them and the birds themselves are only too glad to escape
observation. Collectors of skins disdain to ply their trade, as the
ragged, pin-feathery coats of the birds now make sorry-looking specimens.
But we can find something of interest in birddom, even in this interim.

Nesting is over, say you, when you start out on your tramps in late summer
or early autumn; but do not be too sure. The gray purse of the oriole has
begun to ravel at the edges and the haircloth cup of the chipping sparrow
is already wind-distorted, but we shall find some housekeeping just
begun.

The goldfinch is one of these late nesters. Long after his northern
cousins, the pine siskins and snowflakes, have laid their eggs and reared
their young, the goldfinch begins to focus the aerial loops of his flight
about some selected spot and to collect beakfuls of thistledown. And here,
perhaps, we have his fastidious reason for delaying. Thistles seed with
the goldenrod, and not until this fleecy substance is gray and floating
does he consider that a suitable nesting material is available.

When the young birds are fully fledged one would think the goldfinch a
polygamist, as we see him in shining yellow and black, leading his family
quintet, all sombre hued, his patient wife being to our eyes
indistinguishable from the youngsters.

But in the case of most of the birds the cares of nesting are past, and
the woods abound with full-sized but awkward young birds, blundering
through their first month of insect-hunting and fly-catching, tumbling
into the pools from which they try to drink, and shrieking with the very
joy of life, when it would be far safer for that very life if they
remained quiet.

It is a delightful period this, a transition as interesting as evanescent.
This is the time when instinct begins to be aided by intelligence, when
every hour accumulates fact upon fact, all helping to co-ordinate action
and desire on the part of the young birds.

No hint of migration has yet passed over the land, and the quiet of summer
still reigns; but even as we say this a confused chuckling is heard; this
rises into a clatter of harsh voices, and a small flock of blackbirds--two
or three families--pass overhead. The die is cast! No matter how hot may
be the sunshine during succeeding days, or how contented and thoughtless
of the future the birds may appear, there is a something which has gone,
and which can never return until another cycle of seasons has pa