SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 139 



courts of the Treasury building there is a fountain 

 with several trees growing near. By midsummer 

 the blackbirds become so bold as to venture within 

 this court. Various fragments of food, tossed from 

 the surrounding windows, reward their temerity. 

 When a crust of dry bread defies their beaks, they 

 have been seen to drop it into the water, and, when 

 it had become soaked sufficiently, to take it out 

 again. 



They build a nest of coarse sticks and mud, the 

 whole burden of the enterprise seeming to devolve 

 upon the female. For several successive mornings, 

 just after sunrise, I used to notice a pair of them 

 flying to and fro in the air above me as I hoed in 

 the garden, directing their course, on the one hand, 

 to a marshy piece of ground about half a mile dis- 

 tant, and disappearing, on their return, among the 

 trees about the Capitol. Returning, the female 

 always had her beak loaded with building material, 

 while the male, carrying nothing, seemed to act as 

 her escort, flying a little above and in advance of 

 her, and uttering now and then his husky, discor- 

 dant note. As I tossed a lump of earth up at them, 

 the frightened mother bird dropped her mortar, and 

 the pair skurried away, much put out. Later they 

 avenged themselves by pilfering my cherries. 



The most mischievous enemies of the cherries, 

 however, here as at the North, are the cedar wax- 

 wings, or "cherry-birds." How quickly they spy 

 out the tree! Long before the cherry begins to 

 turn, they are around, alert and cautious. In small 



