178 MINOR SONGSTERS. 



This eccentric genius has taken possession of 

 a certain hillside pasture, which, in another 

 way, belongs to me also. Year after year he 

 comes back and settles down upon it about the 

 middle of May ; and I have often been amused 

 to see his mate — who is not permitted to wear 

 a single blue feather — drop out of her nest in 

 a barberry bush and go fluttering off, both 

 wings dragging helplessly through the grass. I 

 should pity her profoundly but that I am in no 

 doubt her injuries will rapidly heal when once 

 I am out of sight. Besides, I like to imagine 

 her beatitude, as, five minutes afterward, she 

 sits again upon the nest, with her heart's treas- 

 ures all safe underneath her. Many a time was 

 a boy of my acquaintance comforted in some 

 ache or pain with the words, " Never mind ! 

 't will feel better when it gets well ; " and so, 

 sure enough, it always did. But what a wicked 

 world this is, where nature teaches even a bird 

 to play the deceiver ! 



On the same hillside is always to be found the 

 chewink, — a creature whose dress and song are 

 so unlike those of the rest of his tribe that the 

 irreverent amateur is tempted to believe that, 

 for once, the men of science have made a mis- 

 take. What has any finch to do with a call 

 like cherawink, or with such a three-colored 

 harlequin suit? But it is unsafe to judge ac- 



