MAMMALS OF MINNESOTA. 185 



"For several days the wheel grated on its axle. This 

 afforded Hespie great delight, and her own little warble was 

 completely lost in the harsher sound. It was pretty much as it 

 is with some of the modern methods of praise, as when the 

 vocal is subordinated to the instrumental, a mere murmur of 

 song, on which the organist comes down as with the sound of 

 many waters. A drop of oil, and the sound of the friction 

 stopped. This quite excited her temper, and she bit at the 

 wires of her wheel most viciously. A little device was hit upon 

 which set her in good humor again. A strip of stout writing 

 paper, half an inch wide, was pinned down in such a way that 

 its clean-cut upper edge pressed against the wires of the wheel, 

 making with its revolution a pleasant purring sound. It was 

 on the principle of the old-time watchman's rattle, and the old 

 toy known as a cricket. 



' 'This for a while greatly delighted the capricious creature, 

 and she made the wheel almost fly ; at the same time, in unison 

 with the whirr of the wheel, was her own soft, cheery warble. 

 It was very low, yet very distinct. I remember once on a 

 larger scale witnessing an analogous sight, when, unseen, I 

 entered a room in which was a woman spinning wool, and sing- 

 ing at the top of her voice, in keeping with the loud whirring 

 of the spinning wheel. Without her wheel the domestic life of 

 little Hespie would be rather monotonous. * * * We next 

 shut her out of the wheel by corking up the entrance. She 

 worked desperately at the closed aperture ; then in despair 

 gave vent to a piercing little cry. It was surprizing what a 

 strange pleasure this sound afforded me, it showed so clearly 

 the difference in the timbre or quality of the sound of distress 

 from that which I have called its singing. She was a good 

 deal excited, and ran frantically into and out of her little bed- 

 box, which had a hole at each end. Soon this tiny gust of rage 

 passed over. She now, though running about her cage, indulg- 

 ing in little gambols, indicating grace and agility, struck off 

 into a truly beautiful strain of song. It occupied about three 

 minutes, and had in it considerable scope and variety. First, 

 there was a clearly enunciated expression like that of the 

 cooing of a turtle dove, a soft note with a deliberate slowness. 

 This changed into a series of more rapid notes strangely sug- 

 gesting the not so weird-like, the conchy clamor of the Ameri- 

 can cuckoo (Coccyzus), then closing with a series of short, rapid 

 sounds like the tapping of a woodpecker on a tree." "A very 

 noticeable fact was, that a great deal of this little creature's 



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