62 BIRD PARADISE 



Just how they tell when to wake up I have no 

 means of knowing. Very likely all they have 

 to do with it is simply to obey the summons 

 when it comes. Curious that I rarely see two 

 dwelling together in the same house and very 

 rarely meet two of the same size. The venerable 

 fellows, large in body as well as in number of 

 years, I see occasionally. One resides under the 

 woodbine near the barn door, and has all the ap- 

 pearance of having numbered a score of years. 

 He is chary of speech, and when he uses his voice 

 he gives forth a guttural sound that seems with- 

 out meaning. His success as a fly catcher is 

 pronounced. No one would ever imagine that 

 the fellow could make a quick movement by his 

 general appearance. The moment, however, he 

 sits down — or rather sits up — to one of his daily 

 meals he appears in a new r61e altogether. He 

 takes his dinner on the wing, and does it with a 

 skill and grace that becomes him handsomely. 

 Sometimes I get the idea that when he once be- 

 gins to eat he has no conception when to stop. 

 So far as I know he has but very little to do be- 

 sides eating. If he has any regular work by 

 which he earns his daily bread he never has 

 given me an inkling of what it is. The little 

 house roofed with leaves, just a few feet square,^ 



