74 WHEN NESTING IS OVER. 



ragged and careless in dress, one could but 

 honor the little creature who Ijad made the world 

 so delightful a gift as four beautiful new blue- 

 birds, in whose calm eyes 



*' Shines the peace of all being without cloud." 



Other young birds were plentiful in those 

 warm July days. From morning till night the 

 chipping sparrow baby, with fine streaked 

 breast, uttered his shrill cricket-like trill. No 

 doubt he had already found out that he would 

 get nothing in this world without asking, so, in 

 order that nothing escape him, his demand was 

 constant. The first broods of English sparrows 

 had long before united in a mob, and established 

 themselves in the grove, and the nests were a 

 second time full of gaping infants calling ever 

 for more. The energies of even this unattrac- 

 tive bird were so severely taxed that he spared 

 us his comments on things in general, and our 

 affairs in particular. In the wood, young high- 

 holes thrust their heads out of the door and 

 called; blackbird and martin babies flew over 

 with their parents, talking eagerly all the way ; 

 barn swallow nestlings crowded up to the win- 

 dow-sill to look out and be fed by passing mo- 

 thers; and cautious young kingbirds, in black 

 caps, dressed their feathers on the edge of the 

 nest. 



