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forth with a bag, a spade, and a sieve. We were not going

poaching—though our appearance was suggestive—we were only-

bent on ant hunting. We walked many miles ; we turned up

acres of ground, or at any rate we thought so, and the result

of all our toils was about a thimble full of eggs. The season

was not advanced enough. However, we went forth again and

had better fortune and good kind souls helped me, and my supply

of live bait, like the widow’s cruse, has never failed, though

often on the verge of doing so.


The parent Cat-birds were really admirable ; both seemed

to have recognised from the first that their “ reason of existence ”

was to tend and foster those two delicate little beings; smooth¬

ing the rough places and acting as buffers between them and

the east winds of life.


For some days I felt miserably anxious as to results, as

uncertain of the morrow, as an early Christian in the days of

Nero. On one point, however, I had no anxiety—the weather.

Had the nest been out of doors I should have felt very uneasy as

the weather turned that nasty, that as a friend said to me, “you

would’nt meet a Christian out of doors, unless it was a snipe

or a dispensary doctor.”


Early and late the feeding went on, and only, as Longfellow

says, when “The shades of night began to Tall ”

did rest come to the weary parents and feeder.


I left the young birds severely alone. About the eighth day

they opened their eyes. They were hatched on July 12th. They

left the nest July 24th. When they came out they were fully

fledged, but had no vestige of a tail. One was very dark in

color; the other much lighter. I inferred that they were cock

and hen, and my surmise has proved correct. The cock bird has

a very indistinct black crown, and a very faint red color under

the tail; the legs of both, which were at first flesh color, are now

turning black like those of their parents.


It is very pretty to see the old birds feed. They always

get above the youngster to be fed, and pop the provender into his

mouth like lightning. When I tell you that they think nothing

of giving each youngster seven or eight mealworms at a mouth¬

ful, I am reminded that mealworms, like silver in the days of

Solomon, are nothing accounted of by the parent Cat-birds.


As I stand and look at these young Cat-birds I feel much

like an astronomer who has discovered a new planet; like the



