inutes she brought
food to the nestling. Once the little fellow--not so very little
now--happened to be facing east, while the old bird alighted, as she had
invariably done, on the western side. The youngster, instead of facing
about, threw back his head and opened his beak. "Look out, there!"
exclaimed my fellow-observer; "you'll break his neck if you feed him in
that way." But she did not mind. Young birds' necks are not so easily
broken. Within ten minutes of this time she fed Number One, giving him
three doses. They were probably small, however (and small wonder), for
he begged hard for more, opening his bill with an appealing air. The
action in this case was particularly well seen, and the vehement
jerking, while the beaks were glued together, seemed almost enough to
pull the young fellow's head off. Within another ten minutes the mother
was again ministering to Number Two! Poor little widow! Between her
incessant labors of this kind and her overwhelming anxiety whenever any
strange bird came near, I began to be seriously alarmed for her. As a
member of a strictly American family, she was in a fair way, I thought,
to be overtaken by the "most American of diseases,"--nervous
prostration. It tired me to watch her.

With us, and perhaps with her likewise, it was a question whether Number
Two would remain in the nest for the day. He grew more and more
restless; as my companion--a learned man--expressed it, he began to
"ramp round." Once he actually mounted the rim of the nest, a thing
which his more precocious brother had never been seen to do, and
stretched forward to pick at a neighboring stem. Late that afternoon the
mother fed him five times within an hour, instead of once an hour, or
thereabouts, as had been her habit three weeks before. She meant to have
him in good condition for the coming event; and he, on his part, was
active to the same end,--standing upon the wall of the nest again and
again, and exercising his wings till they made a cloud about him. A
dread of launching away still kept him back, however, and shortly after
seven o'clock I found him comfortably disposed for the night. "He is now
on his twenty-first day (at least) in the nest. To-morrow will see him
go." So end my day's notes.

At 5.45 the next morning he was still there. At 6.20 I absented myself
for a few minutes, and on returning was hailed by my neighbor with the
news that the nest was empty. Number Two had flown between 6.25 and
6.30, b