him is the unanimity with which all the smaller birds hate him. He must be a nest 

 robber, or else why the consternation whenever Corvus appears in a nesting 

 neighborhood ? 



I left the blackbird behind before he had given his parting peck to the crow. 

 There is a high, dry bit of meadow-land just beyond the swamp, and there I found 

 Dickcissel. Dick has a yellow shirt-front and wears a black button in its center. 

 Some one, I have forgotten who, found much of dignity in Dick, and claimed that 

 unquestionably his right name was Richard Cecil. Richard, however, does not 

 take kindly to the name, and from mullen-stalk, or tree, all day long in the May 

 month he proclaims his proper name in a strident tone, "Dickcissel, Dickcissel, 

 Dickcissel." The books call Dick the black-throated bunting. Formerly the bird 

 was common on the Atlantic coast ; now it is rarely found east of the Alleghany 

 Mountains. As far as my own observations go, I cannot say that I have found 

 it an abundant bird in the Middle West. Dick is essentially a bird of the fields, and 

 yet he surprised me one day by appearing in a tree in a Chicago street, and there 

 giving voice to his name as insistently as though his native meadow stretches lay 

 below. 



Two dilapidated barns stand near an old orchard across the road from Dick- 

 cissel's field. Many years ago the apple trees shaded a small house, but that is 

 gone, and a season or two more at the most will see the last of the barns. Then 

 what will become of the swallows who have made the old gray buildings their 

 summer abiding place for years? Trespassers must be few in the old tumble- 

 down structures, for the barn swallows place their nests upon the rafters within 

 easy reach of the ground and seem utterly fearless of danger. Ordinarily, the 

 barn swallows put their mud and feathered homes far up under the ridge-pole, 

 but in these old barns, where they have dwelt so many years in peace, the birds 

 rear their young not more than six feet above Mother Earth. On the occasion of 

 my first visit to this bam swallow resort, I was accompanied by a big Newfound- 

 land dog. I had seen the swallows pass in and out the open doorway, and I 

 jumped the fence to get a glimpse of their housekeeping. The dog. Jack, jumped 

 with me. No sooner had Jack landed on the other side than the swallows swooped 

 down on him. They grazed his head in passing, and I was ready to declare that 

 they tweaked his ears. To me they paid no attention, but directed their wrath 

 at the poor four-footed creature, who could not have injured them or their 

 young had he tried. Jack did not like the treatment he received. It seemed 

 to cow him. Here was an enemy with which he could not combat on anything 

 like equal terms. Finally he put his tail between his legs, jumped the fence 

 again, and slunk down the road, the swallows darting down on him again and 

 again during his retreat. They finally left him, and Jack took to his haunches 

 some fifty yards away and awaited my return. I made several journeys with 

 Jack along that same country road before the season waned, but never again could 

 I get him close to the scene of the swallows' attack. 



It was in a meadow near the weather-beaten barns that a bird-loving friend 



286 



