isper, showing that education had progressed, and
this little one had learned to control his infantile eagerness. All at
once there arose a great commotion over my head; an oriole fled
precipitately to another tree and stood there watching me, scolding his
harshest, flirting his wings and jerking his body in great excitement.
In a moment his mate joined him, and both began to call, though she held
a worm in her beak. This not seeming to effect their purpose, the singer
suddenly uttered a loud, clear whistle of two notes, startlingly like a
man's whistle to a dog, when instantly a young oriole flew out of the
apple-tree and joined his parents. Then the low note began again, and
the family departed.

The infant who receives such devoted care is a pretty little creature in
dull yellow, and the most persistent cry-baby I know in the bird-world,
though several are not far behind him in this accomplishment. His plaint
begins when he mounts the edge of the nest preparatory to his debut, and
ceases hardly a minute for days, a long-drawn shuddering wail, that
suggests nothing less than great suffering, starvation, or some other
affliction hard to be borne. What makes the case still worse, the
nursery is high, and each nestling chooses for himself the direction in
which he will depart. East and west, north and south, they scatter; and
where one lands, there he will stay for hours, if not days, drawn down
into a little heap, looking lonely and miserable, and apparently
impressed with the sole idea that he must keep himself before the world
by his voice, or he will be lost and forgotten. It is no wonder that,
between the labor of collecting food and following up the family to
administer it, the mother becomes faded and draggled, and the father
abandons his music, and goes about near the ground, grubbing like any
ditch-digger.

[Sidenote: _HE CLIMBED THE TREE._]

The young oriole, however, does not lack intelligence. A correspondent
tells me of one who, starting out too ambitiously in his first flight,
landed on the ground instead of on the tree he had selected, and,
looking about for a place of safety, saw a single leaf growing a few
feet up on the trunk of a tree. That so inexperienced an infant should
notice it was surprising, but that he should at once start for it showed
remarkable "mother wit." To reach this haven of refuge, he ascended the
tree-trunk a few inches, half flying and half climbing, clinging with
his claws to t