The Audubon Societies 117 



Kingbirds did not quarrel with the Sparrows, as we had expected, but flew off 

 to an old apple tree a short distance away and there built a nest. 



These birds seemed to take a special dislike to a man employed on the farm 

 whose homeward path lay directly under the tree where the birds had their 

 nest. When he started for home the Kingbird would fly to meet him, a distance 

 of about 50 feet from the nest, and fly close to his hat until about the same 

 distance the other side. Should the man stop an instant, Mr. Kingbird would 

 give the hat a peck. The same performance was repeated every time he passed 

 during the nesting season, no matter from which direction he came, yet he had 

 never molested the nest in any way. Others passed without the slightest sign 

 from the bird. 



That year seven different kinds of birds nested in our dooryard. Last 

 year the Kingbirds returned to the same tree and we hope to see them again 

 next spring. — George W. Neubauer (age 14 years), Bristol, Conn. 



[The fact that birds learn to differentiate between people is strikingly shown about game- 

 farms and aviaries where the keeper is always welcomed with a rush of wings and where a 

 stranger gets a cold reception from the birds. That this is more or less true in the wild state 

 is shown by little incidents such as this related by George. Perhaps they more often mistake 

 friends for enemies than they do enemies for friends. They could make the latter mistake 

 but once. — A. A. A.] 



AN EVENING WITH THE BIRDS IN AN ENGLISH PARK 



A bitterly cold north wind had been blowing all day; it scurried and whistled 

 as it drove through the pine trees, and the young oaks swayed and tossed with 

 the full fury of the blast. There was no movement in the great park, for the 

 pitiless hurry of the icy wind had searched out every hidden vestige of cover. 



As suddenly as it had come, the great wind dropped, but the grey, snow- 

 laden clouds still hurried each other over the landscape. 



Towards the middle of the afternoon the sun rose above the clouds in an 

 immense fiery ball, but within an hour's time it was blotted out by the snow 

 which drove down upon the park in a thick, silent wall of falling whiteness; 

 but it was only the winter's last touches and the ground was barely sprinkled 

 by it. 



We came in by the little gate in the boundary wall; silence slept in every 

 thicket and the withered leaves of the previous autumn rustled and scraped as 

 we passed. All at once a sleepy cock Pheasant called from the trees in the 

 valley as he flew to his roosting-place in the pine trees. A hen answered him 

 with a startled cock-cock, and she, too, flew away over the tree-tops. All 

 around us became alive with little voices; a Blackbird from up the hillside 

 began to sing with light and buoyant snatches of song; and a perky little Wren 

 chattered to himself in the undergrowth, for all the world like a little brown 

 leaf creeping through the bushes; rabbits loped across the path, flicking their 



