ence of rearing a cow-bunting?"
(A day later.) "The robins are out of the nest, and the little sparrow
continues to feed them. She approaches them rather timidly and
hesitatingly, as if she feared they might swallow her, then thrusts her
titbit quickly into the distended mouth and jerks back."

Whether the chippy had lost her own brood, whether she was an unmated
bird, or whether the case was simply the overflowing of the maternal
instinct, it would be interesting to know.

THE CHEWINK

The chewink is a shy bird, but not stealthy. It is very inquisitive, and
sets up a great scratching among the leaves, apparently to attract your
attention. The male is perhaps the most conspicuously marked of all the
ground-birds except the bobolink, being black above, bay on the sides,
and white beneath. The bay is in compliment to the leaves he is forever
scratching among,--they have rustled against his breast and sides so
long that these parts have taken their color; but whence come the white
and the black? The bird seems to be aware that his color betrays him,
for there are few birds in the woods so careful about keeping themselves
screened from view. When in song, its favorite perch is the top of some
high bush near to cover. On being disturbed at such times, it pitches
down into the brush and is instantly lost to view.

[Illustration: CHEWINK
Upper, male; lower, female]

This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly
exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the threshold
of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a drawing of the Canada
jay which he sent to the President. It was a new bird, and in reply
Jefferson called his attention to a "curious bird" which was everywhere
to be heard, but scarcely ever to be seen. He had for twenty years
interested the young sportsmen of his neighborhood to shoot one for him,
but without success. "It is in all the forests, from spring to fall," he
says in his letter, "and never but on the tops of the tallest trees,
from which it perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest notes,
and as clear as those of the nightingale. I have followed it for miles,
without ever but once getting a good view of it. It is of the size and
make of the mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on the back, and a
grayish-white on the breast and belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was
in possession of one which had been shot by a neighbor," etc. Randolph
pro