AUGUST DAYS 



shouldered starlings, and along the Potomac and 

 Chesapeake Bay become the reed-birds of sports- 

 men. One often hears them in this month calhng 

 from high in the air as they journey southward from 

 more northern latitudes. 



About the most noticeable bird of August in New 

 York and New England is the yellowbird, or gold- 

 finch. This is one of the last birds to nest, seldom 

 hatching its eggs tiU late in July. It seems as if a 

 particular kind of food were required to rear its 

 brood, which cannot be had at an earlier date. The 

 seed of the common thistle is apparently its main- 

 stay. There is no prettier sight at this season than 

 a troop of young goldfinches, led by their parents, 

 going from thistle to thistle along the roadside and 

 pecking the ripe heads to pieces for the seed. The 

 plaintive call of the young is one of the charac- 

 teristic August sounds. Their nests are frequently 

 destroyed, or the eggs thrown from them, by the 

 terrific July thunder-showers. Last season a pair 

 had a nest on the slender branch of a maple in front 

 of the door of the house where I was staying. The 

 eggs were being deposited, and the happy pair had 

 many a loving conversation about them many times 

 each day, when one afternoon a very violent storm 

 arose which made the branches of the trees stream 

 out hke wildly disheveled hair, quite turning over 

 those on the windward side, and emptying the pretty 

 nest of its eggs. In such cases the birds build anew, 

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