412 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
trailing behind, in a wild ecstasy of singing, looking to us 
humans very foolish, but is doubtless very fascinating to 
his mate on her nest hidden amid briers and bushes 
and thoroughly protected by vines. 
Singers in Costume 
“Among the birds many of the best vocalists are choir 
singers, as it were. We hear their voices first,and from 
hearing them desire to know and name the singers. The 
Thrushes belong to the first group. Others there are who 
come on the stage in brilliant costume; we see them first, 
then desire to hear them sing, and afterward remember 
them as pleasing both to eye and ear. These are the 
gentlemen of the Opera, and four of them made the garden 
and orchard their music-hall last summer and I do not 
doubt will do so again. In fact the Goldfinches have 
never left, but a flock in sober winter suits have fed at 
the lunch-counter on the sunflower heads and fluttered over 
the weed seeds in the fields all winter. 
“The Baltimore Oriole is the first of the quartet to settle 
down to family life late in May. The Rose-breast follows 
him closely. But the Tanager waits for the heavy 
leafage of June to cover his brilliant colours while, for some 
reason not yet understood, the American Goldfinch keeps 
his bachelor freedom longer than any bird except the 
Cedar Waxwing. And though he wears his handsome 
yellow wedding-clothes from late April, he waits until he 
has feasted well on dandelion-down and the best grass 
seeds before he ceases to rove and takes to a bush, high 
maple, or other tree, to locate his soft nest made of moss 
and grasses and lined with thistle-down. 
