its affairs, for the wren-tit was really a most original bird, and one I
was especially anxious to study.

My newly awakened interest was not chilled by any second tragedy; all
went well with the little blue-grays. The day the gnat's eggs hatched,
the old folks performed most ludicrously. Perhaps they were young
parents, and this being their first brood, maternal and paternal love
had not yet blinded their eyes to the ridiculous; so that they looked
down on these skinny, squirming, big-eyeballed prodigies with mingled
emotions. It looked very much as if they were surprised to find that
their smooth pretty eggs had suddenly turned into these ugly, weak,
hungry things they did not know what to do with. At first it seemed that
something must be wrong at the nest; the little gnat shook her wings and
tail beside it as if afraid of soiling herself; and when she hopped into
it, jerked out again and flitted around distractedly. Every time the
birds looked into the nest they got so excited that, had they been
girls, they surely would have hopped up and down wringing their hands. I
laughed right out alone in the brush, they acted so absurdly.

They began feeding the nestlings in the most remarkable way I had ever
witnessed. When the young mother was on the nest her mate came and
brought her the food, whereupon, instead of jumping off the nest and
feeding the young in the conventional way, she simply raised up on her
feet and, apparently, poked the food backwards into the bills of the
young under her breast! Even when the gnats got to feeding more in the
ordinary way, they did it nervously. They fed as if expecting the young
to bite them. They would fly up on the branch beside the nest, give a
jab down at the youngsters, whip tails and flee. You would have thought
the young parents had been playing house before, and their dolls had
suddenly turned into live hungry nestlings.

I watched this family till the house was deserted, and I had to ride
along a line of brush before finding them. The young were now pretty
silvery-breasted creatures who sat up in a small oak while the old birds
hunted through the brush for food for them. Though I rode Billy into the
chaparral after them, and got near enough to see the black line over the
bill of the father bird, they did not mind, but hunted away quite
unconcernedly; for we had been through many things together, and were
now old and fast friends.

V.

LITTLE PRISONERS IN THE TOWE