rapturously than I had supposed he could. He had guided his family
safely out of their imprisoning four walls, I was sure. And so I found
it when I went out. Not a wren to be seen about the house, but soft
little "churs" coming from here and there among the shrubbery, and every
few minutes a loud, happy song proclaimed that wren troubles were over
for the summer. Far in among the tangle of bushes and vines, I came upon
him, as gay as he had been of yore:--

"Pausing and peering, with sidling head,
As saucily questioning all I said;
While the ox-eye danced on its slender stem,
And all glad Nature rejoiced with them."

The chewink is a curious exchange for the robin. When I noticed the
absence of the red-breast, whom--like the poor--we have always with us
(at the East), I was pleased, in spite of my fondness for him, because,
as every one must allow, he is sometimes officious in his attentions,
and not at all reticent in expressing his opinions. I did miss his voice
in the morning chorus,--the one who lived in the grove was not much of a
singer,--but I was glad to know the chewink, who was almost a stranger.
His peculiar trilling song was heard from morning till night; he came
familiarly about the camp, eating from the dog's dish, and foraging for
crumbs at the kitchen door. Next to the wood-pewee, he was the most
friendly of our feathered neighbors.

He might be seen at any time, hopping about on the ground, one moment
picking up a morsel of food, and the next throwing up his head and
bursting into song:--

"But not for you his little singing,
Soul of fire its flame is flinging,
Sings he for himself alone,"

as was evident from the unconscious manner in which he uttered his notes
between two mouthfuls, never mounting a twig or making a "performance"
of his music. I have watched one an hour at a time, going about in his
jerky fashion, tearing up the ground and searching therein, exactly
after the manner of a scratching hen. This, by the way, was a droll
operation, done with both feet together, a jump forward and a jerk back
of the whole body, so rapidly one could hardly follow the motion, but
throwing up a shower of dirt every time. He had neither the grace nor
the dignity of our domestic biddy.

Matter of fact as this fussy little personage was on the ground, taking
in his breakfast and giving out his song, he was a different bird when
he got above it. Alighting on the wren's brush heap, for instance, he