FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE 



chance for photography. However, as though to reward 

 my forbearance in not cutting down a nest to pose 

 in unnatural surroundings, I had an unusual chance 

 to photograph a pair of Cedar-birds from life. In 

 a neighbor's yard, a nest blew down in a thunder- 

 storm, and all but two of the young were drowned 

 or otherwise disappeared. A kind lady rescued the 

 neglected orphans and fed them till they were fully 

 grown and feathered. When I saw them they were at 

 liberty in the garden, and were so tame that almost at 

 once they would fly upon my head or shoulder and beg 

 for food. They were very fond of raspberries, and 

 every few minutes they would clamor to be fed — in 

 their lisping dialect and by beseeching gestures. Hand- 

 ling them did not alarm them in the least, so I focused 

 the camera on a small bush, and fed the little fellows 

 on the desired branch, when they assumed all sorts of 

 pretty positions as I snapped them. After a few days 

 they wandered off, and one afternoon a lady who 

 stepped out on the sidewalk in front of her house was 

 amazed to have a Cedar-bird suddenly alight on her 

 head and then hop to her shoulder, where she could see 

 that it was begging for food. She fed it, and the other 

 one appeared, and they stayed about her home all 

 day. It is not good, though, for birds to be too con- 

 fiding, for a cat caught one of them, and it is more 

 than likely that the other perished before long in some 

 such way. 



Very different in temperament from the gentle wax- 



196 



