104 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 
day I surprised the true burglar in the act. I observed a small 
black bird rummaging suspiciously in the grass, and suddenly 
saw him fly to a branch near by with a tiny puff in his bill—a 
downy tuft on one side and a bundle of seeds on the other— 
the spot from which 
he flew disclosing one ~= 
of the telltale rifled “<X 
calyces of the dande “x 
lion. The bird, 
not immediately 
identified, soon spread its name abroad 
in the rosy gleam from its fan-shaped tail 
—the redstart. I subsequently discovered 
the nest in a low-hanging fork of an apple- 
tree, and a dainty structure it was, exquisitely 
adorned with gray moss and skeleton leaves, and in this case 
showing an unusual preference for dandelion seeds, with which 
its soft bulk was well felted. Inasmuch as there were thousands 
of the dandelion balls opening every sunny day this feat of for- 
age was not one of anticipation of a natural harvest; rather a 
question of economy of labor—a whole dandelion ball at one 
compact pinch. bs 
Wilson gives the nest material of the yellow warbler as “silk- 
weed floss and willow cotton,” which present a singular incongru- 
ity as to chronology, the willow cotton being a buoyant feature 
of the May breeze, while the asclepias does not take wing until 
late August and September, the silky seeds of the previous year 
being then of course obliterated. Is it possible that the warbler, 
like the redstart, may anticipate the bursting pod by an occasional 
burglary, assisted, perhaps, by those hairy caterpillars which so 
