142 YOUNG AMERICA IX FEATHERS. 



a pair of Maryland yellow-throats — tiny crea- 

 tures in brown and gold — to coax tlieir self- 

 willed offspring to a more retired position than 

 he chose to occujjy. With genuine "Young 

 America " spirit he scorned the conservatism of 

 his elders. Though both parents hovered about 

 him, coaxing, warning, perhaps threatening, not 

 a feather stirred ; stolid and wide-eyed he stood, 

 while the father flitted about the bush in great 

 excitement, jerking his body this way and that, 

 flirting his wings, now perking his tail up like 

 that of a wren, again opening and closing it 

 like a fan in the hands of an embarrassed girl, 

 and the mother added her entreaties to his, dart- 

 ing hither and thither, calling most anxiously, 

 — both, in their distress, rashly exposing them- 

 selves to what might, for all they knew, be one 

 of the death-dealing machines we so often turn 

 against them. 



Nothing had the slightest effect upon the 

 yellow-throated youngster until his own sensa- 

 tions interested him, and his parents suddenly 

 acquired new importance in his horizon. When 

 hunger assailed him, and, looking about for sup- 

 plies, he spied his provider on the next bush 

 with a beak full of tempting (and wriggling) 

 dainties, and when he found his wily parent 

 deaf to his cries, and understood that not until 

 he flew behind the leafy screen could he receive 



