4.82 LAND BIRDS 
ow 
residents have little praise. So numerous are these 
birds and so destructive to fruit that a continual warfare 
is waged against them by poison and by gun. Hun- 
dreds are sold in the bird-stores annually, sometimes 
at the low price of twenty-five cents each. But to 
the newcomer and the tourist the pretty pink-breasted 
songsters are one of the attractive features of the garden, 
where they take the place of the robin of the East. No 
bird is more tame or more confiding. In the rose that 
clambers over your window, or the evergreens on the 
lawn, he will build his nest, absolutely refusing to believe 
that he is not wanted. His happy song wakens you in 
the morning and is the last to cease at night, and when 
his pretty brown sweetheart is listening, his little pink 
throat ruffles and swells with the torrent of music. 
Then he sings on the wing in rocket-like bursts of melody, 
and executes wonderful gyrations for her sole benefit. 
A moment later they are off together over the roses 
looking for a place to hide the tiny home. The choice 
is varied. A palm tree, a vine at the kitchen door, a 
nook in the chicken yard, the top of an open-air pantry, 
the inside of a hat put up for a scarecrow, or a shoe 
flung into a tree in childish sport, are each and all eligible 
building sites. After weaving the nest out of grasses 
usually mixed with pine needles and a few feathers, the 
little brown mother broods for thirteen days, assisted 
by her mate at long intervals. The babies are naked, 
except for a scant bit of down on head and back, and 
are of a pinkish gray color. Like most young birds, they 
are born blind and do not open their eyes until the 
