e lovely
evening in June. The pair were scrambling about, as if in play, on the
trunk of a tall maple-tree across the lane. They did not welcome our
visit, nor our perhaps rather rude way of gazing at them; for one flew
away, and the other perched on the topmost dead branch of a tree a
little farther off, and proceeded to express his mind by a scolding
"kr-r-r," accompanied by violent bows toward us. Finding his
demonstration unavailing, he soon followed his mate, and weeks passed
before we saw him again, although we often walked down the lane with the
hope of doing so.

One beautiful morning, after the hay had been cut from the meadow, and
all the hidden nests we had looked at and longed for while grass was
growing, were opened to us, I had taken my comfortable folding-chair to
a specially delightful nook between a clump of evergreens, which
screened it from the house, and a row of maples, elms, and other trees,
much frequented by birds. Close before me was a beautiful hawthorn-tree,
in which a pair of kingbirds had long ago built their nest. On one side
I could look over to an impenetrable, somewhat swampy thicket, where
song sparrows and indigo birds nested; on the other, past the
picturesque old-fashioned arbor, half buried under vines and untrimmed
trees, far down the pretty carriage-drive between young elms and
flowering shrubs, where the bobolink had raised her brood, and the
meadow lark had chanted his vesper hymn for us all through June. Many
winged strangers came to feast on the treasures uncovered by the
hay-cutter, and then the shy red-head showed himself on our grounds. To
my surprise, he was searching the freshly cut stubble not at all like a
woodpecker, but hobbling about most awkwardly, half flying, half
hopping, seeking some delectable morsel, which, when found, he carried
to the side of a tree-trunk, thrust into a crack, and ate at his
leisure. The object I saw him treat in this way was as large as a bee,
and he was some time in disposing of it, even after it was anchored in
the crack. Then, observing that, although a long way off, I was
interested in his doings, he slipped around behind the trunk, and peered
at me first from one side, then in an instant from the other.

The next performance with which this bird entertained me was poaching
upon his cousin's preserves. Sitting one evening on the veranda, looking
over the meadow, I heard his low "kr-r-r," and saw him alight upon the
sapsucker's elm. Wh