40 SHARP EYES. 



to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. 

 It was a large morsel, and the mother seemed to have 

 doubts of her chick's ability to dispose of it, for she 

 stood near and watched its efforts with great solici- 

 tude. The young bird struggled valiantly with the 

 cicada, but made no headway in swallowing it, when 

 the mother took it from him and flew to the sidewalk, 

 and proceeded to break and bruise it more thoroughly. 

 Then she again placed it in his beak, and seemed to 

 say, " There, try it now," and sympathized so thor- 

 oughly with his efforts that she repeated many of 

 his motions and contortions. But the great fly was 

 unyielding, and, indeed, seemed ridiculously dispropor- 

 tioned to the beak that held it. The young bird flut- 

 tered and fluttered, and screamed, " I 'm stuck, I 'm 

 stuck," till the anxious parent again seized the morsel 

 and carried it to an iron railing, where she came down 

 upon it for the space of a minute with all the force 

 and momentum her beak could command. Then she 

 offered it to her young a third time, but with the 

 same result as before, except that this time the bird 

 dropped it ; but she was to the ground as soon as the 

 cicada was, and taking it in her beak flew some dis- 

 tance to a high board fence where she sat motionless 

 for some moments. While pondering the problem 

 how that fly should be broken, the male bluebird ap- 

 proached her, and said very plainly, and I thought 

 rather curtly, " Give me that bug," but she quickly 

 resented his interference and flew farther away, where 

 she sat apparently quite discouraged when I last saw 

 her. 



