bin, who, perched on the highest
post of a fence, was looking and listening with great apparent interest,
but without making a sound himself,--a very unusual proceeding on the
part of this bird, who always has a great deal to say about everything.

The cries increased in volume and frequency, and I started slowly up the
road, uncertain whether I should come upon a young fox or other wild
beast, but determined to solve the mystery. As I drew near, I began to
be conscious of a knocking sound in the woods beside the road. It was
like a light tapping on hollow wood, and it regularly followed each cry.
I was at once reassured. It must be a woodpecker, I thought,--they make
some strange noises, and there was a large one, the pileated, said to
inhabit these woods, though I had never been able to see him. I went on
more confidently then, for I must see what woodpecker baby could utter
such cries. As I continued to advance, though I could still see nothing,
I noticed that the tapping grew louder every moment.

Suddenly there was a movement at the edge of a thick clump of ferns, and
my eyes fell upon what I thought was, after all, a big toad or frog. It
hopped like one of these reptiles, and as it was growing dusky, feathers
and fur and bare skin looked much alike. But being anxious to know
positively, I went on, and when I reached it I saw that it was a young
bird, nearly as big as a robin just out of the nest. Then I dropped all
impedimenta, and gave myself unreservedly to the catching of that bird.
He fled under the ferns, which were like a thick mat, and I stooped and
parted them, he flying ever ahead till he reached the end and came out
in sight. Then I pounced upon him, and had him in my hands.

[Sidenote: _A VOCIFEROUS BABY._]

Such a shriek as he gave! while he struggled and bit, and proved himself
very savage indeed. More startling, however, than his protest was a cry
of anguish that answered it from the woods, a heart-rending, terrible
cry, the wail of a mother about to be bereaved. I looked up, and lo! in
plain sight, in her agony forgetting her danger, and begging by every
art in her power, a cuckoo. Her distress went to my heart; I could not
resist her pleading. One instant I held that vociferous cuckoo baby, to
have a good look at him, speaking soothingly to the mother the while,
and then opened my hand, when he half flew, half scrambled, to the other
side of the road, and set up another cry, more like that of his