158 



Hints to Atidubou Workers. 



come near me, while the others had always 

 smacked their bills incessantly and flown 

 about in the most distraught manner. Now, 

 could this have been from superior intelli- 

 gence, and had she taken this surer method, 

 as she supposed, for protecting the young 

 from the danger of my inspection? 



The most terrified ovenbird that I have 

 ever seen I found on the hillside of a dense 

 portion of the same woods. She began her 

 suspicious smacking as soon as we came in 

 sight, but although we hunted for the nest 

 very carefully we could not find a trace of 

 it. We sat down on a log and waited for 

 her to show it to us, but that did no good. 

 She confined herself to a radius of about 

 three rods, but selecting saplings at extreme 

 points would fly from one to the other, in- 

 specting us anxiously; all the while wag- 

 ging her tail nervously up and down and 

 keeping up a monotonous smacking. Find- 

 ing her as incorrigible as the mosquitoes, 

 and realizing the approach of the dinner 

 hour, my friend and I decided to start 

 for home. But in our case the gods fa- 

 vored the cowardly, for as we were brand- 

 ishing our maple twigs in the faces of the 

 pursuing punkies and mosquitoes, we sud- 

 denly started up the little family we had 

 been hunting for. They ran out from 

 among the leaves under our feet and scud- 

 ded off in all directions. My two dogs 

 started after them, and in the rush and 

 scramble that followed we had all we could 

 do to save the little creatures' lives. In the 

 midst of the confusion the terrified mother 

 bird flew down on the ground and began 

 trailing in the most pitifully excited manner. 

 She spread out her wings and tail, dragging 

 them along the ground as if she were quite 

 helpless. But finding that we would not 

 accept that decoy, and seeing that her little 

 ones had hidden away under the leaves, 

 she tried another plan; and walked once 

 slowly back and forth for about a rod on 

 the side away from her young. As the 

 dogs were perfectly quiet now, and we had 



not moved since the first alarm, she then 

 made a detour and risked an examination 

 of the place where the little birds had dis- 

 appeared. By this time, having seen what 

 we wanted, and feeling that we had given 

 the poor mother enough anxiety for one 

 day, we left her to gather her children to- 

 gether again. 



In watching the ovenbird I have been 

 surprised to find how irregular individuals 

 are in their time of nesting. On June 1 1 

 I found a family of full-grown young 

 being fed in tlie branches of a maple tree. 

 The same day I found a nest full of eggs. 

 June 12 three of these eggs hatched, and I 

 found a ne.st of young a quarter grown. 

 June 13 I found the little family that I have 

 just described well out of their nest. These 

 could hardly have been first and second 

 broods, as they were in all stages of de- 

 velopment. This same difference I have 

 since found in the nesting of robins, vireos, 

 chipping birds, song sparrows, and others. 



DeKay speaks of the ovenbird as a shy, 

 solitary bird, but I have found it anything 

 but shy. In the spring it sings fearlessly 

 wherever I meet it, and on June 29 one 

 came within fifteen feet of me looking for 

 worms for her young. She inspected me 

 carefully when she caught sight of me, and 

 then flew up on the sapling where the little 

 bird was, fed it and flew off to an adjoining 

 tree, where she scraped her bill in the most 

 unconcerned manner. 



The young resemble their mother in gen- 

 eral appearance, but their heads are lighter, 

 and their backs are speckled as well as their 

 breasts. 



SCARLET TANAGER. 



The scarlet tanager and the rose-breasted 

 grosbeak are both exceptions to the general 

 rule that brilliantly-plumaged birds have 

 little song. No burning coal could have 

 more intensity of color than the full-plum- 

 agcd male in sununer. lie literally dazzles 

 one's eyes. And still he has a loud song 



