230 FROM MY WINDOW. 



that is probably because the young bird is not 

 accustomed to his suit of feathers, and does not 

 know how to manage them. Some of them ap- 

 pear like a child in his grandfather's coat. The 

 chestnut-sided warbler was himself an attractive 

 little fellow, with a generous desire to helj) in 

 the world's work pleasant to see in bird or man. 

 After becoming greatly interested in one we had 

 seen in the woods, who insisted on helping a 

 widowed redstart feed her youngster, and had 

 almost to fight the little dame to do so, we found 

 another chestnut-sided warbler engaged in help- 

 ing his fellows. Whether it were the same 

 bird we could not tell; we certainly discovered 

 him in the same corner of the woods. This lit- 

 tle fellow was absorbed in the care of an infant 

 more than twice as big as himself. " A cowbird 

 baby!" will exclaim every one who knows the 

 habit, shameful from our point of view, of the 

 cowbird, to impose her infants on her neighbors 

 to hatch and bring up. But this babj, unfor- 

 tunately for the "wisdom of the wise," did not 

 resemble the cowbird family. 



We saw the strange pair several times in the 

 woods, and then one day, as I sat at my window 

 trying to write, I heard a new cry, and saw a 

 strange bird fly to the fence. He was very rest- 

 less, ran along the top board, then flew to an- 

 other fence, scrambled along a few feet, raising 



