enough to see the young Rufous launch himself into the. 
big sky world. They told that he stood on the edge of his 
safe refuge with his wings moving so rapidly that they, with 
watching eyes, could see but a hazy gleam and then, as his. 
mother streaked away, he followed her in strong undulating 
flight into the sunshine and magic of a May day. 7 
In all these weeks of watching, not once had the brilliant 
red-brown father bird been seen. The children thought 
him a lazy husband until they read that he, usually, after. 
courtship goes to other places to spend his honeymoon alone, 
and that his termagent of a bride will drive him away if 
he attempts to remain near her. Does this mean that his 
_ gay colors have proved in past ages a danger to her and their 
young if he stayed about the nest, and that only the wander- 
ing bridegrooms have left descendants to follow in their 
-wingsteps? You may answer this question for yourself, for 
an author prefers not to decide in such a matter. | 
The roving husband makes up for his lack of helpfulness 
in nesting time by his warmth of affection in the courting 
season. Then he shows that he knows many of the arts of 
an eager lover. A piercing, squeaking sound once caused 
a student to see an aerial creature that swung back and forth 
in front of a snowberry shrub in the sunshine of an April 
day on an island in Puget Sound. No pendulum ever moved 
more regularly nor with such lightning speed as did this 
tiny Rufous. His dizzy dance from side to side suggested 
insanity, but that is usually a human affliction, and the 
observer looked about for the cause of all this frenzy and 
- found his small mate cowering upon a twig, following with 
turning green body the motions of her brilliant adorer. He 
tried all the dips and slides and curves of a skilled aeronant 
in order that he might better aepiAy his irridescent colors 
and impress his lady love. 
His eagerness appeared to have blinded him, for, in one 
of his swings, he knocked part of his audience from perch 
- into the tangle of the thicket. At an exclamation, away 
173 
