st where it
had fallen, and another came down during the day, though happily without
injury. This one was not very bright, or perhaps his baby wits were
dazed by his sudden descent. He made no objection to staying in my hand
as long as I liked to look at him, and when I placed him on a low
branch, as a hint that it was safer there, he declined to accept my
advice, but flew off and came to the ground again. He was a scraggy
looking, rusty black little fellow, the most unattractive young bird I
ever saw. Shortly after this he clambered up on a pile of brush about a
foot high, without so much as a leaf to screen him, and there he stayed
all day, motionless, being fed at long intervals; and there I left him
at night, never expecting to see him again. But in the morning he
appeared on a low shrub on the lawn, and about nine o'clock he took
courage to launch himself on wing. He flew very low across the street,
and dropped into the tall grass at the foot of a lilac bush. Why the
parents considered that less safe than the open lawn I could not see,
but they evidently did, for one of them perched upon the lilac, and
filled the air with anxious "chucks," announcing to all whom it might
concern--after the fashion of some birds--that here was a stray infant
to be had for the picking up. Perhaps, however, the hue-and-cry kept off
the quiet-loving cat; at any rate nothing happened to him, I think, for
in a day or two the three young birds became so expert on wing that the
whole family left us, and I hope found a place where they were more
welcome than in that colony of house and orchard birds.

Not so quiet in their ways are the babies of another blackbird
family--the redwings; restless and uneasy, the clumsy little creatures
climb all about the bushes and trees, and keep both parents busy, not
only in filling their gaping mouths, but in finding them when the food
is brought. They are always seeking a new place, and from the moment of
leaving the nest show in a marked way the unrest, the impatience of the
redwing family.

Quite as erratic is a much smaller bird, the yellow throated warbler,
whose baby ways I have seen at the South. One of these bantlings no
bigger than the end of a thumb will easily keep its parent frantically
busy rushing about after food, and hunting up the capricious wanderer on
its return.

The wood thrush, on the contrary, is patience itself. A youngster of
this lovely family sits a half hour at a time motion