A BIRDS' GALA-DAY. 147 



hove in sight, he would dart out after it, and never 

 once failed to secure his prize. Sometimes he would 

 plunge swiftly downward after a gnat or a miller, and 

 once, having caught a miller that was large and in- 

 clined to be refractory, he flew to the ground, beat 

 it awhile on the clods, and then swallowed it with a 

 consequential air which seemed to say, " That is 

 my way of disposing of such cases ! " Several times 

 he mounted almost straight up from his perch, and 

 twice he almost turned a somersault in pursuit of an 

 insect. Once he clung like a titmouse to the bole 

 of a sapling. I could often hear the snapping of 

 his mandibles as he nabbed his prey. When an in- 

 sect came between him and myself, he would fear- 

 lessly dash directly toward me, as if he meant to fly 

 in my face or alight on my head, often coming within 

 a few feet of me. He seemed to be as confiding 

 as a child. When I stepped to the other end of the 

 gravel-bank, going even a little beyond it, curiously 

 enough, the bird pftrsued me ; then, as an experi- 

 ment, I walked back to my first post of observation, 

 and, to my surprise, he followed me again. Was he 

 really desirous of my company? Or did he know 

 that I intended to ring his praises in type? At 

 length I stole away a short distance among the trees, 

 but presently a loud chirping in my rear arrested 

 my attention. I turned back, and found it to be 

 my new-made friend, the hooded warbler, who, 

 strange to say, seemed to be calling me back to his 

 haunt. Then I climbed to the top of the gravel- 

 bank ; he selected perches higher up in the saphngs 



