bold, and the dangers and advantages of orchard 

 life attract him. His moving into an apple 

 orchard is no less a wonder than would be an 

 Apache chiefs settling in New York or Boston. 



Most observers still count Great-crest among* 

 the wild and unreclaimed. Florence A. Mer- 

 riam, speaking of his return in spring, says : 

 "Not many days pass, however, before he is so 

 taken up with domestic matters that his voice 

 is rarely heard outside the woods" ; and in 

 Stearns's "Birds" I find : "It does not court the 

 society of man, but prefers to keep aloof in the 

 depths of the forest, where it leads a wild, shy ? 

 and solitary life. 7 ' This is not Great-crest as I 

 know him. I have found many of his nests, 

 and never one in any but orchard trees. Riding 

 along a country road lately, I heard Great- 

 crest's call far ahead of me. I soon spied 

 him on the wires of a telegraph-pole. Under 

 him was a pear-tree, and a hundred yards away 

 a farm-house. In the pear-tree I found his 

 nest snake-skins and all. 



I disagree, too, with most descriptions of this 

 bird's cry. The authors I have read seem never 

 to have heard him on a quiet May morning 

 [147] 



