 and I meditated. It was the last day of my stay. 
 Should I set up a search for that nest which I 
 was sure was within reach ? I could go over the 
 whole in half an hour, examine every shrub and 
 low tree and inch of ground in it, and doubtless 
 I shoidd find it. No ; I do not care for a nest 
 thus forced. The distress of parents, the panic 
 of nestlings, give me no pleasure. I know how 
 a chat's nest looks. I have seen one with its 
 pinky-pearl eggs ; why should I care to see 
 another ? I know how young birds look ; I have 
 seen dozens of them this very summer. Far 
 better that I never lay eyes upon the nest than 
 to do it at such cost. 
 
 As I reached this conclusion, into the midst 
 of my silence came the steady tramp of a horse. 
 I knew the wild rose path was a favorite retreat 
 from the sun, and it was very hot. The path 
 was narrow ; if a horse came in upon me, he 
 could not turn round and retreat, nor was there 
 room for him to pass me. Realizing all this in 
 an instant, I snatched up my belongings, and hur- 
 ried to get out before he should get in. 
 
 When I emerged, the chat set up his loudest 
 and most triumphant shouts. " Again we have
 
 258 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 fooled you," he seemed to say; "again we have 
 thrown your poor human acuteness off the scent ! 
 We shall manage to bring up our babies in 
 safety, in spite of you ! " 
 
 So indeed they might, even if I had seen 
 them; but this, alas, I could not make him 
 understand. So he treated me his best friend 
 exactly as he treated the nest-robber and the 
 bird-shooter. 
 
 I shall never know whether that nest con- 
 tained eggs or young birds ; or whether per- 
 chance there was no nest at all, and I had been 
 deceived from the first by the most artful and 
 beguiling of birds. And through all this I had 
 never once squarely seen the chat I had been fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 " Even yet thon art to me 
 No bird, but an invisible thing, 
 A voice, a mystery."
 
 XX. 
 
 ON THE LAWN. 
 
 THE first thing that strikes an Eastern bird- 
 student in the Rocky Mountain region, as I 
 have already said, is the absence of the birds 
 he is familiar with. Instead of the chipping 
 sparrow everywhere, one sees the lazuli-painted 
 finch, or the Rocky Mountain bluebird; in 
 place of the American robin's song, most com- 
 mon of sounds in country neighborhoods on the 
 Atlantic side of the continent, is heard the sil- 
 ver bell of the towhee bunting, sometimes called 
 marsh robin, or the harsh " chack " of Brewer's 
 blackbird; the music that opens sleepy eyes at 
 daybreak is not a chorus of robins and song- 
 sparrows, but the ringing notes of the chewink, 
 the clear-cut song of the Western meadow-lark, 
 or the labored utterance of the black-headed 
 grosbeak ; it is not by the melancholy refrain of 
 the whippoorwill or the heavenly hymns of 
 thrushes that the approach of night is heralded, 
 but by the cheery trill of the house wren or the 
 dismal wail of the Western wood-pewee. 
 
 Most of all does the bird-lover miss the
 
 260 BESIDE TEE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 thrushes from the feathered orchestra. Some 
 of them may dwell in that part of the world, 
 the books affirm it, and I cannot deny it, but 
 this I know : one whose eye is untiring, and 
 whose ear is open night and day to bird-notes, 
 may spend May, June, July, yes, and even Au- 
 gust, in the haunts of Rocky Mountain birds, 
 and not once see or hear either of our choice 
 singing thrushes. 
 
 However the student may miss the birds he 
 knows at home, he must rejoice in the absence 
 of one, the English sparrow. When one sees 
 the charming purple finch and summer yellow- 
 bird, nesting and singing in the streets of 
 Denver, and the bewitching Arkansas goldfinch 
 and the beautiful Western bluebird perfectly 
 at home in Colorado Springs, he is reminded of 
 what might be in the Eastern cities, if only the 
 human race had not interfered with Nature's 
 distribution of her feathered families. In Utah, 
 indeed, we meet again the foreigner, for in that 
 unfortunate Territory the man, wise in his own 
 conceit, was found to introduce him, and Salt 
 Lake, the city of their pride and glory, is as 
 completely infested by the feathered tramp as 
 New York itself. Happy is Colorado that great 
 deserts form her borders, and that chains of 
 mountains separate her from her neighbors; 
 for, since the sparrow is as fond of the city as
 
 SHARP-WITTED ROGUES. 261 
 
 Dr. Johnson, it may be hoped that neither he, 
 nor his children, nor his grandchildren, will ever 
 cross the barriers. 
 
 In Utah, as everywhere, the English sparrows 
 are sharp-witted rogues, and they have discov- 
 ered and taken possession of the most comfort- 
 able place for bird quarters to be found, for pro- 
 tection from the terrible heat of summer, and 
 the wind and snow of winter ; it is between the 
 roof and the stone or adobe walls of the houses. 
 Wherever the inequalities of the stones or the 
 shrinkage of the wood has left an opening, and 
 made penetration possible, there an English 
 sparrow has established a permanent abode. 
 
 The first bird I noticed in the quiet Mormon 
 village where I settled myself to study was a 
 little beauty in blue. I knew him instantly, for 
 I had met him before in Colorado. He was 
 dining luxuriously on the feathery seeds of a 
 dandelion when I discovered him, and at no 
 great distance was his olive-clad mate, similarly 
 engaged. They were conversing cheerfully in 
 low tones, and in a few minutes I suppose he 
 called her attention to the superior quality of 
 his dandelion ; for she came to his side, and 
 he at once flew to a neighboring bush and burst 
 into song. It was a pretty little ditty, or rather 
 a musical rattle on one note, resembling the 
 song of the indigo bird, his near relative.
 
 262 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 The lazuli-painted finch should be called the 
 blue-headed finch, for the exquisite blueness of 
 his whole head, including throat, breast, and 
 shoulders, as if he had been dipped so far into 
 blue dye, is his distinguishing feature. The 
 bluebird wears heaven's color ; so does the jay, 
 and likewise the indigo bird ; but not one can 
 boast the lovely and indescribable shade, with 
 its silvery reflections, that adorns the lazuli. 
 Across the breast, under the blue, is a broad 
 band of chestnut, like the breast color of our 
 bluebird, and back of that is white, while the 
 wings and tail are dark. Altogether, he is 
 charming to look upon. Who would not prefer 
 him about the yard to the squawking house 
 sparrow, or even the squabbling chippy ? 
 
 My catching the pair at dinner was not an 
 accident ; I soon found out that they lived 
 there, and had settled upon a row of tall rasp- 
 berry bushes that separated the garden from 
 the lawn for their summer home. Madam was 
 already at work collecting her building materi- 
 als, and very soon the fragile walls of her pretty 
 nest were formed in an upright crotch of the 
 raspberries, about a foot below the top. 
 
 Naturally, I was greatly interested in the 
 fairy house building, and often inspected the 
 work while the little dame was out of sight. 
 One day, however, as I was about to part the
 
 BEAUTIFUL DRAGONFLIES. 263 
 
 brandies to look in, I heard an anxious " phit," 
 and glanced up to see the owner alight on the 
 lowest limb of a peach-tree near by. Of course 
 I turned away at once, pretending that I was 
 just passing, and had no suspicion of her pre- 
 cious secret in the raspberries, and hoping that 
 she would not mind. But she did mind, very 
 seriously ; she continued to stand on that branch 
 with an aggrieved air, as if life were no longer 
 worth living, now that her home was perhaps 
 discovered. Without uttering a sound or mov- 
 ing a muscle, so far as I could see, she remained 
 for half an hour before she accepted my tak- 
 ing a distant seat and turning my attention to 
 dragonflies as an apology, and ventured to visit 
 her nest again. After that I made very sure 
 that she was engaged elsewhere before I paid 
 my daily call. 
 
 The dragonflies, by the way, were well worth 
 looking at; indeed, they divided my interest 
 with the birds. So many and such variety I 
 never noticed elsewhere, and they acted exactly 
 like fly -catching birds, staying an hour at a 
 time on one perch, from which every now and 
 then they sallied out, sweeping the air and re- 
 turning to the perch they had left. Sometimes 
 I saw four or five of them at once, resting on 
 different dead twigs in the yard the other side 
 of the lawn, and I have even seen one knock
 
 264 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 a fellow-dragonfly off a favorite perch and take 
 it himself. 
 
 They were very beautiful, too : some with 
 wings of transparent white or light amber 
 barred off by wide patches of rich dark brown 
 or black; others, again, smaller, and all over 
 blue as the lazuli's head ; and a third of bril- 
 liant silver, which sparkled as it flew, as if cov- 
 ered with spangles. One alighted there with 
 wings which seemed to be covered with a close 
 and intricate design in the most brilliant gold 
 thread. I went almost near enough to put my 
 hand on him, and I never saw a more gorgeous 
 creature ; beside his beautiful wings his back 
 was of old gold, coming down in scallops over 
 the black and dark blue under part. 
 
 In due time four lovely blue eggs filled the 
 nest of the lazuli, and about the middle of June 
 madam began to sit, and I had to be more care- 
 ful than ever in timing my visits. 
 
 Some birds approach their nest in a loitering, 
 aimless sort of way, as if they had no particular 
 business in that quarter, and, if they see any 
 cause for alarm, depart with an indifferent air 
 that reveals nothing of their secret. Not thus 
 the ingenuous lazuli. She showed her anxiety 
 every moment ; coming in the most businesslike 
 way, and proclaiming her errand to the most 
 careless observer, till I thought every boy on
 
 A RAPTUROUS MORNING SONG. 265 
 
 the street would know where her eggs were to 
 be found. She had a very pretty way of going 
 to the nest; indeed, all her manners were win- 
 ning. She always alighted on the peach-tree 
 branch, looked about on all sides, especially at 
 me in my seat on the piazza, flirted her tail, 
 uttered an anxious " phit," and then jumped off 
 the limb and dived under the bushes near the 
 ground. It is to be presumed that she ascended 
 to her nest behind the leaves by hopping from 
 twig to twig, though this I could never manage 
 to see. 
 
 And what of her gay little spouse all this 
 time ? Did he spend his days cheering her with 
 music, as all the fathers of feathered families 
 are fabled to do ? Indeed he did not, and until 
 I watched very closely, and saw him going about 
 over the poplars in silence, I thought he had 
 left the neighborhood. Once in the day he had 
 a good singing time, about five o'clock in the 
 morning, two hours before the sun rose over the 
 mountains. If one happened to be awake then, 
 he would hear the most rapturous song, deliv- 
 ered at the top of his voice, and continuing for 
 a long time. But as it grew lighter, and the 
 human world began to stir, he became quiet 
 again, and, if he sang at all, he went so far 
 from home that I did not hear him. 
 
 But the wise little blue-head had not deserted;
 
 266 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 he was merely cautious. Every time that the 
 little sitter went off for food she met him some- 
 where, and he came back with her. Occasion- 
 ally he took a peep at the treasures himself, but 
 he never entered by her roundabout way. He 
 always flew directly in from above. 
 
 Ten days passed away in this quiet manner, 
 my attention divided between the birds, the 
 dragonflies, and the clacking grasshopper, who 
 went jerking himself about with a noise like a 
 subdued lawn-mower, giving one the impression 
 that his machinery was out of order. 
 
 The tenth day of sitting we had a south wind. 
 That does not seem very terrible, but a south 
 wind on the shore of the Great Salt Lake is 
 something to be dreaded. 
 
 " A -wind that is dizzy with whirling play, 
 A dozen winds that have lost their way." 
 
 It starts up suddenly, and comes with such force 
 as to snap off the leaves of trees, and even the 
 tender twigs of shrubs. As it waxes powerful 
 it bends great trees, and tries the strength of 
 roofs and chimneys. From the first breath it 
 rolls up tremendous clouds of dust, that come 
 and come, and never cease, long after it seems 
 as if every particle in that rainless land must 
 have been driven by. It is in the " Great 
 Basin," and the south wind is the broom that 
 sweeps it clean. Not only dust does the south
 
 THE BABIES' BIRTHDAY. 267 
 
 wind bring, but heat, terrible and suffocating, 
 like that of a fiery furnace. Before it the hu- 
 man and the vegetable worlds shrink and wither, 
 and birds and beasts are little seen. 
 
 Such a day was the birthday in the little nest 
 in the raspberries, and on my usual morning 
 call I found four featherless birdlings, with 
 beaks already yawning for food. Every morn- 
 ing, of course, I looked at the babies, but it was 
 not till the eighth day of their life that I found 
 their eyes open. Before this they opened their 
 mouths when I jarred the nest in parting the 
 branches, thus showing they were not asleep, 
 but did not open their eyes, and I was forced to 
 conclude that they were not yet unclosed. 
 
 Sometimes the daily visit was made under 
 difficulties, and I was unpleasantly surprised 
 when I stepped upon the grass of the little lawn 
 that I was obliged to cross. The grass looked 
 as usual; the evening before we had been sit- 
 ting upon it. But all night a stream had been 
 silently spreading itself upon it, and my hasty 
 step was into water two or three inches deep, 
 which swished up in a small fountain and filled 
 a low shoe in an instant. 
 
 This is one of the idiosyncrasies of irrigation, 
 which it seemed I should never get accustomed 
 to, and several times I was obliged to turn back 
 for overshoes before I could pay my usual call.
 
 268 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 
 
 A lawn asoak is a curious sight, and always re- 
 minds me of Lanier's verses, 
 
 "A thousand rivulets run 
 
 'Twixt the roots of the soil ; the blades of the marsh grass 
 stir; 
 
 .... and the currents cease to run, 
 And the sea and the marsh are one." 
 
 The morning the lazulis were ten days old, 
 before I came out of the house, that happened 
 which so often puts an end to a study of bird 
 life, the nest was torn out of place and de- 
 stroyed, and the little family had disappeared. 
 The particulars will never be known. Whether 
 a nest-robbing boy or a hungry cat was the trans- 
 gressor, and whether the nestlings were carried 
 off or eaten, or had happily escaped, who can tell? 
 I could only judge by the conduct of the birds 
 themselves, and as they did not appear disturbed, 
 and continued to carry food, it is to be presumed 
 that part, if not all, of the brood was saved from 
 the wreck of their home. 
 
 Happily, to console me in my sorrow for this 
 catastrophe, the lazuli was not the only bird to 
 be seen on the lawn, though his was the only 
 nest. I had for some time been greatly inter- 
 ested in the daily visits of a humming-bird, a 
 little dame in green and white, who had taken 
 possession of a honeysuckle vine beside the 
 door, claiming the whole as her own, and driv-
 
 BLOOMS AND BUZZINGS. 269 
 
 ing away, with squeaky but fierce cries, any 
 other of her race who ventured to sip from the 
 coral cups so profusely offered. 
 
 The season for humming-birds opened with 
 the locust blossoms next door, which were for 
 days a mass of blooms and buzzings, of birds 
 and bees. But when the fragrant flowers began 
 to fall and the ground was white with them, 
 one bird settled herself on our honeysuckle, and 
 there took her daily meals for a month. Being 
 not six feet from where I sat for hours every 
 day, I had the first good opportunity of my life 
 to learn the ways of one of these queer little 
 creatures in feathers. 
 
 After long searching and much overhauling 
 of the books, I made her out to be the female 
 broad-tailed humming-bird, who is somewhat 
 larger than the familiar ruby-throat of the East. 
 Her mate, if she had one, never came to the 
 vine ; but whether she drove him away and dis- 
 couraged him, or whether he had an indepen- 
 dent source of supply, I never knew. She was 
 the only one whose acquaintance I made, and in 
 a month's watching I came to know her pretty 
 well. 
 
 In one way she differed strikingly from any 
 humming-bird I have seen : she alighted, and 
 rested frequently and for long periods. Droll 
 enough it looked to see such an atom, such a
 
 270 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 
 
 mere pinch of feathers, conduct herself after the 
 fashion of a big bird ; to see her wipe that needle- 
 like beak, and dress those infinitesimal feathers, 
 combing out her head plumage with her minute 
 black claws, running the same useful append- 
 ages through her long, gauzy-looking wings, and 
 carefully removing the yellow pollen of the 
 honeysuckle blooms which stuck to her face 
 and throat. Her favorite perch was a tiny dead 
 twig on the lowest branch of a poplar-tree, near 
 the honeysuckle. There she spent a long time 
 each day, sitting usually, though sometimes she 
 stood on her little wiry legs. 
 
 But though my humming friend might sit 
 down, there was no repose about her ; she was 
 continually in motion. Her head turned from 
 side to side, as regularly, and apparently as me- 
 chanically, as an elephant weaves his great head 
 and trunk. Sometimes she turned her attention 
 to me, and leaned far over, with her large, dark 
 eyes fixed upon me with interest or curiosity. 
 But never was there the least fear in her bear- 
 ing ; she evidently considered herself mistress of 
 the place, and reproved me if I made the slight- 
 est movement, or spoke too much to a neighbor. 
 If she happened to be engaged among her honey- 
 pots when a movement was made, she instantly 
 jerked herself back a foot or more from the vine, 
 and stood upon nothing, as it were, motionless,
 
 A HUMMING-BIRD' >S TOILET. 271 
 
 except the wings, while she looked into the cause 
 of the disturbance, and often expressed her dis- 
 approval of our behavior in squeaky cries. 
 
 The toilet of this lilliputian in feathers, per- 
 formed on her chosen twig as it often was, inter- 
 ested me greatly. As carefully as though she 
 were a foot or two, instead of an inch or two 
 long, did she clean and put in order every plume 
 on her little body, and the work of polishing 
 her beak was the great performance of the day. 
 This member was plainly her pride and her joy ; 
 every part of it, down to the very tip, was 
 scraped and rubbed by her claws, with the leg 
 thrown over the wing, exactly as big birds do. 
 It was astonishing to see what she could do 
 with her leg. I have even seen her pause in 
 mid-air and thrust one over her vibrating wing 
 to scratch her head. 
 
 Then when the pretty creature was all in 
 beautiful order, her emerald - green back and 
 white breast immaculate, when she had shaken 
 herself out, and darted out and drawn back 
 many times her long bristle -like tongue, she 
 would sometimes hover along before the tips of 
 the fence-stakes, which were like laths, held an 
 inch apart by wires, collecting, I suppose, the 
 tiny spiders which were to be found there. She 
 always returned to the honeysuckle, however, to 
 finish her repast, opening and closing her tail
 
 272 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE, 
 
 as one flirts a fan, while the breeze made by 
 her wings agitated the leaves for two feet 
 around her. Should a blossom just ready to 
 fall come off 011 her beak like a coral case, as 
 it sometimes did, she was indignant indeed ; she 
 jerked herself back and flung it off with an air 
 that was comical to see. 
 
 When the hot wind blew, the little creature 
 seemed to feel the discomfort that bigger ones 
 did : she sat with open beak as though panting 
 for breath ; she flew around with legs hanging, 
 and even alighted on a convenient leaf or cluster 
 of flowers, while she rifled a blossom, standing 
 with sturdy little legs far apart, while stretching 
 up to reach the bloom she desired. 
 
 Two statements of the books were not true in 
 the case of this bird : she did not sit on a twig 
 upright like an owl or a hawk, but held her 
 body exactly as does a robin or sparrow; and 
 she did fly backward and sideways, as well as 
 forward. 
 
 Toward the end of June my tiny visitor be- 
 gan to make longer intervals between her calls, 
 and when she did appear she was always in too 
 great haste to stop ; she passed rapidly over half 
 a dozen blossoms, and then flitted away. Past 
 were the days of loitering about on poplar twigs 
 or preening herself on the peach-tree. It was 
 plain that she had set up a home for herself,
 
 THE LAST APPEARANCE. 273 
 
 and the mussy state of her once nicely kept 
 breast feathers told the tale, she had a nest 
 somewhere. Vainly, however, did I try to track 
 her home : she either took her way like an arrow 
 across the garden to a row of very tall locusts, 
 where a hundred humming-birds' nests might 
 have been hidden, or turned the other way over 
 a neighbor's field to a cluster of thickly grown 
 apple-trees, equally impossible to search. If she 
 had always gone one way I might have tried to 
 follow, but to look for her infinitesimal nest at 
 opposite poles of the earth was too discouraging, 
 even if the weather had been cool enough for 
 such exertion. 
 
 When at last I could endure the wind and 
 the dust and the heat no longer, and stood one 
 morning on the porch, waiting for the most de- 
 liberate of drivers with his carriage to drive me 
 to the station, that I might leave Utah altogether, 
 the humming-bird appeared on the scene, took a 
 sip or two out of her red cups, flirted her feath- 
 ers saucily in my very face, then darted over 
 the top of the cottage and disappeared ; and that 
 was the very last glimpse I had of the little 
 dame in green.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Acadian flycatcher, 161. 
 Arkansas goldfinch, 23. 
 At four o'clock in the morning, 95. 
 
 Blue jay with a stranger. 148. 
 with catbirds, 150. 
 Blue jay, the young : 
 
 
 accident to, 140. 
 
 Barbed wire fence, 157. 
 
 beauty of, 143. 
 
 Behind the tangle, 246. 
 
 climber, 141. 
 
 Birds : 
 
 first outing, 138. 
 
 and poets, 194. 
 
 imperfect, 152. 
 
 a strange song, 73. 
 
 intelligence in house, 152. 
 
 different ways, 264. 
 hard to study, 20. 
 
 on edge of nest, 137. 
 returned to parents, 153. 
 
 in Colorado, 18. 
 
 Bobolink song, 120. 
 
 in Colorado Springs, 260. 
 
 Burro an investigator, 89. 
 
 in Denver, 260. 
 
 
 in the " Wrens' Court," 161, 
 
 Camp Harding, 9. 
 
 166, 168. 
 leave nesting place, 154. 
 
 Camping in Colorado, 3. 
 Canon wren, the, 74. 
 
 morning chorus, 21. 22, 105. 
 
 manners, 86, 87. 
 
 music in Colorado, 32. 
 
 song, 74. 
 
 not on exhibition, 19. 
 
 Cardinal grosbeak, 107. 
 
 not sing alike, 34. 
 
 abandoning the nest, 120. 
 
 panic among, 39. 
 unfamiliar, 23, 259. 
 
 as a father, 113. 
 confidence in people, 121. 
 
 Utah, 260. 
 
 delight of parents, 123. 
 
 Black-headed grosbeak, 244, 251. 
 
 eating corn, 109, 115. 
 
 song of, 244. 
 
 importance of the builder, 119. 
 
 Blue jay, 126. 
 
 kindness to young, 117. 
 
 and doll, 103. 
 
 manners, 107. 
 
 and red-headed woodpecker, 
 
 nest, 122. 
 
 104. 
 apple-tree nest, 151. 
 
 on grass, 105, 107. 
 politeness to mate, 116. 
 
 a struggle, 149. 
 
 reception of woodpecker, 108. 
 
 attentive to mate, 127. 
 
 rose trellis nest, 121. 
 
 bad name, 147. 
 
 speeding the parting guest, 125. 
 
 devoted mother, 127. 
 eating, 144. 
 
 victim of English sparrow, 114. 
 Cardinal, the young, 113. 
 
 getting over the ground, 145. 
 
 characteristics, 114. 
 
 home deserted, 140. 
 
 first baby out, 122. 
 
 interview with, 146. 
 
 food of, 123. 
 
 joke or war-cry ? 134. 
 
 song of, 116. 
 
 manners, 130, 132, 144. 
 
 training, 116. 
 
 my search for nest, 126. 
 
 with sparrows, 114, 115. 
 
 no pretense, 130. 
 pine-tree nest, 126. 
 
 Carolina wren, the great : 
 babies appear, 172. 
 
 vocabulary, 133. 
 when babies are noisy, 131. 
 
 ceremony of approaching, 177. 
 father disturbed, 175.
 
 276 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Carolina wren, first sight of, 159. 
 
 Colorado, the wonderland, 14. 
 
 fighting a chipmunk, 178. 
 hard to see, 177. 
 
 Cotton storm, a, 17. 
 Cottonwoods, in the, 17. 
 
 interruption to study, 168. 
 
 Cuckoo, 157, 231. 
 
 manners, 163, 173, 175. 
 
 
 mother anxious, 176. 
 
 Doll as a bogy, 103. 
 
 nest, 149, 182. 
 
 Dragonflies in Utah, 263. 
 
 song, 162, 164. 
 trailing, 162. 
 
 English or house sparrow : 
 as a climber, 110. 
 
 " Wrens' Court, 160. 
 
 autocrat, 129. 
 
 Carolina wren, the young : 
 
 in Utah, 261. 
 
 cries of, 181. 
 
 robbing blackbirds, 100. 
 
 delay in taking flight, 179. 
 
 robbing red-headed woodpeck- 
 
 development of, 174. 
 
 er, 110. 
 
 first sallies, 180, 181. 
 
 Feast of flowers, the, 52. 
 
 manners, 178. 
 
 Flicker a character, 106. 
 
 Catbird song, 23. 
 
 Flowers : 
 
 Cat on lawn, 112. 
 
 abundance of bloom, 54. 
 
 Cedar-tree little folk, 194. 
 
 anemone, 61. 
 
 Charming nook, a, 124. 
 
 cactus, 56, 62, 74. 
 
 Chat, long-tailed, yellow-breasted, 
 
 castilleia, 67. 
 
 40, 232. 
 
 cleorne, 67. 
 
 alertness of, 240. 
 
 columbine, 58, 67. 
 
 bewitching, 241. 
 
 cyclamen, 67. 
 
 comes in sight, 237. 
 
 extermination by cattle, 208. 
 
 eccentric, 232. 
 
 extermination by tourists, 68. 
 
 egg stolen, 50. 
 farewell, 51. 
 
 geranium, 58. 
 gilia, 64. 
 
 first sight of, 45. 
 hard to study, 47. 
 haunts of, 241. 
 
 golden prince's feather, 65. 
 gummy and clinging stems, 6^ 
 harebells, 67. 
 
 home of, 246. 
 
 in a niche, 73. 
 
 humor, 40. 
 
 in Kansas, 52. 
 
 manners, 44, 46, 238, 239, 240. 
 
 / mariposa lily, 65. 
 
 nest, 47, 48. 
 
 mentzelia, 60. 
 
 on hand, 245. 
 
 mertensia, 67. 
 
 saucy, 41. 
 
 Mexican poppy, 62. 
 
 secret of invisibility, 239. 
 
 milky juice, 66. 
 
 studies me, 254, 
 triumphant, 257. 
 
 moccasin plant, 54, 75. 
 nasturtium, self-willed, 14ft 
 
 voice, 40, 43, 45, 236, 237, 239. 
 Chat, the madam : 
 
 ox-eye daisy, 66. 
 painter of, 68. 
 
 interviews me, 255. 
 
 paradise of, 53. 
 
 keeps her mate up to duty, 249. 
 
 pentstemon, 58. 
 
 manners, 248. 
 
 pink stranger, 62. 
 
 squawks, 254. 
 
 primrose, 58, 67. 
 
 wonderful acting, 256. 
 
 roses, 58, 63, 75. 
 
 Chewink, or towhee bunting : 
 
 spiderwort, 52. 
 
 babies, 31. 
 green-tailed towhee, 210. 
 
 symphony in green, 55. 
 varieties, 53, 57. 
 
 husky cry, 30. 
 
 vetches, 67. 
 
 manners, 28, 29. 
 
 wild garden, 57. 
 
 nest, 30. 
 
 wild mignonette, 62. 
 
 song, 29. 
 Cheyenne Canon, 15. 
 solitary possession of, 75. 
 Cheyenne Mountain, 43. 
 Chipmunk, 78. 
 Cinderella among the flowers, a, 60. 
 
 yellow daisies, 52. 
 yucca, 55, 62. 
 
 Gates, idiosyncrasies of, 220. 
 Getting up in the morning, 95. 
 Glen, a beautiful, 155. 
 
 Cliff-dwellers in the canon, 70. 
 Colorado, a restful way to see, 13. 
 
 frightened out of, 169. 
 Grasshopper, a clacking, 266.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 277 
 
 Grave of " H. H.," 90, 91. 
 
 Magpie : 
 
 Great-crested flycatcher, 167. 
 
 nest, 223. 
 
 Gull, the herring, 211. 
 
 nursery, 230. 
 
 following the plow, 213. 
 flight, 215. 
 
 reception to us, 227. 
 search for nest, 216. 
 
 manners, 213. 
 nesting, 216. 
 
 song, 224. 
 Meadow-lark, the Western, 249, 
 
 nooning, 215. 
 
 cry, 120. 
 
 penalty for killing, 212. 
 
 song, 24, 32, 34. 
 
 sent to the "Chosen People," 
 
 Morning tramp, a, 156. 
 
 212. 
 
 Mosquito, absence of, 20. 
 
 value of, 216. 
 
 a lonely, 21. 
 
 
 Mourning dove, 103. 
 
 Horned lark : 
 
 headquarters, 199. 
 
 horns, 36. 
 
 joke of, 200. 
 
 nest, 3C. 
 
 manners, 196, 198, 199. 
 
 song, 35. 
 
 nest, 198. 
 
 Horse, a scared, and result, 228. 
 
 silence of, 201, 204. 
 
 drive me away, 257. 
 House wren, the Western. 24. 
 
 song, 195, 204. 
 talk, 204. 
 
 babies, 27, 28. 
 
 wing whistle, 204. 
 
 disturbed, 27. 
 
 young, interview with, 201. 
 
 manners, 24. 
 
 young, manners of, 197, 201. 
 
 nest, 25. 
 
 
 song, 27. 
 
 Oak-brush, the, 222. 
 
 strange cry, 25. 
 
 On the lawn, 259. 
 
 Humming-bird : 
 
 Orchard, an old, 250. 
 
 collecting spiders, 271. 
 
 Orchard oriole : 
 
 different from the Eastern. 38. 
 
 a later view, 191. 
 
 dislike of heat, 272. 
 in canon, 76. 
 
 anxiety of parents, 185. 
 baby cries, 186. 
 
 last glimpse, 273. 
 
 babies' first flight, 189, 190. 
 
 manners, 269. 
 
 call from a Baltimore, 188. 
 
 nesting, 272. 
 
 called by nestlings, 184. 
 
 noisy, 38. 
 
 manners, 186, 190. 
 
 precious beak, 271. 
 
 nest, 184, 192. 
 
 scolding, 42. 
 
 song of female, 191. 
 
 surveillance, 40. 
 
 song of male, 192. 
 
 the broad-tailed, 268. 
 
 
 toilet of, 271. 
 
 Park, a deserted, 42. 
 
 
 Pewee, Western wood, 22. 
 
 Ideal retreat, an, 247. 
 
 nest, 38. 
 
 In a, pasture, 207. 
 
 song, 22, 37. 
 
 In the Middle Country, 93. 
 
 voice, 37. 
 
 In the Rocky Mountains, 1. 
 Irrigation vagaries, 242, 245, 267. 
 
 Purple grackle, the, 96. 
 discouraging them, 104. 
 
 
 eating, 100. 
 
 Kansas, 7. 
 Kitchen, an al fresco, 243. 
 
 greeting to me, 97. 
 husky tones, 98. 
 
 Kitten, a lost, 39. 
 
 humor, 99. 
 
 
 no repose of manner, 101. 
 
 Lazuli-painted finch, 261. 
 anxiety of mother, 263. 
 
 plumage, 99. 
 robbed by sparrows, 100. 
 
 babies, 267. 
 
 strange utterances, 98. 
 
 manners, 262, 265. 
 
 treatment of young, 101. 
 
 nest, 262. 
 
 young, 98, 101, 102. 
 
 nest destroyed, 268. 
 
 young, persistence of, 102. 
 
 Magpie : 
 discover us, 225. 
 
 Red-headed woodpecker : 
 autocrat, 106. 
 
 manners, 216, 219, 224. 
 
 eating corn, 109.
 
 278 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Red-headed woodpecker : 
 
 Tents to live in, 11. 
 
 protecting the place, 110. 
 treatment of cardinal grosbeak, 
 108. 
 treatment of doll, 104. 
 
 Thrushes absent, 260. 
 Tourist, 89, 91. 
 Tourist, the unscrupulous, 68. 
 Towhee (see Chewink). 
 
 Kest, to find, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11 
 
 Tragedy of a nest, 42. 
 
 Robin, absence of, 28. 
 
 
 and corn, 103. 
 
 Uproar of song, an, 32. 
 
 and doll, 103. 
 
 
 not plentiful, 250. 
 
 Vagaries of name-givers, 160. 
 
 reception of snake, 250. 
 
 View, a beautiful, 136. 
 
 Rocky Mountains : 
 
 
 a pasture on, 207. 
 
 Walks from the camp, 70. 
 
 Cheyenne range, 235. 
 
 the evening, 70. 
 
 Wasatch range, 233, 234. 
 
 the morning, 72. 
 
 
 up to the canon, 72. 
 
 Sage-bush, 233. 
 Sage the delight of my friend, 
 
 Water ouzel, or American dipper : 
 baby, 80, 85. 
 
 234. 
 Salt Lake, view of , 218. 
 
 cry, 79. 
 " dipping," 80. 
 
 Secret of the Wild Rose Path, 
 
 feats in the water, 83. 
 
 231. 
 
 manners, 80, 81. 
 
 Seven Sisters' Falls, 72. 
 
 nest, 77. 
 
 Sight-seeing travelers, 12. 
 South wind, 266. 
 
 song, 79, 81. 
 the mother, 82. 
 
 Strange character of feathered 
 
 Wood-thrush nest, 168. 
 
 world, 128. 
 
 
 Strangers not allowed, 129. 
 Study of birds, my way, 226. 
 Study of birds, two ways, 236. 
 
 Yellow warbler : 
 nest, 36, 37. 
 song, 23, 36.
 
 Date Due 
 
 CAT. NO. 24 161
 
 lip 
 
 A 000 855 795 1