ed as usual to the outsiders,
and found leisure to drop in a song now and then.

While I watched, number three took his life in his hands (as it were)
and launched out upon the air. He reached a tree not so far away as his
brothers had chosen, and his mother sought him out and fed him there.
But he did not seem to be satisfied with his achievement, or possibly
he found the position rather lonely; at any rate, the next use of his
wings was to return to his native apple, to the lower part. During this
visit, the mother of the little brood, seeing, I suppose, her labors
growing lighter, indulged herself and delighted me with a scrap of song,
very sweet, as the song of the female oriole always is.

It was with forebodings that I approached the tree the next morning,
foreboding speedily confirmed--the whole family was gone! Either I had
not stayed late enough or I had not got up early enough to see the
flitting; that song, then, meant something--it was my good-by.

Indeed it turned out to be my farewell, as I thought, for the whole
tribe seemed to have vanished. Usually it is not difficult to hunt up a
little bird family in its wanderings, during the month following its
leaving the nest, but this one I could neither see nor hear, and I was
very sure those oriole babies had not so soon outgrown their crying;
they must have been struck dumb or left the place.

Nearly three weeks later I was wandering about in what was called the
glen, half a mile or more from where the apple-tree babies had first
seen the light. It was a wild spot, a ravine, through which ran a
stream, where many wood-birds sang and nested. On approaching a
linden-tree loaded with blossoms, and humming with swarms of bees, I was
saluted with a burst of loud song, interspersed with scolding. No one
but an orchard oriole could so mix things, and sure enough! there he
was, scrambling over the flowers. Something he found to his taste,
whether the blossoms or the insects, I could not decide. On waiting a
little, I heard the young oriole cry, much subdued since nesting days,
and the tender "ye-ep" of the parent. The whole family was evidently
there together, and I was very glad to see them once more.

The nest, which I had brought down, was a beautiful structure, made, I
think, of very fine excelsior of a bright straw-color. It was suspended
in an upright fork of four twigs, and lashed securely to three of them,
while a few lines were passed around the fourth. T