SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. IS 1 



day, a quail sitting upon my bed. The affrighted and 

 bewildered bird instantly started for the open window, 

 into which it had no doubt been driven by a hawk.) 



The crow-blackbird has all the natural cunning of 

 his prototype, the crow. In one of the inner courts of 

 the Treasury building there is a fountain with several 

 trees growing near. By midsummer, the blackbirds 

 become so bold as to venture within this court. Vari- 

 ous fragments of food, tossed from the surrounding 

 windows, reward their temerity. When a crust of dry 

 bread defies their beaks, they have been seen to drop 

 it into the water, and when it had become soaked 

 sufficiently, to take it out again. 



They build a nest of coarse sticks and mud, the 

 whole burden of the enterprise seeming to devolve 

 upon the female. For several successive mornings just 

 after sunrise, I used to notice a pair of them flying to 

 and fro in the air above me, as I hoed in the garden, 

 directing their course, on the one hand, to a marshy 

 piece of ground about half a mile distant, and disap- 

 pearing, on their return, among the trees about the 

 Capitol. Returning, the female always had her beak 

 loaded with building material, while the male, carrying 

 nothing, seemed to act as her escort, flying a little 

 above and in advance of her, and uttering now and 

 then his husky, discordant note. As I tossed a lump 

 of earth up at them the frightened mother-bird dropped 

 her .mortar, and the pair skurried away, much put 

 out. Later, they avenged themselves by pilfering my 

 cherries. 



