CHAE il, ey: 
STEP-PARENTS AMONG BIRDS. 
ARE there any o/d maids or bachelors among the 
birds ? any remated ones after the usual pairing sea- 
son has passed ? 
It would seem so, or else there are divorces or the 
worst kind of desertion of mates. In the writer’s 
yard a kingbird was once industriously and noisily 
thrashing all the other birds, especially a favorite 
mocker. A stone was cast the tyrant’s way merely 
to frighten him, which unfortunately slew him. He 
was given decent burial, and certain glances of con- 
dolence were thrown up to his widow with her lonely 
home upon the limb, filled perhaps with gaping or- 
phans. 
But by the afternoon of the next day she had 
married again, and the new husband was just as as- 
siduously thrashing his neighbors as his predecessor. 
The dead bird was actually dug up to avoid the con- 
viction that he had come to life and scratched out. 
Later, personal observations and the reading of the 
record of others were thoroughly convincing that 
within the same season there may be many second 
marriages in feathers, and that the question of the 
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