212 TWO LITTLE DRUMMERS. 



nests we had looked at and longed for while 

 grass was growing, were opened to us, I had 

 taken my comfortable folding-chair to a spe- 

 cially delightful nook between a clump of ever- 

 greens, which screened it from the house, and a 

 row of maples, elms, and other trees, much fre- 

 quented by birds. Close before me was a beauti- 

 ful hawthorn -tree, in which a pair of kingbirds 

 had long ago built their nest. On one side I 

 could look over to an impenetrable, somewhat 

 swampy thicket, where song sparrows and in- 

 digo birds nested; on the other, past the pic- 

 turesque old-fashioned arbor, half buried under 

 vines and untrimmed trees, far down the pretty 

 carriage-drive between young elms and flowering 

 shrubs, where the bobolink had raised her brood, 

 and the meadow lark had chanted his vesper 

 hymn for us all through June. Many winged 

 strangers came to feast on the treasures uncov- 

 ered by the hay-cutter, and then the shy red- 

 head showed himself on our grounds. To my 

 surprise, he was searching the freshly cut stub- 

 ble not at all like a woodpecker, but hobbling 

 about most awkwardly, half flying, half hop- 

 ping, seeking some delectable morsel, which, 

 when found, he carried to the side of a tree-trunk, 

 thrust into a crack, and ate at his leisure. The 

 object I saw him treat in this way was as large 

 as a bee, and he was some time in disposing of 



