BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



be sufficiently reassured to go about their business once more. 

 Watch them closely and the female will presently be detected 

 suddenly alighting upon what appears to be nothing more than 

 a knob or excrescence on a branch. 



If you have the good fortune to have discovered an un- 

 finished nest, you may observe the mother bird's methods of 

 work. She settles down upon it and rounds it with her breast. 

 Seemingly with difficulty the head is raised and the long, 

 slender beak arranges here and there a bit of lichen, bark or 

 cobweb in its proper place on the outside. Thus she works 

 until the compact little structure of softest thistle-down, covered 

 on the outside with small fragments of moss, lichen, bark and 

 similar materials, is ready to receive the invariable two white 

 eggs. In due course of time the most helpless young imagin- 

 able are hatched, to be tended with unremitting care. They 

 soon grow so large that their diminutive home can scarcely con- 

 tain them until, at last, from the sheer physical necessity of 

 overcrowded quarters, they are forced to essay a flight. Won- 

 derful, indeed, is the domestic life of these smallest of birds, in 

 whose minute frame is compacted so much of intelligence and 

 passion — so much that we fondly claim as human. 



Upon some fine morning in early April we may hear a 

 sprightly warbling song which gives notice of the arrival of a 

 newcomer. Looking among the delicate spring foliage we 

 may soon detect a lithe, delicate, active little bird in extremely 

 sober attire, gleaning among the trees for whatever insect life 

 the new leaves harbor. It is a western warbling vireo, a slen- 

 der creature with fine sensibilities, I should imagine, modest and 

 retiring, uttering its sweet warble as it flits among the branches. 

 Its cloak is of olive-green and gray above, and yellowish white 



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