forth, as if the listener were inattentive. Wishing to see as well
as hear this little domestic drama, I took care the next night to
arrange the covering in such a way that I could peep in without
disturbing it. Then I saw the lordly Baltimore on the middle perch,
leaning over and looking at his mate on the floor. He addressed her in a
tone so low that it was scarcely audible at the distance of one foot,
and she replied in the fretful voice I have spoken of. Then he began
hopping from perch to perch, occasionally pausing to take his part in
the conversation, which was kept up till they saw me.

[Sidenote: _A NEW SONG._]

Not all the time of the beautiful orioles was passed in contentions;
once having placed themselves on what they considered their proper
footing in the family, they had leisure for other things. No more
entertaining birds ever lived in the room; full of intelligent curiosity
as they were, and industriously studying out the idiosyncrasies of
human surroundings in ways peculiarly their own, they pried into and
under everything,--opened the match-safe and threw out the contents,
tore the paper off the wall in great patches, pecked the backs of books,
and probed every hole and crack with their sharp beaks. They ate very
daintily, and were exceedingly fond of dried currants. For this little
treat the male soon learned to tease, alighting on the desk, looking
wistfully at the little china box whence he knew they came, wiping his
bill, and, in language plain enough to a bird-student, asking for some.
He even went so far, when I did not at once take the hint, as to address
me in low, coaxing talk of very sweet and varied tones. Still I was
deaf, and he came within two feet of me, uttering the half-singing talk,
and later burst into song as his supreme effort at pleasing or
propitiating the dispenser of dainties. I need not say that he had his
fill after that.

On the 24th of April spring emotions began to work in the oriole family.
The first symptom was a song, so low it was scarcely heard, though the
agitation of the singer, with head thrown up and tail quivering, was
plainly enough seen. As it grew in volume from day to day, it proved to
be totally different from the beautiful oriole strain of four or six
notes, so familiar during the nesting season. It was a long-continued
melody, of considerable variety, with an occasional interpolation of the
common scolding "chur-r-r." After about a month of this lovely