PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 193 
secured ; but he finally learned to help himself and 
swallow his victuals instanter. ‘Two of the thrushes, 
probably males, seemed to have a mutual grudge. 
They would pursue each other until the fugitive 
would turn and stand at bay, snapping his mandi- 
bles in a savage manner, as if they were worked by 
steel springs. I regret being compelled to publish 
these pugnacious tendencies in my beloved pets ; but 
I prefer giving a realistic rather than a fictitious or 
roseate sketch of the school-days of these pupils in 
plumes. 
Iv; 
BIRD WORK. 
“Tore is real, life 1s earnest,” might be just as 
truly said of “our little brothers of the air” as of 
us, their big brothers of the soil. If you think that 
their whole career consists of nothing but play and 
song and bounding joy, you have seen very little 
of the bird life around you. For the mother bird, at 
least, the whole period of nesting, sometimes extend- 
ing over several months, is a time of drudgery, 
anxiety, and, far too often, of disappointed hopes. 
I have heard a bird mother’s wail that went like 
iron into my soul, and told me all too plainly that 
it had come from a bereft and broken heart. When 
we remember how many tragedies occur in the 
feathered community, we scarcely care about sing- 
ing, “I wish’ I “were a httle bird.” “Had “you 
witnessed the unutterable agony of a pair of yellow- 
13 
