THE DEAR DELIGHT. 165 



bathing-dish, longing, yet dreading to enter the 

 water, on alighting upon an unaccustomed 

 perch, or venturing on to the desk, many times 

 a day he took the little steps, lifting first one, 

 then the other foot very slightly, and bringing 

 it down with a sound without changing his po- 

 sition. It seemed to be an evidence of excite- 

 ment, as another bird might exhibit by a quiv- 

 ering of the wings. The veery was also a 

 dancer, but in a different way. He fanned his 

 wings violently and moved back and forth across 

 the top of a cage, but always in daylight, and 

 then only on the rare occasions when, by placing 

 his food outside, he was coaxed from his cage. 

 Bathing was — next to singing — the dear 

 delight of the gray-cheeked's life, yet no bird 

 ever had more misgivings about taking the fatal 

 plunge. His first movement on leaving the 

 cage was to go to the bath, around which he 

 hovered, now this side, now that, one moment 

 on the perch above, the next on the edge of the 

 dish, plainly longing to be in, yet the mere ap- 

 proach of the smallest bird in the room drove 

 him away. Not that he was afraid, he was not 

 in the least a coward ; he met everybody and 

 everything with the dignity and bravery of a 

 true thrush. Neither was it that he was dis- 

 abled when wet, which makes some birds hesi- 

 tate ; he was never at all disordered by his 



