FOREST BIRDS 157 



they must be saved. But how can she do it? She 

 is not strong enough to fight and they are too weak 

 to fly. The use of force being therefore out of the 

 question, she resorts to strategy. From a trim, grace- 

 ful bird leading her brood of youngsters over the 

 leaves she becomes in a twinkling, a poor, maimed, 

 wing-broken, whining creature who, fluttering pain- 

 fully before us, can barely keep beyond our reach. 

 We will note, however, that she does keep beyond it. 

 If we increase our pace she hastens hers. Finally, 

 when we are just about to touch her, she drops her 

 role as quickly as she assumed it, regains, as if by a 

 miracle, her power of flight, and goes whirring off 

 through the woods. Then we discover that we 

 have been led yards away from the place where we 

 first saw her and her downlings. 



Meanwhile what has become of them? We may 

 remember now that we caught only a glimpse of their 

 hurrying forms and then they magically disappeared. 

 Let us, if we can, return to the spot where we un- 

 wittingly brought such confusion into their lives. 

 Shall we find them calling plaintively for their 

 mother? Not a note do we hear, nor do we see a 

 bird. We look carefully over each foot of ground 

 and at last see one squatting on a leaf head down, 

 and so motionless that he might be a leaf himself. 

 Perhaps yvt may discover a second and a third; but 



