The Eambles of an Idler 



cats. All these are fond of young birds as 

 food, and could have feasted to their stomachs' 

 content, but I saw not one. I, surely, did not 

 keep them away, concealed 9S I was by the foli- 

 age of bush and brier. 



I wondered, too, if the parent birds could rec- 

 ognize their own young from others of the same 

 age. To-day, four nests were vacated at the 

 same time and the young, a dozen or more, 

 were wandering in the same trees. I could see 

 no difference in them, but then, I did not see 

 with a parent's eyes. 



One summer the sink-hole in my field was full 

 of green-herons. A year later they came in 

 force but left very early, except a single pair. 

 Now but two pairs are there, yet to my eyes 

 there is no change in the spot. I think this 

 shows how hopeless it is to determine, from our 

 standpoint, the true inwardness of birds' do- 

 ings. We are constantly misjudging our hu- 

 man neighbors, and if we cannot stand in their 

 shoes, how much more improbable that our con- 

 jectures as to the birds should be correct. 

 "Why, too, this present summer, should the red- 

 eyed vireos have forsaken us? Surely there is 



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