482 LAND BIRDS 



residents have little praise. So numerous are these 

 birds and so destructive to fruit that a continual warfare 

 is waged against them by poison and by gun. Hun- 

 dreds are sold in the bird-stores annually, sometimes 

 at the low price of twenty-five cents each. But to 

 the newcomer and the tourist the pretty pink-breasted 

 songsters are one of the attractive features of the garden, 

 where they take the place of the robin of the East. No 

 bird is more tame or more confiding. In the rose that 

 clambers over your window, or the evergreens on the 

 lawn, he will build his nest, absolutely refusing to believe 

 that he is not wanted. His happy song wakens you in 

 the morning and is the last to cease at night, and when 

 his pretty brown sweetheart is listening, his little pink 

 throat ruffles and swells with the torrent of music. 

 Then he sings on the wing in rocket-like bursts of melody, 

 and executes wonderful gyrations for her sole benefit. 

 A moment later they are off" together over the roses 

 looking for a place to hide tlie tiny home. The choice 

 is varied. A palm tree, a vine at the kitchen door, a 

 nook in the chicken yard, the top of an open-air pantry, 

 the inside of a hat put up for a scarecrow, or a shoe 

 flung into a tree in childish sport, are each and all eligible 

 building sites. After weaving the nest out of grasses 

 usually mixed with pine needles and a few feathers, the 

 little brown mother broods for thirteen days, assisted 

 by her mate at long intervals. The babies are naked, 

 except for a scant bit of down on head and back, and 

 are of a pinkish gray color. Like most young birds, they 

 are born blind and do not open their eyes until tlie 



