AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



169 



By E. R. Forrest. 



Gil \ Woodpeckers at Food Box. 



One day we had left the outside door of our parlor open, and also a win- 

 dow a little from the top and the bottom, and had gone out of the room. On 

 the outside of the doorway was a pair of closed window blinds, so there really 

 w.as not a very large opening to invite anything to enter. However, when 

 one of my sisters went into the room a little later, what did she find there 

 but an Oven-bird! Who would have thought to find one in sueh a place? 

 I had not supposed that one would be found even around the house, as there 

 are no woods near by. to say nothing of entering a room. 



My sister at once told the rest of us .about it and we went in to see it. 

 After flying around in the parlor a little while, and sometimes alighting on 

 some pictures that were hanging on the wails, it went into another room 

 and stood quietly on the floor in a corner. We followed it in and. after tak- 

 ing a good look at it. we thought we had better try to drive it out of doors 

 as quickly as we could, for birds sometimes die of fright when in a strange 

 place. So we opened the window wider and J slowly went up to it to drive 

 it into the parlor. J jfot within one and a half or two yards of it before it 

 flew or tried to get away. Then it Hew out into the parlor and, soon seeing 

 the open window, flew straight out through it into the outside world —and 

 freedom. And that was the last we ever saw of it. at least to know it. 



