224 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



many seasons a pair nested in a tuft of pampas 

 grass in the garden ; another pair in an ivy vine 

 on the cottage roof, and when the young were 

 hatched, it was interesting to see the parents get- 

 ting the fluffy dots down. They were greatly 

 excited, and their anxious calls and directions to 

 their many babes attracted our attention. They 

 had no great difficulty in persuading the young 

 birds to pitch themselves from the main roof to 

 the porch roof among the ivy, but to get them 

 safely down from the latter to the ground, a 

 distance of ten feet, was most distressing. It 

 seemed impossible the frail soft things could avoid 

 being killed. The anxious parents led them to 

 a point above a spiraea bush, that reached nearly 

 to the eaves, which they seemed to know would 

 break the fall. Anyhow they led their chicks 

 to this point, and with infinite coaxing and en- 

 couragement got them to tumble themselves off. 

 Down they rolled and sifted through the soft 

 leaves and panicles to the pavement, and, strange 

 to say, all got away unhurt except one that lay 

 as if dead for a few minutes. When it re- 

 vived, the joyful parents, with their brood fairly 

 launched on the journey of life, proudly led 

 them down the cottage hill, through the gar- 

 den, and along an osage orange hedge into the 

 cherry orchard. These charming birds even en- 

 ter towns and villages, where the gardens are 

 of good size and guns are forbidden, sometimes 



