TUFTED TITMOUSE 17 



feet tapping all round my ears ; he tweaked once 

 or twice at my hair, chirped, and then actually 

 jumped on my head and with claw T s and beak 

 went to work in earnest! 



This treatment was too vigorous for an 

 ordinary human scalp to endure long at one time, 

 but before I was obliged to drive him away he 

 called to his mate with incisive chirruping to 

 come and see what he had found. She soon 

 answered, and came tripping sidewise along a 

 drooping pine bough to within a few feet, but 

 would not venture closer. From the tone of her 

 replies I take it that she scarcely liked the looks 

 of the strange object on which he was standing. 



"Why didn't you catch it?" at this point 

 inquires nearly every child to whom I tell this 

 story. But why should I have wished to catch 

 him? I could not have kept him; I couldn't pos- 

 sibly have made him happy, and he would have 

 been too frightened and miserable to make me 

 happy. Even if I had only held him a few sec- 

 onds and then set him free, he would never have 

 come back again. 



As it was, he did come back in a day or two, 

 to find me sitting in a chair. Without hesitation 

 he climbed up my back and began on my head 

 as before, standing braced by his tail feathers 

 against my ear ^ and working away with loud 

 chirps of excitement. 



