en his mate had seriously
established herself, it was time for the head of the household to assume
her defense, and he did.

As usual, the kingbird united the characters of brave defender and
tender lover. To his spouse his manners were charming. When he came to
relieve her of her care, to give her exercise or a chance for luncheon,
he greeted her with a few low notes, and alighted on a small leafless
twig that curved up about a foot above the nest, and made a perfect
watch-tower. She slipped off her seat and disappeared for about six
minutes. During her absence he stayed at his post, sometimes changing
his perch to one or other of half a dozen leafless branchlets in that
part of the tree, and there sitting, silent and watchful, ready to
interview any stranger who appeared. Upon her return he again saluted
her with a few words, adding to them a lifting of wings and spreading of
his beautiful tail that most comically suggested the bowing and
hat-lifting of bigger gentlemen. In all their life together, even when
the demands of three infants kept them busy from morning till night, he
never forgot this little civility to his helpmate. If she alighted
beside him on the fence, he rose a few inches above his perch, and flew
around in a small circle while greeting her; and sometimes, on her
return to the nest, he described a larger circle, talking (as I must
call it) all the time. Occasionally, when she approached, he flew out to
meet and come back with her, as if to escort her. Could this bird, to
his mate so thoughtful and polite, be to the rest of the world the bully
he is pictured? Did he, who for ten months of the year shows less
curiosity about others, and attends more perfectly to his own business
than any bird I have noticed, suddenly, at this crisis in his life,
become aggressive, and during these two months of love and paternity and
hard work, make war upon a peaceful neighborhood?

I watched closely. There was not an hour of the day, often from four
A.M. to eight P.M., that I had not the kingbird and his nest directly in
sight, and hardly a movement of his life escaped me. There he stood, on
the fence under his tree, on a dead bush at the edge of the bay, or on
the lowest limb of a small pear-tree in the yard. Sometimes he dashed
into the air for his prey; sometimes he dropped to the ground to secure
it; but oftenest, especially when baby throats grew clamorous, he
hovered over the rank grass on the low land of the