d started to come to the nest and
fled at sight of me? Remembering the evidence Bradford Torrey collected
to prove that the male bird is rarely seen at the nest, I wondered if
his absence might be explained by his usually noisy flight, for it would
attract the notice of man or beast.

Two days later I carefully touched the tip of my finger to the back of
one of the tiny hummingbirds,--it was very skinny, I regret to
state,--and at my touch the little thing opened its wee bill for food.
That day the mother fed the birds in the regulation way, when we were
only four feet distant. I was near enough to see all the horrors of the
performance. She thrust her bill down their throats till I felt like
crying out, "For mercy's sake, forbear!" She plunged it in up to the
very hilt; it seemed as if she must puncture their alimentary canals.

While waiting for the wrens, I buckled Billy's bridle around the
sycamore and threw myself down on the warm sand under the beautiful
tree. The little horse stood near, outlined against the blue sky, with
the sunlight dappling his back, while I looked up into the light green
foliage of the white sycamore overhead. There seemed to be a great deal
of light stored in these delicate trees. The undersides of the big,
soft, white leaves looked like white Canton flannel; the sunlight
mottled the whitish bark of the trunks and branches; and a great limb
arched above me, making a high vaulted chamber whose skylights showed
the deep blue above.

But there were the little lover and his mate, and I must turn my glass
on them. She came first, with long streamers hanging from her bill, and
at sight of me got so flustered that one of her straws slipped out and
went sailing down to the ground. When the pair had gone again, two
linnets came along. The female saw the wren's doorway, and being in
search of apartments flew up to look at the house. When she came out she
and her mate talked it over and, apparently, she told him something that
aroused his curiosity--perhaps about the wren's twigs she found
inside--for he flew into the dark hole and looked around as she had
done. Then both birds went off to inspect other holes in the tree. The
master of the wren cottage came back in time to see them on their
rounds, and taking up his position in front of his door sang out loudly,
with wings hanging and a general air of, "This is _my_ house, I'd have
you understand!"

When the lord of the manor had flown away, his l