198 IN BIRD LAND. 
be made. I have watched a kingfisher flying again 
and again from a winding creek in the valley to her 
nest on a hillside nearly a half-mile distant, with a 
minnow in her bill, while the sun was pouring a 
sweltering deluge upon the fields. It kept her busy 
every moment to supply the imperious demands of 
her hungry brood in the bank. A common field- 
bird, which I watched one day for a long while, 
would often return to her nest every minute with an 
insect. Many, many times have I obeyed Lowell’s 
injunction, — 
“Come up and feel what health there is 
In the frank Dawn’s delighted eyes, 
As, bending with a pitying kiss, 
The night-shed tears of Earth she dries.” 
But even at that early hour the feathered toilers 
have always been ahead of the human wage-workers 
in beginning the labors of the day. The nestlings 
must have a twilight breakfast; and then, in the 
evening, as long as the gloaming lasts, they noisily 
demand just one more mouthful for supper. 
Young birds are ravenous feeders. They seem 
to live to eat, and have no thought of eating to live. 
For an hour and a half, one August day, I kept 
watch of a nestful of bantlings, and during that 
time the parent birds were so shy that they fed 
their infants only twice. At last the little things 
became fairly desperate for food, springing up in 
the nest and opening their mouths with pitiful cries 
every time the breeze stirred the bushes about them. 
