o its charm. Now, too, spring had really come, and
I waited only for warm days to let them go and set up their homestead in
freedom. The first mild day in May the window was opened for them. The
female flew first to a tree in front of the house, where she was greeted
in the rudest manner by the bird-tramps which infest our streets,--the
house-sparrows. They began to assemble around her, no doubt prepared for
attack, when she gave a loud cry of distress, and out flew her valiant
knight to her aid. After a moment's pause by her side, they both flew,
and we saw the gentle pair no more.

This true chronicle began with a quotation from Lanier; it shall end
with one from Harriet Prescott Spofford:--

"A bit of heaven itself, he flew,
When earth seemed heaven with bees and bloom,
South wind, and sunshine, and perfume;
And morning were not morn without him.
Winging, springing, always flinging,
Flinging music all about him."

THE GOLDEN-WING.

The high-hole flashing his golden wings.

WALT WHITMAN.

VI.

THE GOLDEN-WING.

One of the special objects of my search during a certain June among the
hills of northern New York was a nest of the golden-winged woodpecker;
not that it is rare or hard to find, but because I had never seen one
and had read attractive stories of the bird's domestic relations, the
large number of young in the nest, and his devotion and pride. Moreover,
I had become greatly interested in the whole family, through my
attachment to an individual member of it in my own house.

I soon discovered that the orchard at the back of the house was visited
every day by a pair of the birds I was seeking. One was seen running up
and down a trunk of a large poplar-tree, and the next morning two
alighted on a dead branch at the top of an apple-tree, perching like
other birds on twigs, which seemed too light to bear their weight. But
they were apparently satisfied with them; for they stayed some time,
pluming themselves and evidently looking with interest and astonishment
at human intruders into what had no doubt been a favorite haunt of their
own. I watched them for several minutes, till a sudden noise startled
the shy creatures and they were off in an instant.

After that I saw them often at the bottom of the orchard. They always
flew over the place with rather a heavy business-like flight, alighted
on a low branch of the farthest apple-tree, and in a moment drop