240 - IN BIRD LAND. 
and there in response from various members of the 
sparrow household, and erelong the entire com- 
pany was awake. When my friend told me this 
story, I was considerably surprised, not to say a 
little skeptical. But, remaining in their home over 
night, I had an opportunity to confirm the story, 
for I was myself awakened in the morning by the 
loud, impatient calls of a sparrow rousing his fam- 
ily; and the process took place just as my inform- 
ants had described it, leaving no longer any room 
for doubt. 
The same kind friends described another cun- 
ning freak of bird behavior. A lady’s bedroom 
window opened near some bushy trees, in which a 
pair of birds— perhaps robins—had built a nest. 
At night the lady would often hear the male singing. 
But sometimes he would grow drowsy, and would 
become silent, —he had evidently got to napping, 
—when there would be a coaxing, complaining 
Pe-e-e-p! pe-e-e-p/ from the little wife on the nest, 
evidently asking him to “sing some more.’ Then 
he would tune his pipe again until his throat got 
tired and his eyelids heavy. In this way the ex- 
acting wife kept her spouse serenading her for a 
large part of the night. Perhaps, like children, 
she could not sleep unless some one was singing to 
her. At all events, it was very bright of her to de- 
mand a lullaby or love-song from her husband to 
put her to sleep: 
The conduct of many kinds of birds in the 
autumn while preparing for their Hegira to the 
