Songs of the Fields 



these birds would sound like romance of another 

 variety, did I not have a picture just as good as 

 this to prove every statement I make. Not a leaf 

 of the location was touched, but as it was a sec- 

 ond nesting for the season, and in July, the heat 

 was so intense that despite the shade of her chosen 

 location the mother bird often lolled on the nest, 

 as in this picture. The wonderful thing about it 

 is that after a few days I placed the camera on 

 the top of a ladder opposite the nest and near 

 enough to secure reproductions of this size. The 

 old birds were so convinced of my good intentions 

 that I obtained dozens of poses as good as this, 

 and even better, of each of them. I took their 

 young from the nest and photographed them every 

 day for the last four days before they left home, 

 replaced them, and they remained even a day and 

 a half after I had finished. 



It is a truth that I can prove amply by reli- 

 able people who watched the performance from 

 afar, that both old birds sat in the top of their 

 tree and never took flight or made a sound while 

 the young were away from the nest, and at once 

 went on feeding them when they were replaced. 

 Of course, I handled those young from the time 

 they were little pin-feathered things, and they had 

 no fear of me. If they had cried, I fancy the 

 old ones would have been alarmed. But that birds 

 of their universally admitted pugnacious charac- 

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