214 



Bird -Lore 



a strange mingling of the most profound 

 sadness with perfect triumph. The song 

 varies greatly in quality, even in the same 

 individual. When heard close at hand, 

 it is somewhat disappointing. It seems to 

 resolve itself into discordant elements and 

 to produce almost a grating sound. This 

 is especially true of the lower notes. One 

 Vjird, singing for half an hour from the top 

 of a tall, dead cedar, about 250 feet dis- 

 tant, gave the amusing impression of a 

 vocalist practising a difficult lesson. Some- 

 times the notes rang out high, clear and 

 thrilling; sometimes they were low and 

 guttural, with a strong vibration strangely 

 like the croak of a frog. Very often the 

 singer would cut the low notes short, as 

 if in disgust at his own performance; then, 

 after a pause, would follow with a note 

 much higher and clearer. Some of the 

 notes were held as long as two seconds, 

 but most of them about a second and a 

 half, some of the low notes being broken 

 short off almost as soon as begun. The 

 intervals between the notes were occupied 

 by the singer mainly in preening his 

 feathers. — Mrs. Stephen V. Thayer, 

 Everett, Wash. 



Nest-Building in August 



I witnessed a performance, week before 

 last, which seemed to me most unusual, 

 although, to many of your readers who 

 are more familiar with the habits of birds 

 than I am, it may not seem at all uncom- 

 mon. The fourth of this month (August) 

 a friend visiting at my summer home said 

 she had seen a pair of Robins building a 

 nest in a black-thorn bush near the house, 

 and that she had put some pieces of white 

 and colored worsted in the grass which 

 the birds had evidently found good build- 

 ing material, as they had carried it all off 

 during the day. Early the next morning 

 I went out to see if they were still pre- 

 paring for housekeeping, and there they 

 were, busily at work gathering bits of 

 straw, dried stems of nasturtiums, etc., 

 and taking them up to their nest, which, 

 upon inspection, I found to be, apparently, 

 completed on the outside. Wishing to 



help them along, I got several pieces of 

 cotton twine and put them in the grass, 

 and almost before I could resume my seat 

 on the piazza, the female gathered them 

 up all at once. I said they were building; 

 I should have said the female was, as the 

 male sat about on a nearby tree, illus- 

 trating the song that ''everybody works 

 but father," and occasionally dropping 

 to the ground to gather in an early worm, 

 which he greedily devoured. He had a 

 having -been -out- all-night appearance, 

 which I attributed to his probably under- 

 going the process of molting. The female 

 was evidently in the same condition, al- 

 though, like a much higher order of the 

 animal kingdom, she had spruced up as 

 much as possible under the circumstances, 

 and looked quite neat and trim, compared 

 to her lazy husband. After giving her a 

 long piece of twine (about ten feet), which 

 she gathered up without any difficulty, 

 I thought I would have a little fun with 

 her, so I tied a nail to another piece of 

 twine and watched her try to separate 

 them. Finding she could not do that, she 

 took the twine, nail and all up to her nest, 

 but afterward discarded it and it dangled 

 from a lower branch. Knowing her time 

 was valuable, and not wishing to interrupt 

 her domestic plans any further, I got a lot 

 more worsted and spread it out on the 

 grass, but to my surprise she ignored it 

 altogether, and continued to collect straws 

 and stems. I then got some straw for her, 

 but when I came out from breakfast, all of 

 my last contribution remained untouched, 

 and when I looked again, two hours later, 

 the whole project of nest-building seemed 

 to have been abandoned and the birds 

 I thought had gone for good. The bush 

 was in full view of the kitchen windows, 

 and the servants, who had taken great 

 interest in the nest, told me several days 

 later they had not seen the birds since. 

 I began to think that I had maligned the 

 male bird and that while he had no ob- 

 jection to his wife's amusing herself build- 

 ing a nest, his indifference was due to his 

 superior judgment in considering it foolish 

 to start a nest so late in the season. 



This morning (August 23), nineteen 



