118 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



birds for the time being. The summer of '84 proved 

 delightfully novel, however; for a pair of red-birds 

 spent half the summer within walking distance. They 

 came in May, nested in June, and, scared by the sense- 

 less snapping of fireworks on the 4th of July, quitted in 

 disgust on the 5th. 



While watching the many birds that were in the 

 woods and thickets, on May 11, I saw a large gray- 

 green bird start up beforj me, uttering a loud cluck as 

 it flew. I took it to be a female tanager, but was not 

 sure. I followed a few paces through the briers, and 

 then saw the mate of the stranger. It was a splendid 

 specimen of a summer red-bird. I stood perfectly still, 

 with my arms behind me — birds fear men's arms more 

 than their faces — waiting for him to sing. Presently 

 his head was thrown back, the neck swelled, the beak 

 slowly opened, and that "strong and sonorous whistle," 

 of which Wilson speaks, sounded through the woods. 

 It recalled familiar scenes of thirty years ago. The old 

 orchard reoccupied the now open, sunny field, and the 

 merry days spent there came trooping back, but wrapped 

 in mist, not sunshine. I could not, unhappily, forget, 

 even for the moment, that it was but a day-dream ; and 

 while I stood there the bird, as if in pity, ceased to sing. 



Day after day I watched this pair of birds. A week 

 later I found them building a nest on the extreme end 

 of a long horizontal branch of an oak growing on the 

 hillside. This nest was an ordinary twig structure, lined 

 with grass, and as much like the nests described by Wil- 

 son as those referred to by Brewer, with so much un- 

 called-for criticism. The eggs, four in number, were 



