AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 93 



sun, and forth came grandpa from the door. Lo ! not a bird was 

 in sight, and he wondered then and for many times after, what 

 scattered the drying corn. But on a day, one keen-eyed little 

 dancer by chance peeped under the wide-brimmed straw hat which 

 grandpa had worn from the time he dropped the seed corn into 

 the waiting soil, till he gathered it for the winter food for his 

 flock of hens, the merry dancer peeped, (I learned this from a. 

 familiar spirit who whispers things to me, ) and saw neath the 

 wide brim, eyes which looked so kindly upon two white rabbits 

 raiding some fallen corn, that he took heart o' grace and reported 

 to the others. 



What they said I know not, or if grandpa talked to them, only 

 this, that now cold winter days are with us, they have feast when 

 it pleaseth them of the store saved for the feathered flock in the 

 barn ; and she would, this, Meg. Merrythought could tell you — 

 where grows the old apple tree, the rose bush, and where 

 grandpa lives. I have told you what I saw all in the morning 

 early, ere grandpa learned the secret of who meddled with his 

 drying corn. 



Oh ! thus early in the morning 

 Just as the day was dawning 

 Sure I never saw the like of it 

 But on that grey November morn, 

 Such a balancing and chasing. 

 To some eerie wind harps playing ; 

 No I'd never seen the like of it 

 Till they danced for grandpa's corn. 



Phila Miranda Parmalee, Haddam, Ct. 



FRIENDLY WINTER CALLERS. 



The Chickadees come every few minutes to that basket of suet 

 which I hung out. One time I counted three Chickadees sitting 

 in the tree waiting for their turns to come, and one sitting in 

 the basket eating away. Almost every day I see a flock of Pine 

 Grosbeaks, and some days I see two or three flocks. 



Staffold Francis, Exeter, N. H. 



ORIOLE BABIES, 



I want to tell the readers of this magazine how I watched two 

 baby Orioles last summer, as I was sitting in an old maple, I 

 noticed a nest and a baby oriole near. I waited a minute and 

 then heard the chirp of the male bird as he came to feed his 



