FAREWELL TO THE LITTLE KINGS. 33 



These interesting bantlings were twenty -four 

 days old when it became necessary for me to 

 leave them, as they had already left me. It was 

 a warm morning, near the end of July, and 

 about half an hour before I must go I went out 

 to take my last look at them. Their calls were 

 still loud and frequent, and I had no difficulty 

 in tracing them to a dead twig near the top of a 

 pine-tree, where they sat close together, as usual, 

 with faces to the west ; lacking only in length of 

 tail of being as big as their parents, yet still 

 calling for food, and still, to all appearances, 

 without the smallest notion that they could ever 

 help themselves. 



Thus I left them. 



