and happy parents bring forward their tender younglings all unused to
the ways of the world, and carry on their training before our eyes.

First to come upon the scene of the summer's studies was the brown
thrush family. For some time the head of the household had made the
grove a regular resting place in his daily round. He always entered in
silence, alighted on the lowest limb of a tree, and hopped lightly, step
by step, to the top, where he sang softly a few delightful and
tantalizing strains. In a moment he dropped to the ground, uttering a
liquid note or two as he went, and threw into his work of digging among
the dead leaves the same suppressed vehemence he had put into his song.
Not unfrequently he came into collision with a sparrow mob that claimed
to own that piece of wood, and his way of dealing with them was an ever
fresh satisfaction. He stood quiet, though the crouching attitude and
the significant twitches of his expressive tail indicated very clearly
to one who knew him that he was far from calm inside; that he was merely
biding his time. His tranquil manner misled the vulgar foe; that they
mistook it for cowardice was obvious. Nearer, and still nearer, they
drew, surrounded him, and seemed about to fall upon him in a body, when
he suddenly wheeled, and like a flash of light dashed right and left
almost simultaneously, as if he had become two birds, and the
impertinent enemy fairly vanished before him.

Like many another bird, however, the thrasher, although not afraid of
sparrows, disliked a continual row. He had gradually ceased to come into
the neighborhood, and I feared I should neither see nor (what was worse)
hear him again. But one morning he presented himself with two
youngsters, so brimful of joy that he quite forgot his previous caution
and reserve. They perched in plain sight on the fence, and while the
little ones clumsily struggled to maintain their footing, the father
turned his head this side and that, jerked his tail, and uttered a low
cry as touch as to say, "Can anybody beat that pair now?"

In a moment he fell to the serious work of filling their hungry mouths.
Being very wide awake, the young birds readily saw where supplies came
from, and then they accompanied their parent to the ground, following
every step, as he dug almost without ceasing. After a tolerably solid
repast of large white grubs, he slipped away from the dear coaxers,
disappeared on the other side of the fence, and bef