oad stone window-sill lay
the quivering form of a purple finch. The little tragedy was easily
read. The blackbird had pursued the finch with such murderous violence
that the latter, in its desperate efforts to escape, had sought refuge
in the Treasury. The force of the concussion against the heavy
plateglass of the window had killed the poor thing instantly. The
pursuer, no doubt astonished at the sudden and novel termination of
the career of its victim, hovered for a moment, as if to be sure of
what had happened, and made off.

(It is not unusual for birds, when thus threatened with destruction by
their natural enemy, to become so terrified as to seek safety in the
presence of man. I was once startled, while living in a country
village, to behold, on entering my room at noon, one October day, a
quail sitting upon my bed. The affrighted and bewildered bird
instantly started for the open window, into which it had no doubt been
driven by a hawk.)

The crow blackbird has all the natural cunning of his prototype, the
crow. In one of the inner courts of the Treasury building there is a
fountain with several trees growing near. By midsummer the blackbirds
became so bold as to venture within this court. Various fragments of
food, tossed from the surrounding windows, reward their temerity. When
a crust of dry bread defies their beaks, they have been seen to drop
it into the water, and, when it has become soaked sufficiently, to
take it out again.

They build a nest of coarse sticks and mud, the whole burden of the
enterprise seeming to devolve upon the female. For several successive
mornings, just after sunrise, I used to notice a pair of them flying
to and fro in the air above me as I hoed in the garden, directing
their course about half a mile distant, and disappearing, on their
return, among the trees about the Capitol. Returning, the female
always had her beak loaded with building material, while the male,
carrying nothing, seemed to act as her escort, flying a little above
and in advance of her, and uttering now and then his husky, discordant
note. As I tossed a lump of earth up at them, the frightened mother
bird dropped her mortar, and the pair scurried away, much put out.
Later they avenged themselves by pilfering my cherries.

The most mischievous enemies of the cherries, however, here as at the
North, are the cedar waxwings, or "cherry-birds." How quickly they spy
out the tree! Long before the cherry begins to tu