204 Our Bird Friends. 



her husband with a handsome caterpillar in his bill 

 After peeping about for a minute or so, neither 

 seeing nor hearing anything unusual, he evidently 

 concluded that his wife had had an attack of nerves, 

 and flew down to the stick by the nest. When 

 he reached this he just looked round as if to say, 

 " Dear me ! I don't know whatever you are making 

 such a fuss about,' and popped into the nesting hole 

 with his caterpillar. He came again and again 

 with food, and Avent in and out of the bank without 

 paying any heed to his wife's Avarnings. 



A precisel}^ similar thing happened, with the 

 sexes reversed, in the case of a pair of AVhcatears 

 nesting not far away. 



However much one may discuss the peculiarities 

 and interesting points of birds' songs and call notes, a 

 very poor idea at best ran bo conveyed of their 

 sweetness and variety, and 1 would strongly advise 

 every reader of this little book to go out into the 

 fields and woods and listen for themselves. A 

 knowledge of the songs and notes of wild birds will 

 help to identify their unseen singers, not always 

 with certainty, perhaps, as will have Itcen gathered 

 from the foregoing pages, on account of the trick 

 some of them have of borrowing each other's notes ; 

 but field glasses and careful stalking will generally 

 settle a doubt, and at the same time add vor}' 

 materially to the interest and knowledge of the 

 student. 



In conclusion, let me say that 1 have the 



