74 birds' eggs 



first egg of spring, but one cannot name either 

 with much confidence. Both the robin and 

 the chippie sometimes rear a third brood in 

 August, but the birds that delay their nesting 

 till midsummer are the goldfinch and the cedar- 

 bird, the former waiting for the thistle to ripen 

 its seeds, and the latter probably for the appear- 

 ance of certain insects which it takes on the 

 wing. Often the cedar-bird does not build till 

 August, and will line its nest with wool if it 

 can get it, even in this sultry month. The 

 eggs are marked and colored, as if a white egg 

 were to be spotted with brown, then colored a 

 pale blue, then again sharply dotted or blotched 

 with blackish or purplish spots. 



But the most common August nest with me 

 — early August — is that of the goldfinch, — 

 a deep, snug, compact nest, with no loose ends 

 hanging, placed in the fork of a small limb of 

 an apple-tree, peach-tree, or ornamental shade- 

 tree. The eggs are a faint bluish white. 



While the female is sitting, the male feeds 

 her regularly. She calls to him on his ap- 

 proach, or when she hears his voice passing by, 

 in the most afi'ectionate, feminine, childlike 

 tones, the only case I know of where the sitting 

 bird makes any sound while in the act of incu- 

 bation. When a rival male invades the tree, 

 or approaches too near, the male whose nest it 

 holds pursues and reasons or expostulates with 

 him in the same bright, amicable, confiding 

 tones. Indeed, most birds make use of their 

 Bwe.eteot notes in war. The song of love is the 



