FIELD AND STUDY 



larder to another kind. I saw a pretty illustration of 

 this fact yesterday. On the wide, smooth space, 

 graded with sharp gravel in front of my neighbor's 

 boathouse, there were three Blackburnian war- 

 blers, one male and two females, very much ab- 

 sorbed in hurrying about over the gray surface, 

 picking up some tiny insects which were invisible 

 to my eye. How intent and eager they were ! A nut- 

 hatch came down the trunk of the elm and eyed 

 them closely; then took to the ground and followed 

 them about for a moment. But evidently he could 

 not make out what the table was spread with, as, 

 after a few seconds, he flew back to the tree and 

 went on with his own quest of food. But the nut- 

 hatches will follow the downy woodpeckers through 

 the trees, and the chickadees follow the nuthatches, 

 and the brown creepers follow the chickadees, and 

 each kind appears to find the food it is looking for. 

 Every man to his taste, and every bird to the food 

 that its beak indicates. 



I have no idea as to the kind of food that inva- 

 riably draws the male scarlet tanager to the ground 

 in the ploughed fields at this season; but there they 

 are in pairs or triplets, slowly looking over the brown 

 soil and visible from afar. Yesterday I came upon 

 two on the ground at a wettish place in the woods, 

 demurely looking about them. How they fairly 

 warmed the eye amid their dull and neutral sur- 

 roundings ! 



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