yet trained to know and avoid their greatest enemy,
which you may not know, dear reader, that you are, not because you are
bloodthirsty, but because you belong to a bloodthirsty race.

Now one of the babies comes in sight, in soft olive, with golden
suggestions on tail and body; but mamma, horrified that he has exposed
himself to our gaze, hurries him away, and soon the chorus of peeps and
smacks--the yellow-bird baby talk--grows more distant, and the whole
family of golden warblers is gone. It is remarkable how much these
little folk know about our ways. If we walk through their territory
talking and laughing, the birds will continue their own affairs, singing
and calling, and carrying on their domestic concerns as though we were
blind and deaf, as indeed most of us are to the abundant life about us.
But when they see us quiet, looking at them, showing interest in their
ways, they recognize us at once as a suspicious variety of the _genus
homo_, who must be watched. At once they are on guard; they turn shy and
try to slip out behind a bush, or--if hampered by an untrained family of
little ones--attempt to expostulate with us, or to drive us away.

[Sidenote: _A RAPTUROUS SONG._]

All this time you have perhaps been conscious of a delicate little song,
like the ringing of a silver bell, over at the edge of our wild garden.
Now listen; you will hear a rustle as of dead leaves, a low utterance
like a hoarse "mew," then an instant's pause, and the bell song again.
Turn your glass toward the thick shrubbery, at a point where you can see
the ground at the foot of the bushes. In a moment you catch a glimpse
of the mysterious bell-ringer, nearly as big as a robin, modestly
dressed in black and white and chestnut, going about very busily on the
ground; now giving a little jump that throws a light shower of dirt and
leaves into the air, then looking earnestly in the spot thus uncovered,
perhaps picking something up, then hopping to the lowest twig of the
bush, and flinging out upon the air his joyous song. We are fortunate to
see him so soon; he might tantalize us all day with his song, and never
give us a glimpse of himself, for he delights in these quiet places,
under the thickest shrubs. He is the towhee bunting or chewink,
sometimes called ground robin, and in that corner of Colorado he takes
the place the robin fills with us, the most common bird about the house.

Keep very still, and we may perhaps hear his most ecstatic