24 TWENTIETH CENTURY CLASSICS 



our hands, and besides, they will stay about our homes 

 and charm us with their songs. 



"The demands of nature are paramount, and in the 

 sharpness of hunger one will not be over-fastidious as to 

 the company he keeps. One morning, w^hen the newly 

 fallen snow had seriously limited the natural supplies of 

 food, I found an incongruous but apparently happy fam- 

 ily feeding most amicably at a spot w^here provision is 

 regularly made — a gathering composed of Peacocks^ 

 Pigeons, several squirrels, English Sparrow^s, "White 

 Throats," Cardinals, and a huge but famishing rat! 

 While the rest of the company did not openly resent 

 the intrusion of this base quadruped, and merely ignored 

 him in the most polite and distant manner, it was evident 

 that he felt an indescribable chill in the atmosphere, for 

 he w^as plainly ill at ease amid so much beauty and ele- 

 gance, and he soon made his own motion, and seconded 

 it, to withdraw." 



Before the nest is begun a very important matter must 

 be settled. Each bird selects his mate, to whom for a 

 longer or shorter time he pays strict attention. The 

 ways of wooing are very interesting. Some birds have a 

 very short and simple courtship, hardly seeming to woo 

 at all. Others go through an elaborate courtship. Audu- 

 bon gives an account of the mating of the Great Blue 

 Heron, one of our summer residents: 



"In Florida I have seen hundreds of them collected in 

 the course of the morning. The males walk about w4th 

 an air of great dignity, nodding defiance to their rivals, 

 and the females croak to invite the males to pay their 

 addresses to them. The females utter their coaxing notes 

 all at once, and as each male evinces an equal desire to 

 please the object of his affection, he has to encounter the 

 enmity of many an adversary, who, with little attention 



