III.— TENANTS OF THE HEDGEROW 



" The little bird sits at his door in the suu, 

 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 

 And lets his illumined being o'errun 



With the deluge of summer it receives ; 

 His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 

 And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; 

 He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest: 

 In the nice ear of nature, which song is the best?" 



— Lowell. 



Doubtless a vast number of American boys and girls 

 are familiar with the osage orange, and know how the 

 rows of that growth tesselate the extended prairies of this 

 section of our Union. Many of our readers live in rural 

 regions, and have seen hedges every day for years — have 

 perhaps trimmed miles of them — and from very familiarity 

 have long since ceased to admire or even notice them. 

 But those who have ridden, rambled, or worked along a 

 hedgerow, if they have formed the habit of hearing the 

 myriad sounds and observing the suggestive sights ever 

 inviting one's attention, have noticed that the ordinary 

 hedgerow is populous with feathered songsters, and con- 

 tains homes wonderful in their construction and design. 

 Many of our well-known birds, and others whose notes 

 and forms have escaped ordinary attention, frequent the 

 hedges of the prairie region, building their nests and 

 rearing their young where one can easily form their ac- 

 quaintance and become conversant with their ways and 

 manners. Not all the species tenanting the hedge are 

 found in any particular row. Some species resort only to 

 pieces of hedge which have been allowed to crrow un- 

 trimmed for several years, and whose long horizontal 



t92) 



