ll make the
woods seem homelike to him, many a time, as he hears it ringing
through the afternoon, like the call of a small country girl playing at
hide-and-seek: "See ME; here I BE."

Another day he sits down on a mossy log beside a cold, trickling spring
to eat his lunch. It has been a barren day for birds. Perhaps he has
fallen into the fault of pursuing his sport too intensely, and tramped
along the stream looking for nothing but fish. Perhaps this part of the
grove has really been deserted by its feathered inhabitants, scared
away by a prowling hawk or driven out by nest-hunters. But now, without
notice, the luck changes. A surprise-party of redstarts breaks into full
play around him. All through the dark-green shadow of the hemlocks
they flash like little candles--CANDELITAS, the Cubans call them. Their
brilliant markings of orange and black, and their fluttering, airy,
graceful movements, make them most welcome visitors. There is no bird in
the bush easier to recognize or pleasanter to watch. They run along
the branches and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of
invisible flies and moths. All the time they keep unfolding and furling
their rounded tails, spreading them out and waving them and closing
them suddenly, just as the Cuban girls manage their fans. In fact, the
redstarts are the tiny fantail pigeons of the forest.

There are other things about the birds, besides their musical talents
and their good looks, that the fisherman has a chance to observe on his
lucky days. He may sea something of their courage and their devotion to
their young.

I suppose a bird is the bravest creature that lives, in spite of its
natural timidity. From which we may learn that true courage is not
incompatible with nervousness, and that heroism does not mean the
absence of fear, but the conquest of it. Who does not remember the first
time that he ever came upon a hen-partridge with her brood, as he was
strolling through the woods in June? How splendidly the old bird forgets
herself in her efforts to defend and hide her young!

Smaller birds are no less daring. One evening last summer I was walking
up the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at Mowett's
Rock, where my canoe was waiting for me. As I stepped out from a thicket
on to the shingly bank of the river, a spotted sandpiper teetered along
before me, followed by three young ones. Frightened at first, the mother
flew out a few feet over the water.