A MUTUAL SURPRISE. 187 



cries, and fertile in inventing variations in man- 

 ner and inflection, that would deceive those most 

 familiar with them. Two or three times in the 

 weeks that followed, I rushed out of the house 

 to find some very distressed bird, who, I was 

 sure, from the cries, must be impaled alive on a 

 butcher-bird's meat-hook, or undergoing torture 

 at the hands or beak of somebody. It was 

 rather dangerous going out at that time (just at 

 dusk), for it was the chosen hour for young 

 men and maidens, of whom there were several, 

 to wander about under the trees. Often, before 

 I gave up going out at that hour, my glass, 

 turned to follow a flitting wing, would bring 

 before niy startled gaze a pair of sentimental 

 young persons, who doubtless thought I was spy- 

 ing upon them. My only safety was in direct- 

 ing my glass into the trees, where nothing but 

 wings could be sentimental, and if a bird flitted 

 below the level of branches, to consider him lost. 

 On following up the cry, I always found a 

 young oriole and a hard-worked father feeding 

 him. The voice did not even suggest an oriole 

 to me, until I had been deceived two or three 

 times and understood it. 



The young ones of the orchard oriole's nest 

 lived up to the traditions of the family by being 

 inveterate cry-babies, and making so much noise 

 they could be heard far around. Sometimes 



