ped to
the ground where the long grass hid them. There they remained five
minutes or more before returning to the tree. Unfortunately it was a
little farther than I could readily see with my glass, and the most
cautious approach alarmed them. I heard them call nearly every day in
loud, strong voice, "Pe-auk! pe-auk!"

Being thus baffled in my plan of following them home, I resolved upon a
regular search in the small piece of woods where they always
disappeared, and every morning I spent two or three hours in that lovely
spot looking for any birds, but especially for the Golden-wing. In all
my search, however, I found but one nest, which may have been his, where
apparently a tragedy had occurred; for from the edge of the opening the
bark was torn off down the trunk, and in two or three places holes were
picked as though to reach the nest which had been within.

Whatever the drama enacted in that mysterious home, I was too late to
see, and I have not been able as yet to make close acquaintance with the
free Golden-wing.

The bird that had so interested me in his whole family I found in a bird
store in New York in the month of November. He was a most
disconsolate-looking object, and so painfully wild I could scarcely bear
to look at him--poor, shy, frightened soul, set up in a cage to be
stared at. I rescued him at once with the intention of giving him a more
retired home, and freedom the moment spring opened. The change did not
at first reassure him, and he was so frantic that his cage was covered
to shut out the sights till he was accustomed to the sounds of a
household. Gradually, an inch or two at a time, the cover that hid the
world from him was reduced, till at the end of three weeks he could
endure the removal of the last corner without going absolutely mad.

On the first day an opening a few inches wide was left in his screen, so
that he might look out if he chose, and I took my seat as far as
possible from him, with my back to him, and a hand-glass so arranged
that I could see him. As soon as the room was quiet he went to the
opening and cautiously thrust his long bill and his head as far as the
eye beyond the edge so that he could see me. I kept perfectly still,
while he watched me several minutes with evident interest, and I was
glad to see that it was simply fright and not idiocy that caused his
panics.

Many emotions of the bird were most comically expressed by hammering. In
embarrassment or alarm, when