66 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



One in particular aggravated me beyond words. 

 Instead of using his feet for what nature intended 

 them, he insisted on clutching tightly hold of his 

 wings, as though that were of the slightest use. If I 

 disengaged the unruly members and placed his toes 

 as they should be around the branch he would 

 roll off, either backward or forward, exactly as a 

 mounted bird would do if the leg wires were not 

 secured. For fully fifteen minutes this perform- 

 ance was kept up, varied only in its tiresome 

 monotony by the other four nestlings. Every little 

 while they would simultaneously follow the bad 

 example of the little scamp who, by the way, was 

 about the largest and strongest of the brood and 

 with one accord, as though they had been released 

 from their support by the pressing of an electric 

 button, they would all drop off. 



It is quite probable that most people who were 

 so unfortunate as to have been anywhere in 

 the vicinity of New York will remember with 

 unpleasant distinctness the heat of the national 

 holiday July 4th, 1900. In the apple orchard 

 where the fly-catchers had their nest, and which was 

 in a hollow entirely surrounded by hills, the heat 

 was intense, for the breezes did not venture near. 

 On the higher ground the trees might be seen 

 lazily waving their topmost branches, as though 

 wishing to inform the world of the fact that up 

 there, at least, the soft summer winds deigned to 

 live ; and I devoutly wished my friends the fly- 

 catchers had not chosen for their nestling place 

 this orchard, which seemed as though it had been 

 transplanted from the tropics. 



