ew and keener eyes
were added.

Of course one must not only see sharply, but read aright what he sees.
The facts in the life of Nature that are transpiring about us are like
written words that the observer is to arrange into sentences. Or the
writing is in cipher and he must furnish the key. A female oriole was
one day observed very much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse
from the horse stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn
fowls, scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable,
dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding what she
wanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and was presently
captured by the farmer. What did she want? was the query. What but a
horsehair for her nest which was in an apple-tree near by? and she was
so bent on having one that I have no doubt she would have tweaked one
out of the horse's tail had he been in the stable. Later in the season
I examined her nest, and found it sewed through and through with
several long horsehairs, so that the bird persisted in her search till
the hair was found.

Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic scenes,
are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our eyes are
sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw this little comedy
played among some English sparrows, and wrote an account of it in his
newspaper; it is too good not to be true: A male bird brought to his
box a large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a sparrow
and much coveted. After he had deposited his prize and chattered his
gratulations over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door
neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in and
seized the feather; and here the wit of the bird came out, for instead
of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a near tree and hid
it in a fork of the branches, then went home, and when her neighbor
returned with his mate was innocently employed about her own affairs.
The proud male, finding his feather gone, came out of his box in a high
state of excitement, and, with wrath in his manner and accusation on
his tongue, rushed into the cote of the female. Not finding his goods
and chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around awhile,
abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, then went
away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out of sight, the
shrewd thief went and brought the feather home and