September 
their young are produced, and the fate of the 
species peculiarly hangs in the balance. But 
by a glorious contradiction, while most timid 
and seclusive during the nesting period, this is 
also the time when threatened danger to their 
young will make them most fearless. With a 
bravery that is pathetic, they will endeavor to 
protect the birdlings, often utterly forgetful of 
their own safety in anxiety for their more help- 
less offspring. How resolutely the female 
sticks to the nest during incubation, showing 
her intense alarm only in the wild glance of the 
eye and a paralyzed motionlessness. Prob- 
ably, at such times death itself would not be 
more painful than the living terror they often 
experience. There would be something ex- 
tremely comical in the puny rage sometimes 
manifested by the tiny creatures toward their 
giant foes, did not the impulse prompting it 
command our noblest admiration. 
In musical phrase, the period from January to 
July is a crescendo—that from July to January, 
a decrescendo. In many ways the record of 
the last six months is the same as that of the 
first six, read backward ; the second half of the 
year saying of the first half, «‘ It must increase, 
I must decrease,’’ Nature shows a grand cli- 
259 
