ttle. To my surprise and delight, the bird seemed to
regard this as a surrender, for down a broad branch that sloped toward
me came a most animated bundle of feathers, wings and tail wide spread,
making hostile demonstrations, and scolding as fiercely as such an atom
could. It had all the airs of ownership, and its colors were olive and
yellow; had, then, the roguish redstart deceived me, after all? Thus
pondering, I suddenly remembered that I had never seen his spouse, and
that monsieur and madame do not dress alike in the bird world any more
than in the human. I marked the points; I consulted the books; there
could be no doubt this was the little dame herself, and her mate had
been too clever to come to her aid.

The structure on the apple bough was the redstart homestead. Watch it
every day I must, yet not to disturb the fiery little owners it was
necessary to move further from them. I sought and found a delightful
nook, the other side of the ravine. On its steep sides the native forest
still flourished, and seated at the foot of a tall maple, tented in by a
heavy low growth at my back, I could look across the narrow chasm
through a gap in the trees, and see the redstart nest in the pasture
beyond. The restless pair did not notice me behind my veil of greenery,
and my glass was of the best; so I secured a good view of the small
mansion and the life that went on about it, without in the least
annoying the builders thereof. I found the head of the family very
interesting in his role of husband and father.

Perhaps not every one knows a redstart, and his name is misleading, for
he has not a red feather on his body. He is a bird of very few inches,
clothed in brilliant array of orange and black and white, which always
suggests the Baltimore oriole. His mate is more soberly clad in
olive-brown and golden-yellow; neither of them is still for an instant,
diving and flitting about on a tree like specks of animated sunlight.

At my pleasant post of observation I spent hours of every day, stealing
in soon after breakfast, quietly, so as not to arouse the suspicions of
a robin who lived in the neighborhood; for unfortunate is the student
whose ways are not acceptable to one of this noisy family. I found,
however, when my patience gave out, that the robin will take a hint. On
throwing a pebble through the branches near him, as a suggestion that
his attentions were not welcome, he flew to a tree a little farther off,
and resume