April, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



safe from tabby, and can see what enemies or rivals are about. 

 When the coast is clear, they dash across the lawn to take a 

 sip of water from the pan under the hydrant's dripping 

 nozzle, or snatch a morsel of food from the dish on the raised 

 platform that I made, lest my neighbor's cat steal upon 

 them unawares. Often a strain of music rewards me for my 

 attention to their wants, and their finest selections — for the 

 catbirti has many — are usually given on cloudy or rainy days, 

 when, seemingly, they think I need them most. 



Whether the catbird or kingbird calls on me first, I do not 

 remember, but there is not much difference. Do birds know 

 that we care for them? They seem to feel so contented and 

 protected when near us if we do. Some morning in May, as I 

 study at the open window, I hear a familiar "Bee-bee-bee," 

 and, looking out, there sits the kingbird on the identical spot 

 on the clothesline wire that was such a favorite place with him 

 last year; and he seems to feel as safe as though all my time 

 were spent in guarding him from harm. His notes are not a 

 song, for he is not from a singing family, but just to apprise 

 me of his presence, and let me know that he has run the gaunt- 



The Brown Creeper Visits 

 Us in Winter 

 Only 



let of dangers successfully all the way to South America and 

 back. His plumage is brighter than when he left in the 

 autumn, as though his grayish-black coat had been thoroughly 

 brushed. Last year his mate selected a high box elder at the 

 foot of the yard in which to build their nest, and it came near 

 being made of the family linen, for several times I observed 

 him make a dive at some handkerchiefs which had been spread 

 upon the lawn to dry. They proved too heavy for his wings, 

 however, and some bits of rags and cotton batten were substi- 

 tuted, which he bore off in triumph. I am sure they would 

 build there again did they know of the nesting material I have 

 on hand for them. When nesting time arrives I shall exhibit 

 my treasures and see if I can not persuade them to bring their 

 nest to the materials. 



What a surprise and delight the first Baltimore oriole is! 

 I was dressing before the mirror one morning with my back 

 toward a window, when there flashed into the looking glass 

 from the tree before the window the first oriole of the season. 

 It was an old bird, for the body plumage was deep orange-red ; 

 and while T watched him in the mirror he regaled me with 

 his choicest strain. The months of May and June, with all 



their blossoms, perfumes, and songs, flashed into my imagina- 

 tion in a twinkling, and I lived them through and through in a 

 moment. 



Last year a pair of Baltimores built in the tip top of my 

 corner tree, and came regularly to the meals of boiled egg- 

 yolk and breakfast food that I prepared for them. They were 

 generous in repayment, for the male favored me daily with 

 his exuberant songs; and when the young came off the nest two 

 of them were considerate enough to fly down upon the lawn — 

 presumably in their efforts to reach a distant tree — where I 

 secured their photographs. 



For a little while each spring the worms seem to be getting 

 the better of my box elder trees, sometimes almost stripping 

 them of leaves; but I am compensated in part by the songs of 

 the rose-breasted grosbeak that feeds and sings by turns in 

 their high tops. What a smooth, flowing, limpid strain it 

 is ! Yet, at times in the ardency of his love it rises so nearly 

 to the ecstatic quality of the oriole's song that I have not in- 

 frequently mistaken one for the other. This somewhat 

 lethargic finch has ne\ er paid any attention to the food and 



The Black Capped Chickadee 

 Is a Permanent Guest 

 the Year Through 



water which I place for the other birds. He seems to have 

 small powers of observation and to be fully absorbed in his 

 own affairs. His mate never brings her nest into my yard like 

 those of the oriole, robin, kingbird, bluejay, bluebird, and 

 wren. I usually find it in a grove just out of the city, or in 

 some wooded ravine, not quite near enough to be friendly, nor 

 far enough away to be exposed to the dangers of the wild. 



One week in May the worms of my box elder trees brought 

 mc a \ isitor that T can hardly reckon in my bird family. The 

 bobolink, as all know, is a bird of the low meadows; but for 

 three or four days one fed in my tree-tops and regaled me with 

 the bubbling, rippling, gurgling, irrepressibly ecstatic strains 

 that come from the throat of no other startling, and which 

 carried me back to my barefooteci days wlien these birds were 

 so plentiful upon the yet unbroken meadows of Illinois. 



No other member of my bird family is so erratic in his 

 coming and going as the flicker. Only this morning I heard 

 his loud scream from a half dead tree at the back fence. A 

 downy woodpecker has been busy all morning excavating a 

 nesting place in one of its branches, and I presume the flicker 

 came to dri\'e him away just for the amusement of it; and 



