flash, forward or backward, upward or
downward, never turning, but dashing in any direction opposite to the
quarter from which the disturbance came. On the rare occasions when she
was not frightened, she seemed unable to tear herself away. She would
hover about her nest, five or six inches from it, this side and that,
over and around again, with eyes apparently fixed on her treasures,
sometimes daintily touching with the tip of her beak the nest, or one of
the nestlings, in a caressing manner.

The small dame too, though wary and easily startled, had a great deal of
repose of manner. When settled over her infants, she sat still most of
the time, not moving her head from side to side in the restless way of
some of her family, but looking straight before her and as quiet as a
thrush.

In another way the little mother ignored the traditions; she did not
always hum. Until the little ones were ten or twelve days old she came
to the nest in perfect silence; after that she began to hum, and by the
time they were two weeks old she came with her characteristic note every
time.

It is interesting to see how all birds recognize and respect the right
of a mother to her own tree, or the part of a tree on which she has set
up her home. Big birds like robins and thrashers, even belligerent ones,
who will not generally allow themselves to be driven, usually depart
speedily before the beak of the least of mothers asserting her ownership
of a tree or bush; not because they are afraid of her, but because they
appreciate the justice of her title, and demand the same for themselves.

[Sidenote: _BABIES THE SIZE OF A BEE._]

Small as was the apple-tree dweller, she had managed, before I knew her,
to establish her claim to her own vicinity. Goldfinches and yellow
warblers, vireos and robins, were about; I heard them on all sides, but
not one intruded upon her tree or the neighboring sides of the maples.
As the young progressed and waxed bumptious, she became more and more
cautious. She made many more angles and observations in the air before
alighting, looking at them from every possible side, as if wishing to
assure herself that nothing had happened in her absence. She even
resented the presence under her tree of a hen and chickens, and flew
at them with savage cries. But the barnyard matron was too much absorbed
in her own maternal anxieties to pay any heed to the midget buzzing and
squeaking around her head; and madam herself seemed t