THE PLEASURES OF A NATURALIST 



The birds are the little people that peep out at 

 me, or pause and regard me curiously in this great 

 temple of trees, — wrens, chippies, robins, bluebirds, 

 catbirds, redstarts, and now and then rarer visi- 

 tants. A few days earlier, for a moment, a mourn- 

 ing ground warbler suddenly appeared around the 

 corner, on the ground, at the foot of the steps, and 

 glanced hastily up at me. When I arose and looked 

 over the railing, it had gone. Then the speckled 

 Canada warbler came in the lilac bushes and syringa 

 branches and gave me several good views. The 

 bay-breasted warbler was reported in the ever- 

 greens up by the stone house, but he failed to report 

 to me here at *'The Nest." The female redstart, 

 however, came several times to the gravel walk be- 

 low me, evidently looking for material to begin her 

 nest. And the wren, the irrepressible house wren, 

 was and is in evidence every few minutes, busy car- 

 rying nesting-material into the box on the corner of 

 the veranda. How intense and emphatic she is! 

 And the male, how he throbs and palpitates with 

 song ! Yesterday an interloper appeared. He or she 

 climbed the post by the back way, as it were, and 

 hopped out upon the top of the box and paused, as 

 if to see that the coast was clear. He acted as if 

 he felt himself an intruder. Quick as a flash there 

 was a brown streak from the branch of a mai)le 

 thirty feet away, and the owner of the box was after 

 him. The culprit did not stop to argue the case, but 



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