FRIENDS IN FEATHERS 



back of bright, strong brown, touched with deeper bandings 

 almost black and white; his mottled breast more grayish, his eyes 

 beady black, very large from long ages of being nestled in the 

 dark, bright like those of a squirrel. The female is similar 

 to the male, possibly a trifle lighter in colour, both active as if 

 jointed with springs of fine wire that keep forever setting them 

 off. They fly constantly in building, while if all nests contain 

 nine eggs, the reason they work ceaselessly in feeding is apparent. 

 They constantly chatter and sing about the business of 

 living. 



Possibly some recorder of bird song has reproduced their 

 notes; I never have seen such an attempt, I would as soon try to 

 put the gurgle of a brook on the staff as the notes of a Wren. 

 The female talks volubly; the male has two periods of concert 

 work; the first on his arrival, which occurs several days before 

 the hen makes her appearance. He comes and spends the time 

 going in and out every available location, often starting several 

 different nests, so she is sure to be pleased with some one of them 

 on her arrival. As he works he sings, alternating twigs and song. 

 His real concert comes while the female is brooding. Then he 

 perches close his home, often on the ridgepole or doorstep, and 

 for an hour at a time, once in a stiff spring rainfall, he sings out 

 his little heart. One of my birds sang so often on his front stoop 

 I set up a camera and reproduced him in full tide of song. This 

 picture is one link in the chain of proof that birds part the beak 

 in song, widest on the highest notes, exactly as do humans; not 

 "singing in the throat with closed beak" as one of our aspirants 

 to fame as an ornithologist emphatically states. All the birds 

 with which I have made friends, and carefully observed afield, 

 open their mouths and sing, many of them I have pictured in the 

 act and reproduced in this book, as the Cardinal and the Jay; the 

 exception being minor strains, warbled to the finest thread of a 



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