Song Birds and Water Fowl 
gulls are, thus to break away from all their fel- 
lows, and live in such seclusion; and I rather 
admire the spirit of any biped, feathered or not, 
that does not follow the crowd, nor tie up to 
another’s faith, but has his distinct taste, which 
he is not afraid to express and live up to. 
Sitting on the piazza one morning, a pair of 
cedar-birds flew by several times, at short inter- 
vals, in a very eager and suspicious manner. It 
must be king’s business, I thought, to require 
such haste. I noticed that they kept flying into 
an apple-tree in the yard; and, knowing their 
uppermost thought at this particular season— 
early in July—I was not surprised to find that 
they were very busy over a long string that was 
caught in the branches. It was so entangled 
in the twigs that it looked at first like the 
foundation of a nest; yet, without pretending 
to understand the fine points of nest architect- 
ure, I should have known that this was no suit- 
able spot for the cedar bird to build in. The 
next morning one of the birds came again, and 
labored long and frantically over that string, 
at last taking hold of the very end and giving 
it a strong pull, and a final vicious twitch, 
and then darting away. I was now in doubt 
whether they were trying to wind it about the 
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