ear,--and
launched forth upon his untried wings. They served him well, and
carried him about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second day
after, the next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then
another, till only one remained. The parent birds ceased their visits
to him, and for one day he called and called till our ears were tired
of the sound. His was the faintest heart of all. Then he had none to
encourage him from behind. He left the nest and clung to the outer bole
of the tree, and yelped and piped for an hour longer; then he committed
himself to his wings and went his way like the rest.

A young farmer in the western part of New York, who has a sharp,
discriminating eye, sends me some interesting notes about a tame
high-hole he once had.

"Did you ever notice," says he, "that the high-hole never eats anything
that he cannot pick up with his tongue? At least this was the case with
a young one I took from the nest and tamed. He could thrust out his
tongue two or three inches, and it was amusing to see his efforts to
eat currants from the hand. He would run out his tongue and try to
stick it to the currant; failing in that, he would bend his tongue
around it like a hook and try to raise it by a sudden jerk. But he
never succeeded, the round fruit would roll and slip away every time.
He never seemed to think of taking it in his beak. His tongue was in
constant use to find out the nature of everything he saw; a nail-hole
in a board or any similar hole was carefully explored. If he was held
near the face he would soon be attracted by the eye and thrust his
tongue into it. In this way he gained the respect of a number of
half-grown cats that were around the house. I wished to make them
familiar to each other, so there would be less danger of their
killing him. So I would take them both on my knee, when the bird
would soon notice the kitten's eyes, and, leveling his bill as
carefully as a marksman levels his rifle, he would remain so a
minute, when he would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. This was
held by the cats to be very mysterious: being struck in the eye by
something invisible to them. They soon acquired such a terror of him
that they would avoid him and run away whenever they saw his bill
turned in their direction. He never would swallow a grasshopper even
when it was placed in his throat; he would shake himself until he had
thrown it out of his mouth. His 'best hold' was ants. He never was
su