SOME BIRDS 



a warning finger, and smilingly ask, " Did you 

 hear that?" "I, I, Peabody, Peabody, Pea- 

 body," he is supposed to be saying, or in Maine 

 it is, " All day. Whittling, Whittling, Whittling ;" 

 but translate it as you will, it gives one a very 

 great pleasure to hear it. 



A friendly little fellow, with his bright orange 

 and black markings, is the Redstart (German, 

 Roth Stert, or Red-Tail, though its tail is not red 

 at all), and from early May till July he is in 

 evidence. He alights on the rough bark of an 

 old birch near the corner of the porch, peers 

 about this way and that, chirps cordially, and 

 then flirts over to the porch rail, hops along it, 

 turns a somersault in the air, and lights upon 

 a near-by bush. He peers under the leaves for 

 insects, and then darts away, only to be back 

 again in a moment. I called Al Wilbur's atten- 

 tion to him one day, as I sat reading on the 

 porch. "Yes," said Al, "those birds were over 

 here on the island when we first came. We 

 found one of 'em dead, an' another was livin', 

 but he was terrible slimsy." Poor little fly- 

 catcher, you might well be " slimsy " with ice 

 and snow still covering the waters of the lake, 

 and never an insect ready for business. 



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