ing 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 distress, but
simply the tragic manner of the family.

Again, when the wind blew, it was impossible to see the little folk
that chattered and whispered 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 neighborhood not their
own, appearing on the tops of trees, and crying out in martial tones for
the inhabitants to bring on their fighters, a challenge 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 rushing 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 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 the