TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 317 



he visited the nest of the neighbor again, greatly 

 to the displeasure of the vireo, who scolded him 

 sharply as she watched his movements from a 

 near branch. My correspondent says: "I 

 watched them for several days; sometimes the 

 bluebird would visit his own nest several times 

 before lending a hand to the vireos. Some- 

 times he resented the vireos' plaintive fault-find- 

 ing and drove them away. I never saw tlie 

 female bluebird near the vireos' nest." 



That the male bird should be broader in his 

 sympathies and affections will not, to most men 

 at least, seem strange. 



Another correspondent relates an equally cu- 

 rious incident about a wren and some young 

 robins. "One day last summer," he says, 

 "while watching a robin feeding her young, I 

 was surprised to see a wren alight on the edge 

 of the nest in the absence of the robin, and de- 

 posit a little worm in the throat of one of the 

 young robins. It then flew off about ten feet, 

 and it seemed as if it would almost burst with 

 excessive volubility. It then disappeared, and 

 the robin came and went, just as the wren re- 

 turned with another worm for the young robins. 

 This was kept up for an hour. Once they ar- 

 rived simultaneously, when the wren "svas ap- 

 parently much agitated, but waited impatiently 

 on its previous perch, some ten feet off, until 

 the robin had left, when it visited the nest as 

 before. I climbed the tree for a closer inspec- 

 tion and found only a well-regulated robin 

 household, but nowhere a wren's nest. After 



