Wayside Observations 145 



whose holdings were four baby white-eyes, their eyelids 

 still glued together. As the twigs stirred, they opened 

 their mouths for food, and I decided to accommodate 

 them. Taking a bit of cracker from my haversack, I 

 moistened it, and rolled it into a pellet between my ringer 

 and thumb; then, gently swaying the bushes, I induced 

 the bantlings to open their mouths, when I dropped the 

 morsel into one of the tiny throats. You ought to have 

 seen the wry face baby made as it gulped down the new 

 kind of food, which had such an odd taste. It was plain 

 that the callow nestling was able to distinguish this mor- 

 sel from the palatable diet it had been accustomed to. 

 Possibly it suffered from a temporary fit of indigestion, 

 but no permanent harm was done by my experiment, for 

 when I called on them again a few days later, the birdkins 

 four were safe and well, their eyes open, and their instincts 

 sufficiently developed to cause them to cuddle low in their 

 basket instead of opening their mouths. 



The rambler who would hear a real outdoor concert 

 should rise early, swallow a few bits of cracker and a cup 

 of coffee, and seek some bird-haunted hollow or wood- 

 land just as day begins to break. One morning I pur- 

 sued this plan, and was more than compensated for the 

 loss of an hour or two of sleep. Just as the east began 

 to blush I found myself in a favorite wooded hollow. 



What a potpourri of bird song greeted my ear! How 

 many choralists took part in the matutinal concert I 

 cannot say, but there were scores of them. The volume 

 of song would sometimes swell to a full-toned orchestra, 



