st they should get the start of me. The youngsters were calling
vociferously, and both parents were very busy attending to their wants
and trying to stop their mouths, when I planted my seat before their
castle in the air, and proceeded to inquire into their manners and
customs. My call was, as usual, not received with favor. The mother,
after administering the mouthful she had brought, alighted on a twig
beside the nest and gave me a "piece of her mind." I admitted my bad
manners, but I could not tear myself away. The anxious papa, very
gorgeous in his chestnut and black suit, scenting danger to the little
brood in the presence of the bird-student with her glass, at once
abandoned the business of feeding, and devoted himself to the protection
of his family,--which indeed was his plain duty. His way of doing this
was to take his position on the tallest tree in the vicinity, and fill
the serene morning air with his cry of distress, a two-note utterance,
with a pathetic inflection which could not fail to arouse the sympathy
of all who heard it. It was not excited or angry, but it proclaimed that
here was distress and danger, and it had the effect of making me ashamed
of annoying him. But I hardened my heart, as I often have to do in my
study, and kept my seat. Occasionally he returned to the lower part of
his own tree, to see if the monster had been scared or shamed away, but
finding me stationary, he returned to his post and resumed his mournful
cry.

At length the happy thought came to me that I might select a position a
little less conspicuous, yet still within sight, so I moved my seat
farther off, away back under a low-branched apple-tree, where a redbird
came around with sharp "tsip's" to ascertain my business, and a catbird
behind the briar-bush entertained me with delicious song. The oriole
accepted my retirement as a compromise, and returned to his domestic
duties, coming, as was natural and easiest, on my side of the tree. His
habit was to cling to the side of the nest, showing his black and
red-gold against it, while his mate alighted on the edge, and was seen a
little above it. After feeding, both perched on neighboring twigs and
looked about for a moment before the next food-hunting trip. I thought
the father of the family exhibited an air of resignation, as if he
concluded that, since the babies made so much noise, there was no use in
trying longer to preserve the secret.

As a matter of fact, both our orio