kept perfectly quiet, never
once putting up their heads, even when the mother, buzzing and calling,
zigzagged directly about the nest. I had seen many birds in the tree,
first and last, but none that created anything like such a stir. The
mother was literally in a frenzy. She went the round of her perches, but
could stay nowhere. Once she dashed out of the tree for an instant, and
drove a sparrow away from the tomato patch. Ordinarily his presence
there would not have annoyed her in the least, but in her present state
of mind she was ready to pounce upon anybody. All of which shows once
more how "human-like" birds are. The bewilderment of the oriole was
comical. "What on earth can this crazy thing be shooting about my ears
in this style for?" I imagined him saying to himself. In fact, as he
glanced my way, now and then, with his innocent baby face, I could
almost believe that he was appealing to me with some such inquiry.

The next morning ("at 7.32," as my diary is careful to note) one of the
twins took his flight. I was standing on the wall, with my glass leveled
upon the nest, when I saw him exercising his wings. The action was
little more pronounced than had been noticed at intervals during the
last three or four days, except that he was more decidedly on his feet.
Suddenly, without making use of the rim of the nest, as I should have
expected him to do, he was in the air, hovering in the prettiest
fashion, and in a moment more had alighted on a leafless twig slightly
above the level of the nest, and perhaps a yard from it. Within a minute
the mother appeared, buzzing and calling, with answering calls from the
youthful adventurer. At once--after a hasty reconnaissance of the man on
the wall--she perched beside him, and plunged her bill into his throat.
Then she went to the nest, served the other one in the same way, and
made off. She had no time to waste at this juncture of affairs.

When she had gone, I stepped up to the trunk of the tree to watch the
little fellow more closely. He held his perch, and occupied himself with
dressing his plumage, though, as the breeze freshened, he was compelled
once in a while to keep his wings in motion to prevent the wind from
carrying him away. When the old bird returned,--in just half an
hour,--she resented my intrusion (what an oppressor of the widow and the
fatherless she must by this time have thought me!) in the most
unmistakable manner, coming more than once quite within rea