NATURE STUDY. 
I84 
True Story of Peggotty Zamelodia Ludoviciana 
BY MARY HAZRN ARNOLD. 
I wish you could all know our Peggy. You’d be sure 
to love her; she is such a compound of mischief, affection 
and intelligence. 
Shut your eyes and see if you can guess what Peggy is. 
A little gray kitten ? No. A pony ? Oh ! no ! A white 
rabbit, perhaps? Wrong again ! She is a dark brown 
and buff bird—two inches shorter than a robin—with wings 
lined with yellow. She is not a beauty, but knows a great 
deal and is very loving. 
Her real name is Peggy, but we call her Peggotty Za¬ 
melodia hudoviciana for short. Her present home is in a 
cage in a sunny window of our dining room. She has been 
with us for four months, and we have spent many pleasant 
hours together and have become good friends. She rides 
about the house on my shoulder, or head, and follows me 
from one room to another, and when I sit down will perch 
on my arm, pr close by, or fly into my lap. She sometimes 
tries to help me sew, seizing the needle with her bill as I 
take a stitch, and unless I rescue it quickly, flies off with 
it to the top of a door, or she will balance herself on my 
embroidery hoop and try to bite off my thread. 
Do you remember when you were out at grandpa’s house 
last summer, and went through those beautiful woods after 
blackberries, you came upon a rippling, dashing brook; 
which ran over the stones and peb bles and finally came out 
into the green meadow and meandered into the Connecti¬ 
cut river ? If you had followed this brook to its source— 
about two miles from grandpa’s house—3^ou would have 
found a clear spring bubbling from beneath a huge granite 
rock, with green mosses and ferns about it, and the sun¬ 
light glinting down through the leaves of chestnuts, oaks 
and maples, with here and there a tall, dark pine. You 
