no Wild Birds 



On the third day, when my tent was but eighteen inches from 

 the nest, the old birds came to it even more readily than before. 

 They would still occasionally start at the click of the shutter, 

 but they did not mind the shrill scream of a locomotive across 

 the river, or the rumble and splash of logs which were momen- 

 tarily being set free and sent tumbling headlong down a steep 

 slide into the river below. They had become used to these 

 sounds and had learned from experience that they were harm- 

 less. On this day, a great change seemed to have come over the 

 young. They had become almost transformed in appearance, 

 and were very restless. Their bodies were now well covered 

 with feathers, and they were beginning to show the first traces 

 of fear. Their snow-white breasts gleamed through the thin 

 walls of their cup-shaped nest, or from over its rim. Grass- 

 hoppers, katydids, green larvae, beetles, and bugs of many 

 kinds were served again and again, but it would be a mistake 

 to suppose that there was no fruit to vary this diet. Upon the 

 third day the mother brought a ripe red raspberry, its juice 

 fairly streaming down her bill, and after a few beetles had been 

 taken she appeared with a large blackberry. Fruit was served 

 to the young about half a dozen times in the course of four 

 hours during which watch was kept on this particular day, but I 

 had not seen a single berry brought to the young before this time. 



On the first two days of observation the young were fed on 

 the average of once in fifteen minutes, but upon the third day 

 food was brought every nine minutes. 



Hitherto I had taken pains not to touch the nest, but as I 

 approached for a final look at the young at about two o'clock 

 they immediately took alarm, and popped out one at a time. 

 The larger of the two disappeared, and was never seen again by 

 me, and although I replaced the smaller bird in its nest time 

 after time, it positively refused to stay. Like the young of so 

 many wild birds, when once they have tasted the freedom of 

 the world they seem to look with disdain upon their old home. 

 Although these birds could only flutter in their first attempts at 

 flight, they could hop nimbly from branch to branch, and thus 

 ascend readily to the tops of high bushes. 



