PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 



193 



secured ; but he finally learned to help himself and 

 swallow his victuals instanter. Two of the thrushes, 

 probably males, seemed to have a mutual grudge. 

 They would pursue each other until the fugitive 

 would turn and stand at bay, snapping his mandi- 

 bles in a savage manner, as if they were worked by 

 steel springs. I regret being compelled to publish 

 these pugnacious tendencies in my beloved pets ; but 

 I prefer giving a realistic rather than a fictitious or 

 roseate sketch of the school-days of these pupils in 

 plumes. 



IV. 



BIRD WORK. 



"Life is real, life is earnest," might be just as 

 truly said of "our httle brothers of the air" as of 

 us, their big brothers of the soil. If you think that 

 their whole career consists of nothing but play and 

 song and bounding joy, you have seen very little 

 of the bird life around you. For the mother bird, at 

 least, the whole period of nesting, sometimes extend- 

 ing over several months, is a time of drudgery, 

 anxiety, .and, far too often, of disappointed hopes. 

 I have heard a bird mother's wail that went like 

 iron into my soul, and told me all too plainly that 

 it had come from a bereft and broken heart. When 

 we remember how many tragedies occur in the 

 feathered community, we scarcely care about sing- 

 ing, " I wish I were a little bird." Had you 

 witnessed the unutterable agony of a pair of yellow- 

 's 



