THE SPRING BIRD PROCESSION 



If this does not add force to his blows, it certainly 

 emphasizes them in a very pretty manner. 



Each species of wild creature has its own indi- 

 vidual ways and idiosyncrasies which one likes to 

 note. As I write these lines a male kingbird flies by 

 the apple-tree in which his mate is building a nest, 

 with that peculiar mincing and affected flight which 

 none other of the flycatchers, so far as I know, ever 

 assumes. The olive-sided flycatcher has his own 

 little trick, too, which the others do not have: I 

 have seen his whole appearance suddenly change 

 while sitting on a limb, by the exhibition of a band 

 of white feathers like a broad chalk-mark outlining 

 his body. Apparently the white feathers under the 

 wings could be projected at will, completely trans- 

 forming the appearance of the bird. He would 

 change in a twinkling from a dark, motionless object 

 to one surrounded by a broad band of white. 



It occasionally happens that a familiar bird de- 

 velops an unfamiliar trait. The purple finch is one 

 of our sweetest songsters and best-behaved birds, 

 but one that escapes the attention of most country 

 people. But the past season he made himself con- 

 spicuous with us by covering the ground beneath 

 the cherry-trees with cherry-blossoms. Being hard 

 put to it for food, a flock of the birds must have dis- 

 covered that every cherry-blossom held a tidbit in 

 the shape of its ovary. At once the birds began to 

 cut out these ovaries, soon making the ground white 

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