r added her entreaties to his, darting hither and thither, calling
most anxiously,--both, in their distress, rashly exposing themselves to
what might, for all they knew, be one of the death-dealing machines we
so often turn against them.

Nothing had the slightest effect upon the yellow-throated youngster
until his own sensations interested him, and his parents suddenly
acquired new importance in his horizon. When hunger assailed him, and,
looking about for supplies, he spied his provider on the next bush with
a beak full of tempting (and wriggling) dainties, and when he found his
wily parent deaf to his cries, and understood that not until he flew
behind the leafy screen could he receive the food he craved, then he
yielded, and joined his relieved relatives out of my sight.

[Sidenote: _VAGARIES OF A BABY._]

Many times after that morning did the vagaries of that young
yellow-throat give me opportunity to study the ways of his family.
Having newly escaped from the nursery, in a thorny bush behind
thick-growing alders, his strongest desire apparently was to see the
world, and those outlying dead twigs, convenient for the grasp of baby
feet, were particularly attractive to him. Every day for nearly a week,
as I passed into the quiet old pasture, I stopped to interview the
youngster, and always found him inquisitive, and evidently, in his own
estimation, far wiser than his elders, who were nearly wild over his
conduct.

This pasture of about forty acres, lying behind my temporary home, was
the joy of my heart, being delightfully neglected and fast relapsing
into the enchanting wildness of nature. In a deep bed fringed with a
charming confusion of trees and bushes ran a tiny stream, which in the
spring justified its right to the title of river. Scattering clumps of
alders and young trees of many kinds made it a birds' paradise, while
wild cherries and berries of all sorts, with abundant insect life,
offered a spread table the whole summer long.

Of flowers it was the chosen home. From the first anemone to the last
goldenrod standing above the snow, there was a bewildering confusion;
fragrant with roses in June, gorgeous with meadow lilies in July, and
rank upon rank of budded goldenrod promising glory enough for August,
with all the floral hosts that accompany them. Great patches of sweet
bayberry, yielding perfume if only one's garments swept it, and rich
"cushions of juniper" frosted over with new tips, were everywh