FEATHERED GEMS 



plates. Next day the sun was bright, but I could not 

 find the young, though they were near, as the anxiety 

 of the parents proclaimed. 



A year later, on the edge of a thicket by a brook 

 flowing through a field, a pair of these birds scolded 

 at me, appearing now and then with a worm for the 

 young. I hid and watched and made up my mind 

 that there were young out in the grass. After a search 

 I found one, a fledgling, and then I knew what to do. 

 Making a perch, I set him on it before the camera, 

 and retired with the end of my spool of thread into the 

 bushes out of sight. The male would not venture in 

 this case, but the female did, and in the course of two 

 hours she gave me sixteen pictures of herself lugging 

 some fat worm or depositing the tidbit in the open 

 mouth of the little bird. In another case I snapped 

 her — though only with head and shoulder on the 

 plate — as she was trying to ram down the youngster's 

 throat a big harvest-fly that was altogether too large 

 for a fit. It stuck fast, and the old bird had to come 

 back and ram and shove before the luscious mouthful 

 was forced down. It was the best series of feeding 

 pictures I had ever secured and I drove home delighted 

 with the day's work. 



The American Pipit, or Titlark, is closely related to 

 the warblers. These birds appear in flocks as rather 

 early spring and late fall migrants, frequenting open 

 pastures or barren ground, where they walk about 

 jerking their tails. 



