i^o American Birds 



pitched note of pain. I stooped to see what ailed her. 

 What, both wings broken and unable to hold with her 

 claws ! She wavered like an autumn leaf to the ground. 

 I leaped down, but she had limped under a bush and sud- 

 denly got well. Of course, I knew she was tricking me. 



The next day my heart was hardened against all her 

 alluring ways and her crocodile tears. She played her best, 

 but the minute she failed to win I got a furious berating. 

 It was no begging note now. She perched over my head 

 and called me every name in the warbler vocabulary. 

 Then she saw that we were actually shoving that cyclopian 

 monster right at her children. " Fly ! Fly for your lives ! " 

 she screamed in desperation. Both the scanty-feathered, 

 bobtailed youngsters jumped blindly out of the nest into 

 the bushes below. The mother outdid all previous per- 

 formances. She simply doubled and twisted in agonized 

 death spasms. But, not to be fooled, I kept an eye on 

 one nestling and soon replaced him in the nest where he 

 belonged. Nature always hides such creatures by the sim- 

 ple wave of her wand. I've seen a flock of half a dozen 

 grouse flutter up into a fir and disappear to my eyes as 

 mysteriously as fog in the sunshine. 



This fidgety bit of featherhood is called the black- 

 throated gray warbler, but it's only the male that has a 

 black throat. He is not the whole species. His wife 

 wears a white cravat and she, to my thinking, is a deal 

 more important in warbler affairs. Mr. Warbler seemed 

 to be kept away from home the greater part of the day 

 when the children were crying for food. 



The first day I really met the gentleman face to face 

 we were trying to get a photograph of the mother as 



