4 DAY IN AN OLD ORCHARD. 188 
Birds have to guard against so many marauders that 
it is a wonder that they have any confidence left in man 
or other animals. One would expect them all to become 
skeptical pessimists instead of the sunny, confiding crea- 
tures which most of them still are. 
The pair with the nest in a little evergreen by the 
fence manifested very little alarm at my approach. The 
male bird alighted on a rail quite near and watched me 
without uttering a word of remonstrance. The sitting 
bird seemed loth to leave the nest, and I even touched 
her with my hand before she flew off. 
Several little chipping birds were already nesting in 
the orchard, and one could not resist the temptation to 
look into each beautifully constructed house to admire 
the little greenish blue eggs so artistically marked with 
brown and chocolate. A nest in the jasmine, over a 
front window, occupies the place that one did last year. 
Just before dusk last evening the wood thrush took his 
place on one of the elms, and for half an hour or more 
chanted his divine music. Why does he leave his friends 
in the maple woods beyond the pasture, half a mile 
away, and come here each evening to sing? Does he 
know that such strains are too sweet to be wasted in 
the woods away from human ears? 
Three purple finches have been in the orchard and in 
close company for several days, two of them singers, 
though only one of them has the bright plumage; the 
other is colored almost like the female, gray, with dull 
penciled lines of white and brown, but with no percep- 
tible bright red. The two males did not sing at all 
