24 EVERYDAY BIRDS 



the act of uttering it. The song is much in the 

 manner of the robin's, but less smooth and flow- 

 ing. I have often thought, and sometimes said, 

 that it is just such a song as the robin might 

 give us if he were afflicted with what people call 

 a " hoarse cold." The bird sings as if his whole 

 heart were engaged, but at the same time in a 

 noticeably broken and short-winded style. 



The oftener you hear him, the easier you will 

 find it to distinguish him from a robin, although 

 at first you may find yourself badly at a loss. 

 A boy that can tell any one of twenty playmates 

 by the tones of his voice alone will need nothing 

 but practice and attention to do the same for a 

 great part of the sixty or seventy kinds of com- 

 mon birds living in the woods and fields about 

 him. 



The tanager's nest is built in a tree, on the 

 flat of a level branch, so to speak, generally 

 toward the end. Sometimes, at any rate, it is a 

 surprisingly loose, carelessly constructed thing, 

 through the bottom of which one can see the 

 blue or bluish eggs while standing on the ground 

 underneath. 



It must be plain to any one that the mother 

 bird, in her dull greenish dress, is much less 

 easily seen, and therefore much less in danger, as 

 she sits brooding, than she would be if she wore 



