Zip and Phoebe (a cat-Bird story) 



BY FLORENCE A. VAN SANT 



EARLY each spring I watch for the return of a Phoebe 

 bird, which usually gladdens my heart by his ap- 

 pearance about sundown of some bright day. He 

 ^/} v^ - is alone, because, according to most authorities, he travels 

 ??^^T5r's^3 in advance of his mate; and when I ask with wonder, 

 "Well Peter, where is Phoebe?" with a quick dip of his tail 

 f^"?*:^ and an expressive twitter, he seems to say, "She will arrive 

 on the next train." 

 For several }'ears they have returned to the same nest beneath 

 the roof of my veranda, each spring re-lining the inside and bright- 

 ening the outside with green moss. They always raise two broods. 

 They are very tame, and from year to year do not seem to forget 

 their confidence of the previous summer, and will perch on the cedar 

 tree close to the porch, or light on the rope of the hammock only a 

 few feet away from me. 



I have so trained my cat. Zip, that she thinks it is as wicked to 

 look at a bird as she does to climb on the table, and never does 

 either. Peter and Phoebe seemed to know that they had nothing to fear 



from her ; and, when sitting on the little white eggs, their bright eyes 

 would peep over the nest at Zip. sitting or napping in the easy chair 

 below. When the young birds arrived, the parents would fly back 

 and forth feeding them, without showing any more fear of the cat 



than they did of me. 



(130) 



