with her
spouse to the poplar-tree.

Progress was somewhat more rapid after this experience, and in a day or
two the little kings were flying freely, by short flights, all about the
grove, which came quite up to the fence. Now I saw the working of the
strange migrating call above mentioned. Whenever the old birds began the
cries and the circling flight, the young were thrown into a fever of
excitement. One after another flew out, calling and moving in circles as
long as he could keep it up. For five minutes the air was full of
kingbird cries, both old and young, and then fell a sudden silence. Each
young bird dropped to a perch, and the elders betook themselves to their
hunting-ground as calmly as if they had not been stirring up a rout in
the family. Usually, at the end of the affair, the youngsters found
themselves widely apart; for they had not yet learned to fly together,
and to be apart was, above all things, repugnant to the three. They
began calling; and the sound was potent to reunite them. From this side
and that, by easy stages, came a little kingbird, each flight bringing
them nearer each other; and before two minutes had passed they were
nestled side by side, as close as ever. There they sat an hour or two
and uttered their cries, and there they were hunted up and fed by the
parents. There, I almost believe, they would have stayed till doomsday,
but for the periodical stirring up by the mysterious call. No matter how
far they wandered,--and each day it was farther and farther,--seven
o'clock always found them moving; and all three came back to the native
tree for the night, though never to the nest again.

No characteristic of the young kingbirds was more winning than their
confiding and unsuspicious reception of strangers, for so soon as they
began to frequent other trees than the one the paternal vigilance had
made comparatively sacred to them, they were the subjects of attention.
The English sparrow was first, as usual, to inquire into their right to
be out of their own tree. He came near them, alighted, and began to hop
still closer. Not in the least startled by his threatening manner, the
nearest youngster looked at him, and began to flutter his wings, to
call, and to move toward him, as if expecting to be fed. This was too
much even for a sparrow; he departed.

Another curious visitor was a red-eyed vireo, who, being received in the
same innocent and childlike way, also took his leave. But this bird