RIFE WITH BIRDS. 159 
and olive back harmonizing —I had almost said 
rhyming — with the gray of the creek’s bed, the 
crystal of the water, and the green of the thicket- 
fringed banks. It was part and parcel of the scene, 
——a lone bird in a lone place. But, hold! not 
lone, after all. Presently a young wagtail, the 
image of its mamma, emerged from somewhere or 
nowhere, and ran toward the old bird with open 
mouth, twinkling wings, and a pretty, coaxing call. 
She thrust something into its mouth; but still the 
bantling coaxed for more, when she dashed away a 
few feet, picked up another tidbit from the water, 
ran back to her little charge, and fed it again. But 
now, when it still pursued her, she seemed to lose 
her patience, for she rushed threateningly toward it, 
causing it to scamper away, and then she flew off. 
Yet after that she fed either the same or another 
youngster a number of times. Once a water-thrush 
went swinging down the gorge, the very poetry of 
graceful poise and movement, looking more like a 
naiad than a real flesh-and-blood birdlet. 
On a horizontal branch extending out over the 
rippling stream, a wood-thrush sat on her mud 
cottage ; but whether she appreciated the romantic 
character of the situation or not, she did not say. 
There were many other interesting feathered folk in 
the gorge and on its wcoded steeps, each “a 
brother of the dancing leaves;” but to describe 
them all would take too long, and merely to name 
them would be too much like reciting a dry 
catalogue. 
