corner of the group stood a small dead tree. This was the
phoebe's customary perch, and on those bare branches--first or
last--every visitor was sure to appear. On the lower branch the robin
paused, with worm in mouth, on the way to his two-story nest under the
eaves of the barn. On the top spire the warbler baby sat and stared at
the world about it, till its anxious parent could coax it to a more
secluded perch. From a side branch the veery poured his wonderful song,
and the cheery little song sparrow uttered his message of good will for
all to hear and heed. Here the red-headed woodpecker waited, with low
"k-r-r-r-r" and many bows to the universe in general, to see if the way
were clear for him to go to the fence. Nothing is so good to bring birds
into sight as an old fence or a dead tree. On the single leafless branch
at the top of an old apple-tree the student will generally see, at one
time or another, every bird in an orchard.

This dead tree of the locust group was the regular perch of "the
loneliest of its kind," the phoebe, whose big chuckle-head and high
shoulders gave him the look of an old man, bent with age. His outline
one could never mistake, even though he were but a silhouette against
the sky. One of these birds could nearly always be seen on the lowest
branch pursuing his business of fly-catcher, and I learned more of the
singularly reserved creature than I ever knew before. I found, contrary
to my expectation, that he had a great deal to say for himself, aside
from the professional performance at the peak of the barn roof which
gives him his name.

"Phoebe is all it has to say
In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er,"

sings the poet, but he had not so close acquaintance with him as I
enjoyed behind my blind. There were two mud cottages in the
neighborhood, and two pairs of birds to occupy them, and no phoebe of
spirit will tolerate in silence another of his kind near him. Sparrows
of all sorts might come about; juncos and chickadees, thrushes and
warblers, might alight on his chosen tree,--rarely a word would he say;
but let a phoebe appear, and there began at once a war of words. It
might be mere friendly talk, but it sounded very much like vituperation
and "calling names," and I noticed that it ended in a chase and the
disappearance of one of them.

Again, whenever a phoebe alighted on the fence he made a low but
distinct remark that sounded marvelously like "cheese-it," and several
times the