354 
A Woodland Intimate. 
to be, I assured her, good, brave, and 
handsome ; and should never suffer 
harm, if I could help it. Alas ! although, 
as the apostle says, I loved “ not in 
word, but in deed and in truth,” yet 
when the pinch came I was somewhere 
else, and all my promises went for noth- 
ing. 
Our intercourse was nearing its end. 
It was already the 10th of June, and on 
the 12th I was booked for a journey. 
During my last visit but one it gratified 
me not a little to perceive that the wife’s 
example and reproof had begun to tell 
upon her mate. He happened to be in 
the nest as I came up, and sat so uncon- 
cerned while I made ready to feed him 
that I took it for granted I was dealing 
with the female, till at the last moment 
he slipped away. I stepped aside for 
perhaps fifteen feet, and waited briefly, 
both birds in sight. Then the lady took 
her turn at sitting, and I proceeded to 
try again. She behaved like herself, 
made free with a number of insects, and 
then, all at once, for no reason that I 
could guess at, she sprang out of the 
nest, and alighted on the ground within 
two yards of my feet, and almost before 
I could realize what had occurred was 
up in the tree. I had my eyes upon 
her, determined, if possible, to keep the 
pair distinct, and succeeded, as I be- 
lieved, in so doing. Pretty soon the 
male (unless I was badly deceived) went 
to the nest with a large insect in his bill, 
and stood for some time beside it, eating 
and chattering. Finally he dropped 
upon the eggs, and, seeing him grown 
thus unsuspicious, I thought best to test 
him once more. This time he kept Ids 
seat, and with great condescension ate 
two of my plant-lice. But there he 
made an end. Again and again I put 
the third one to his mouth ; but he set- 
tled back obstinately into the nest, and 
would have none of it. For once, as it 
seemed, he could be brave ; but he was 
not to be coddled, or treated like a baby, 
— or a female. There were good rea- 
[ September, 
sons, of course, for his being less hungry 
than his mate, and consequently less ap- 
preciative of such favors as I had to be- 
stow ; but it was very amusing to see 
how tightly he shut his bill, as if his 
mind were made up, and no power on 
earth should shake it. 
If any inquisitive person raises the 
question whether I am absolutely certain 
of this bird’s being the male, I must an- 
swer in the negative. The couple were 
dressed alike, as far as I could make 
out, save that the female was much the 
more brightly washed with yellow on the 
sides of the body ; and my present dis- 
crimination of them was based upon 
close attention to this point, as well as 
upon my careful and apparently success- 
ful effort not to confuse the two, after 
the one which I knew to he the female 
(the one, that is, which had done most 
of the sitting, and had all along been 
so very familiar), had joined the other 
among the branches. I had no down- 
right proof, it must be acknowledged, 
nor could I have had any without kill- 
ing and dissecting the bird ; but my own 
strong conviction was and is that the 
male had grown fearless by observing 
my treatment of his spouse, but from 
some difference of taste, or, more pro- 
bably, for lack of appetite, found him- 
self less taken than she had commonly 
been with my rather meagre bill of fare. 
This persuasion, it cannot be denied, 
was considerably shaken the next morn- 
ing, when I paid my friends a parting 
call. The father bird, forgetful of his 
own good example of the day before, 
and mindless of all the proprieties of 
such a farewell occasion, slipped incon- 
tinently from the eggs just as I was re- 
moving the cover from my pen-box. 
Well, he missed the last opportunity he 
was likely ever to have of breakfasting 
from a human finger. So ignorant are 
birds, no less than men, of the day of 
their visitation ! Before I could get 
away, — while I was yet within two 
yards of the nest, — the other bird has- 
An Old Book. 
355 
1887.] 
tened to occupy the vacant place. She 
knew what was due to so considerate 
and well-tried a friend, if her partner 
did not. The little darling ! As soon 
as she was well in position I stepped to 
her side, opened my treasures, and gave 
her, one by one, twenty-six insects (all 
I had), which she took with avidity, 
reaching forward again and again to an- 
ticipate my motions. Then I stole a 
last look at the four pretty eggs, having 
almost to force her from the nest for 
that purpose, bade her good-by, and 
came away, sorry enough to leave her ; 
forecasting, as I could not help doing, 
the slight probability of finding her 
again on my return, and picturing to 
myself all the winsome, motherly ways 
which she would be certain to develop 
as soon as the little ones were hatched. 
Within an hour I was speeding to- 
ward the Green Mountains. There, in 
those ancient Vermont forests, I saw 
and heard other solitary vireos, but none 
that treated me as my Melrose pair had 
done. Noble and gentle spirits ! though 
I were to live a hundred years, I should 
never see their like again. 
The remainder of the story is, unhap- 
pily, soon told. I was absent a fortnight, 
and on getting back went at once to the 
sacred oak. Alas ! there was nothing 
but a severed branch to show where the 
vireos’ nest had hung. The cut looked 
recent ; I was thankful for that. Per- 
haps the “ collector,” whoever he was, 
had been kind enough to wait till the 
owners of the house were done with it, 
before he carried it away. Let us hope 
so, at all events, for the peace of his 
own soul, as well as for the sake of the 
birds. 
Bradford Torrey. 
AN OLD BOOK. 
IN these days of cheap books and free 
libraries it is difficult to realize the sta- 
tus of hooks seven or eight hundred 
years ago. Copies of wills and deeds 
of gift in the record office, the muni- 
ments of monasteries, and old charters 
of all sorts bear witness that books were 
very real property, were regarded as 
precious bequests, and as such secured 
with all the stringency that law could 
enforce. 
The tide of time, which sweeps away 
so many treasures, has left in the safe 
harbor of the British Museum a single 
book from one of the most ancient libra- 
ries'in London. Four other volumes of 
the library of the Priory of St. Barthol- 
omew, in Smithfield, are on record 
(three of them are mentioned in a deed 
now in St. Paul’s Cathedral), but the 
manuscript before us is the only book 
known to be extant of that twelfth- 
century library. It has just appeared 
in modern type, and its title-page runs 
thus : “The Book of the Foundation of 
St. Bartholomew’s Church in London, 
sometime belonging to the Priory of 
the same, in West Smithfield. Edited 
from the Original Manuscript by Nor- 
man Moore, M. D., F. R. C. P., and As- 
sistant Physician to St. Bartholomew’s 
Hospital. 1886.” The editor tells us 
in his introduction that the manuscript 
contains two versions of the same work, 
the first in Latin, the second in English 
(which he has carefully collated) ; and 
though there is no colophon, giving 
names and dates of author or transcriber, 
he. has found it possible to determine, by 
internal evidence, both the composer and 
the period of the composition, as well as 
the proximate date of the English ver- 
sion, which coincides with that of the 
present copy of the original work. 
tZ7 
