ncy. It is at the foot of a stalk of
Canada thistle about a foot and a half high, and where, for a few square
yards, the grazing is very poor. I do not think that the chances are one
in fifty that the hoof of a cow will find it. I do not suppose that the
problem presented itself to the bird as it does to me, but her instinct
was as sure a guide as my reason is to me--or a surer one.

The vesper sparrow was thus happily named by a New England bird-lover,
Wilson Flagg, an old-fashioned writer on our birds, fifty or more years
ago. I believe the bird was called the grass finch by our earlier
writers. It haunts the hilly pastures and roadsides in the Catskill
region. It is often called the road-runner, from its habit of running
along the road ahead when one is driving or walking--a very different
bird, however, from the road-runner of the Western States. The vesper is
larger than the song sparrow, of a lighter gray and russet, and does not
frequent our gardens and orchards as does the latter. In color it
suggests the European skylark; the two lateral white quills in its tail
enhance this impression. One season a stray skylark, probably from Long
Island or some other place where larks had been liberated, appeared in a
broad, low meadow near me, and not finding his own kind paid court to a
female vesper sparrow. He pursued her diligently and no doubt pestered
her dreadfully. She fled from him precipitately and seemed much
embarrassed by the attentions of the distinguished-looking foreigner.

When the young of any species appear, the solicitude and watchfulness of
the mother bird are greatly increased. Although my near neighbor the
vesper sparrow in front of my door has had proof of my harmless
character now for several weeks and, one would think, must know that her
precious secret is safe with me, yet, when she comes with food in her
beak while I am at my desk ten or eleven yards away, she maneuvers
around for a minute or two, flying up to the telephone wire or a few
yards up or down the road, and finally approaches the nest with much
hesitation and suspicion, lest I see her in the act. When she comes
again and again and again, she is filled with the same apprehension.

After a night of heavy but warm rain two of the half-fledged young were
lying on the ground in front of the nest, dead. There were no murderous
marks upon them, and the secret of the tragedy I could not divine.

What automatons these wild creatures are, appa