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BIRDS OF OUR GARDENS. 
By ELIZABETH GRIN NELL. 
E had no sooner trudged back through the dust 
of the plowed orchard, after photographing 
the blackbird child, than sounds of great dis¬ 
tress met us. There reall3 r was no distress at 
all, but the parent yellow warblers had taken 
to worrying. They were sure trouble was 
coming. The woful sounds came from a pep¬ 
per-tree in the garden, and looking around we discovered condi¬ 
tions that made us exclaim, “O dear, we shall never get those 
little }^ellow birds to photograph.” We had been patiently wait¬ 
ing for them to ripen, exactly as we wait for peaches and pome¬ 
granates. But we had not intended to wait long enough for 
them to fall. 
Looking up we saw the four, two in the tree top, and two in 
the brim of the nest, lifting their half-developed wings and 
echoing the danger cry of their parents in a bab3 r tone. 
It was late, but we must have the picture ! Else when they 
grew up, how would anybody know how such people looked when 
they were children ? It might be discovered that they belonged 
to ro3 7 alty, or they might become politicians, and the magazines 
might want their photographs in successive stages. Besides, 
our own family album would be incomplete. We would not like 
to place it in the lap of visitors to look over, were the 3 r ellow 
warbler babies left out. So up the tree I began to climb. 
Now would any person of the gentle sex be ready for emer¬ 
gencies in the vocation of nature stud3 r , she must, like Little 
Nanc3 r Etticoat, wear a short petticoat, as a matter of habit 
when she doesn’t happen to be going to church. 
As for climbing trees in the pursuit of knowledge or fun, many 
a woman works harder and looks droller attempting the ascent 
to some other eminence. I had not reached the junction of the 
second series of limbs when there came a flutter and a skurry on 
the descending scale and all four of the birdlings disappeared. 
Had the parent birds maintained silence at this point, their 
young ones would have remained lost to us. But their solicitude 
overcame their caution. They at once became more nervous— 
in short, hysterical. They hesitated between placing them¬ 
selves in the hands of their friends or fighting us with all the 
courage of their convictions. 
Had we been a railway franchise, they could not have shown 
more vigorous protest. In the rush and clamor the children flew 
and fluttered in all directions, until a certain note of “ Hush ! ” 
from the parents, tardily given, when all was quiet and we gave 
CHILD 
