ii2 Bird Comrades 



creeper, while clinging to the bole of a tree, but never 

 before did I see one doing this while lolling on the ground. 

 He was not sick or hurt, simply lazy; for when I went 

 near him he flew away as chipper as a bird could be. 



The rambler not only sees many of these pretty bird 

 ways, but he sometimes has a hearty laugh at the birds' 

 expense. During one of my outings a blustering whirl- 

 wind started on the summit of a small hill scantily 

 covered with scrub oak. It seized the dead leaves and 

 twirled them about as if in a spasm of anger; then it went 

 scurrying noisily down the steep incline, flinging itself 

 against a couple of large brush heaps in the hollow where 

 a number of fox and Harris sparrows were concealed. 

 They had imagined themselves safe in their brushy 

 covert. Suddenly the whirlwind struck their hiding 

 place with a clang and clatter, sending the birds in a wild 

 panic in every direction. They did not seem to know 

 what had struck them, and, as the wanton breezes tossed 

 them this way and that, they expressed their astonish- 

 ment in loud and frightened chirping. All over and no 

 harm done, the bird lover burst into a peal of laughter at 

 the discomfiture of his feathered neighbors, who looked 

 at him as if they did not know what to make of his 

 untimely hilarity. 



Then, too, one cannot be an observing rambler with- 

 out stumbling upon some exceedingly odd avian pranks, 

 as the following description will indicate : One day I was 

 sitting on the steep bank of a wooded ravine watch- 

 ing several rare little birds, hoping to discover some of 



