76 Bird-Land Echoes. 



interpreted, signifies that with them all is well ; for 

 yellow-throats are happy birds, and though pre-emi- 

 nently active, are not fidgety or ill-tempered like 

 wrens. Even if you go very near their nests they 

 will not fret, unless you prove a brute, and then they 

 would kill you if they could, and more's the pity 

 that they have not the power. But the charm of 

 these pretty birds consists in their summer-long 

 merry-making. Unlike many birds that find nothing 

 to sing about, nothing to celebrate after the nesting 

 is over, the yellow-throats sing from the day of their 

 coming to that of their departure. They do not 

 admit that they are old because their offspring have 

 grown up and left them, but keep on in the same 

 even-tempered way, and find more to be thankful 

 for than to fret about. In fact, I have not dis- 

 covered that any conditions are quite disheartening. 

 Excessive rain does not damp their spirits, nor a 

 disastrous midsummer drought, unless it cuts short 

 their food-supply. They stick closely to the spots 

 they chose as nesting-sites weeks before, and when 

 even the thrushes have given up their concerts and 

 the rose-breast merely clicks as it passes through the 

 woods, these birds still sing with unabated energy, 

 happily, happily, happy are we ! 



It is always possible to say too much, but when 

 we set out to chat of the redstart there is not much 

 probability of serious exaggeration. It is, fortunately, 

 not a rare bird, and is so artless in all its ways that 

 it has not given rise to useless wrangling in the orni- 

 thological journals. Following the cue of anatomi- 



