LITTLE GUESTS IN FEATHERS. 
NELLY HART WOODWORTH. 
BROOKLYN naturalist who gives 
al much time to bird-study told 
me that as his rooms became 
overfull of birds he decided to 
thin them out before the approach of 
winter. Accordingly he selected two 
song sparrows and turned one of them 
adrift, thinking to let the other go the 
next morning. 
The little captive was very happy 
for a few hours, flying about the ‘wild 
garden” in the rear of the house—a 
few square rods where more than 400 
varieties of native plants were growing. 
It was not long, however, before a 
homesick longing replaced the new 
happiness and the bird returned to the 
cage which was left upon the piazza 
roof. 
The next morning the second spar- 
row was given his freedom. Nothing 
was seen of him for a week, when he 
came to the window, beat his tired 
wings against the pane, and sank down 
upon the window sill so overjoyed at 
finding himself at home that he was 
fairly bursting with song. His throat 
trembled with the ecstasy; the feathers 
ruffling as the melody rose from his 
heart and deluged the air with sweet- 
ness. His joy was too complete for 
further experiment. 
The first sparrow was again released 
only to return at nightfall and go 
promptly to bed at the general retiring 
hour. 
This hour, by the way, varied indefi- 
nitely; the whole aviary accommodat- 
ing their hours to those of their mas- 
ter, rising with him and settling for the 
night as he turned off the gas. After 
this same bird was repeatedly sent out, 
like Noah’s dove, coming home at 
evening, till after many days it came 
no more—an implicit confidence in the 
rightness of all intention doubtless 
making it an easy prey to some evil 
design. 
A handsome hermit thrush from the 
same aviary, domesticated in my room, 
after an hour or two “abroad” is as 
149 
homesick for his cage as is a child for 
its mother. 
When this bird came into my pos- 
session his open and discourteous dis- 
approval of women was humiliating. 
His attitude was not simply endurance 
but open revolt, a deep-rooted hatred 
for the entire sex. When, after long 
weeks of acquaintance, this hostility 
was overcome he followed me about 
the room, stood beside me at my work, 
and has since been unchanging in a 
pathetic devotion. 
He plants his tiny feet in my pen- 
tray and throws the pens upon the 
floor. He stands on tiptoe before the 
mirror, staring with curious eyes at the 
strange rival till awe is replaced by 
anger and the brown wings beat in un- 
availing effort to reach the insolent 
mimic. When shown a worm he trem- 
bles in excited anticipation, his little 
feet dancing upon the floor, his wings 
moving rapidly, while he utters a coax- 
ing, entreating syllable. The song is 
sweetest when raindrops fall or when 
the room is noisy and confused. I 
notice, too, that he is more tuneful be- 
fore a rain. 
I must confess that he keeps late 
hours, that he is often busy getting 
breakfast when orthodox birds should 
be dreaming, his active periods being 
liable to fall at any hour of the night, 
more especially if there be a moon. 
An intensely sentimental nature may 
be unable to sleep when the beauty of 
the world is so strongly emphasized. 
His last frolic was with a frog the 
children smuggled into the house, 
chasing it around the room, darting 
at it with wide-open beak, advancing 
and retreating in a frenzied merriment. 
As the cage door is often left open 
he is sometimes “lost” briefly. At one 
of these times I decided that he had 
gone to sleep under the bed and would 
be quite safe till morning. Before day- 
light my mother called to me from the 
next room that there was “something 
in her bed,” and, sure enough, the truant 
