6 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



window, and so low that I could reach it from the 

 ground. The nest was wholly woven and felted with 

 ravellings of woollen carpet in which scarlet predomi- 

 nated. Would the same thing have happened in the 

 woods 1 Or did the nearness ' of a human dwelling 

 perhaps give the birds a greater feeling of security] 

 They are very bold, by the way, in quest of cordage, 

 and I have often watched them stripping the fibrous 

 bark from a honeysuckle growing over the very door. 

 But, indeed, all my birds look upon me as if I were a 

 liere tenant at will, and they were landlords. With 

 shame I confess it, I have been bullied even by a hum- 

 ming-bird. This spring, as I was cleansing a pear-tree 

 of its lichens, one of these little zigzagging blurs came 

 purring toward me, couching his long bill like a lance, 

 his throat sparkling with angry fire, to warn me off from 

 a Missouri-currant whose honey he was sipping. And 

 many a time he has driven me out of a flower-bed. 

 This summer, by the way, a pair of these winged 

 emeralds fastened their mossy acorn-cup upon a bough 

 of the same elm which the orioles had enlivened the 

 year before. We watched all their proceedings from the 

 window through an opera-glass, and saw their two nest- 

 lings grow from black needles with a tuft of down at the 

 lower end, till they whirled away on their first short 

 experimental flights. They became strong of wing in a 

 surprisingly short time, and I never saw them or the 

 male bird after, though the female was regular as usual 

 in her visits to our petunias and verbenas. I do not 

 think it ground enough for a generalization, but in the 

 many times when I watched the old birds feeding their 

 young, the mother always alighted, while the father as 

 uniformly remained upon the wing. 



The bobolinks are generally chance visitors, tinkling 

 through the garden in blossoming-time, but this year, 



