AT HOME 343 



the sweetest; they nest right around our house, and also 

 in the more open woods of oak, hickory, and chestnut, 

 where their serene, leisurely songs ring through the leafy 

 arches all day long, but especially at daybreak and in 

 the afternoons. Baltimore orioles, beautiful of voice 

 and plumage, hang their nests in a young elm near a 

 corner of the porch; robins, catbirds, valiant kingbirds, 

 song-sparrows, chippies, bright colored thistle-finches, 

 nest within a stone's throw of the house, in the shrub- 

 bery or among the birches and maples; grasshopper 

 sparrows, humble little creatures with insect-like voices, 

 nest almost as close, in the open field, just beyond the 

 line where the grass is kept cut; humming-birds visit 

 the honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers; chimney swallows 

 build in the chimneys; barn swallows nest in the stable 

 and old barn, wrens in the bushes near by. Downy 

 woodpeckers and many other birds make their homes 

 in the old orchard; during the migrations it is alive 

 with warblers. Towhees, thrashers, and Maryland yel- 

 low-throats build and sing in the hedges by the garden; 

 bush sparrows and dainty little prairie warblers in the 

 cedar-grown field beyond. Red-wing blackbirds haunt 

 the wet places. Chickadees wander everywhere; the 

 wood-pewees, red-eyed vireos, and black and white creep- 

 ers keep to the tall timber, where the wary, thievish 

 jays chatter, and the great-crested fly-catchers flit and 

 scream. In the early spring, when the woods are still 

 bare, when the hen-hawks cry as they soar high in the 

 upper air, and the flickers call and drum on the dead 

 trees, the strong, plaintive note of the meadow lark is 



