io8 American Birds 



seen him swallow the morsel himself/ He then justified 

 his conscience by appearing too timid to enter the door. 



The real drama of life began when the youngsters 

 were fluttering, full-grown, vigorous, impatient to get one 

 glimpse at the great outside from where the mother and 

 father came so often with morsels. 



One morning I saw a pair of bright eyes pushed right 

 through the fibrous wall at my own observation door. An 

 ambitious youngster had seen the wall open and close too 

 often not to know there was a way. He had worked it 

 open, and it was just where he could sit and look long- 

 ingly out. 



The time had come ; we had watched and waited two 

 weeks for this day. The minute one nestling took the 

 idea into his head .to get out into the sunshine, it spread 

 like contagion among the whole household. They came 

 not in singles, but in battalions! If we'd had a dozen 

 eyes we couldn't have kept track of them. We put sev- 

 eral back on a twig beside the nest, where they sat fluffing 

 in the warm sunshine, enjoying their first outing, and 

 awaiting their turns to be fed rather impatiently. 



Each titmouse had a tiny tinkle for a voice that was 

 almost as hard to hear as the whisper of the flowers. I 

 had to strain my ears to catch it more than a few feet 

 away. One nestling flew over into the deep ferns, but I 

 might have searched till doomsday for him. But the 

 mother knew where he was the instant she returned. 

 Another flew down into our camera box, and I shut the 

 lid to see if the mother would find him. She lit right on 

 the box with a billsome morsel, and looked so uneasy that 

 I had to let her in. It looked to me like wireless telegra- 



