THE BIRDS THAT IVE SEE. 
7G3 
Chewink and his Song. 
his seigniory, and hark again to his 
loud rattle as he -wings his arrowy way 
back to the great river where he is at 
home, back toward the long burrow in 
the steej) clay bank where dwells his 
brood, and away out of sight in the 
distance. 
Leaving the thickets and crossing 
the “ no man’s land ” of rank burdocks 
and thistles, the goldfinch or wild ca¬ 
nary is seen, jDerched on a thistle-top, 
or bounding off through the air, utter¬ 
ing a twitter at each undulation of his 
flight. He will be known by his small 
size and rich yellow plumage with black 
cro-wn, wings, and tail. “ Thistle bird ” 
[p. 764] is another name that he bears, 
on account of his fondness for thistle- 
seeds as food, and thistle-down for the 
lining of his nest; indeed, it is said that 
the reason he nests quite late in the 
summer, instead of in the sj^ring, is that 
the thistle-tops may have time to ripen 
and pro-vide him -with the domi that he 
prefers for the comjfletion of his dainty 
little home. 
We have just seen the burdock and the 
thistle growing together as they often 
do. Their flowers are much alike, for 
clear that the poor bird 
had been seeking for 
food when he made the 
mistake that allowed a 
myriad l)ur-hooks to en¬ 
tangle themselves in his 
feathers and hold him, 
till he died of hunger and 
weakness. 
On folio-wing the path¬ 
way from the stream, and 
over the bare jDasture- 
land, or the roadway over the hills, one 
is sure to see, ere long, a little streaky 
bro-wn sparrow that mns, mouse-like, 
along the path, kee23ing ahead of the 
traveller by making short flights of but 
a few yards wdienever it finds itself too 
closely ap 2 )roached. 
Each time it flits, it ex 2 )oses the jDure 
white of the outer tail - feathers, and 
this mark, with the foregoing descrip- 
Kingfisher. 
tion, is enough to identify, as the ves- 
j)er s^Darrow, the little bird that imagines 
he is leading the stranger over the hill. 
they are nearly akin, and in this resem¬ 
blance may he the exj 3 lanation of a sad 
tragedy that has several times ha23- 
23ened. In each case the circumstan¬ 
tial evidence was the same. Tlie weath¬ 
er-beaten remains of a goldfinch were 
found tightly held in 
the clutches of a bur- 
cluster, and it was 
that this is the familiar kingfisher, the 
ancient 25ro2)i‘ietor of the fry-swarming 
rivers, and the 2 )ii’ate of the modern 
fish - 23onds. See the silver wam23um 
necklace that Manabozho conferred on 
him, at the beginning, as the token of 
