UNDER THE MAPLES 



when she came with material in her beak; she would 

 alight on a near-by post and slightly spread and 

 quiver her wings in a tender, beseeching kind of 

 way. She would do this also when bringing food 

 to her first brood. When one of the parent birds 

 of any species simulates by voice or manner the 

 young birds, it is always the female; her heart 

 would naturally be more a-quiver with anticipation 

 than that of the male. 



On the fifth day the nest was completed and 

 received its first egg. There was considerable de- 

 lay with the second egg, but it appeared on the 

 second or third day, and the third egg the follow- 

 ing day. Then incubation began. In twenty days 

 from the day the nest was begun, the birds were 

 hatched, and in eleven days more they had quietly 

 left the nest. 



A friend of mine who has a summer home on 

 one of the trout-streams of the Catskills discovered 

 that the catbird was fond of butter, and she soon 

 had one of the birds coming every day to the dining- 

 room window for its lump of fresh butter, and 

 finally entering the dining-room, perching on the 

 back of the chair, and receiving its morsel of butter 

 from a fork held in the mistress's hand. I think 

 the butter was unsalted. My friend was con- 

 vinced after three years that the same pair of 

 birds returned to her each year, because each 

 season the male came promptly for his butter. 



66 



