“ Few mortals are proof against the charm—when once the first half-dozen are conquered. The first three come easy. Most of us know the Crow—and the Robin—and the Bluebird—and—and—the Sparrow—until we discover that there are more than a dozen varieties of Sparrow, and perceive that this common brown bird, hopping so cheerily in and out of the bushes, may be a Song Sparrow or a Chipping Sparrow or a White-Throated or White-Crowned or any one of the dozen—or even the Cocky English Sparrow, despised by ornithologist and tyro alike. ”

“ Pierre, the first born, was now old enough to fly, but timidly stayed in the nest. Mrs. Wren noted with great anxiety that no sooner did she leave the tin-pot but up popped six little heads, and out upon a curious world gazed twelve little bead-like eyes.
"Do be good children while I am gone," she would entreat, when ready for market, "do keep your heads inside of the house. Pierre, put your head down in the nest instantly, do you hear me!" and little Mrs. Wren would stand on the edge of the tin-pot and fussily cry krup, up, up, which in Wren language means, you naughty, naughty, birds. ”

“ But away he launches, and the meadow is all bespattered with melody. Its notes fall with the apple blossoms in the orchard. The very divinest part of his strain drops from his overflowing breast singultim, in globes of melody. It is the foretaste of such strains as never fell on mortal ears, to hear which we should rush to our doors and contribute all that we possess and are. Or it seemed as if in that vase full of melody some notes sphered themselves, and from time to time bubbled up to the surface, and were with difficulty repressed. ”

“ He crawls on his hands and knees through underbrush, under barbed fences and over stone walls. He sits by the hour waiting for a Vireo to come down from the topmost branch within range of his glass. He forgets luncheon and engagements. And what does he bring home? Certainly not the river and sky, and seldom even a feather.
Books on birds, continues the Boston Evening Transcript, like good wine, need no bush at this season of the year; the Golden-winged Woodpecker drums announcement on every limb; the Redwing Blackbird gurgles and chuckles and calls across the swamp ”

“ This solitary and wary bird is usually seen standing in shallow water, often in mid-stream, but it requires great caution and skill on the part of the person who would observe its movements to get a view of him, as he usually first sees the intruder, and startles him by his harsh squawking cries as he flies from his feeding place. ”

“ The crops of sweet singing Blackbirds are supposed to hold the souls of those in purgatory until the judgment day; and whenever the Blackbird's notes are particularly shrill, these parched and burning souls are imploring for rain, which never fails of coming in response to the bird cries for their relief. ”

“ I love the birds and beasts because they are mythologically in earnest. I see the Sparrow chirps, and flits, and sings adequately to the great design of the universe, that man does not communicate with it, understand its language, because he is not alone with nature. I reproach myself because I have regarded with indifference the passage of the birds. ”

“ You have heard so much about the mother-bird sitting on the nest, that I am sure you will be interested in seeing a father who broods the eggs and hatches out the little ones. I have five wives. They all lay their eggs in one and the same nest, which is a hollow pit scraped out by their feet, the earth heaped up around to form a sort of wall. They lay the eggs, I have said, sometimes thirty in a nest, and I—well, I do the rest.
We are dangerous fellows if disturbed when brooding; have been known to attack a man on horseback, trying to kick and leap on him. ”

“ Like all the members of the family, it is a swift-footed and wary bird, but possesses so little presence of mind that it becomes confused when threatened with danger, runs aimlessly first in one direction and then in another, thus giving time for the hunter to come up and shoot it, or bring it to the ground with his bolas—a terrible weapon, consisting of a cord with a heavy ball at each end, which is flung at the bird, and winds around its neck and legs so as to entangle it. ”

“ In this attitude its sober plumage and total stillness render it very inconspicuous, and as it prefers to stand under the shadow of a tree, bush, or bank, it cannot be seen except by a practiced eye, in spite of its large size.
The flight of the Heron is grand and stately. The head, body, and legs are held in a line, stiff and immovable, and the gently waving wings carry the bird through the air with a rapidity that seems the effect of magic.
THE GREAT BLUE HERON.
I belong to a family that is fast disappearing, simply because my plumes are pretty. ”

“ Every movement is the personification of nervous activity, as if the time for their journey was short; and, indeed, such appears to be the case, for two or three days at most suffice some species in a single locality; a day spent in gleaning through the woods and orchards of one neighborhood, with occasional brief siestas among the leafy bowers, then the following night in continuous flight toward its northern destination, is probably the history of every individual of the moving throng. ”

“ Thus the quaint and weird things which might seem unaccountable and often repulsive to us, have become, in lieu of book lore, a folk and fireside lore, out of which endless entertainment is secured; and underneath much of this there is a deep and earnest tenderness, such as all hearts know, for many things without apparent reason, that grow into life and ancestry, oft repeated homeside tale, beloved custom and that mysterious hallowing which comes upon changeless places and objects to men. ”

“ When the nest of the Thrush or Mavis is built unusually high in the thorn-bush, this betokens a great calamity to a neighborhood, for some distressing disturbance is under way among the fairies, who in happy or friendly mood always see to it that these nests are built near their haunts in the grasses, that they may more readily enjoy the music of the thrush's songs. ”

“ It is a wild, picturesque region of swamps, jungles, and savannahs, with here and there a solitary hacienda or farm-house, where three hundred or four hundred persons are at work in the fertile soil. Here, three hundred miles south of Matamoras, the nearest American settlement, is the spot where your pet Parrot, says an exchange, probably first opened its eyes to the light of day stealing through the branches of the ebony and coma trees, amid surroundings that might to an imaginary Polly suggest the first dawn of creation. ”

“ Whenever, after singing his fine deep song, he hesitates for a time, and then is heard to utter a loud, shrill and prolonged whistle, that night every human that has heard it will remain behind barred doors ”

“ In order to show off our best points before the lady-birds, off we all go to some secluded spot, form a circle or ring, in which each male bird in turn performs his showing off act. We skip, flap our wings, curve our necks, and prance around, the lady-birds expressing their approval by deep croaks, something like a bull-frog's, while the envious cocks keep up a running fire of remarks in the rasping tones of a horse-fiddle. ”

“ RRONEOUSLY called Sandhill Crane or Blue Crane, by which names it is better known than by its proper name, this bird is well known as one of the most characteristic of North America, breeding, as it does, singly and in colonies from the Arctic regions southward to the West Indies and South America. In the warmer parts of the country it breeds in vast heronries in company with other species of Herons, of which there are eleven or twelve, to which places they resort year after year. It is a common bird, except in localities far removed from streams or ponds which furnish its food supply. ”

“ We "go fishing" every day; but not for sport as you boys do. No, indeed, we must get a catch or go hungry. Our long bills are better than a hook and line, and our long legs enable us to wade in the water without getting our clothes—feathers, I mean,—wet. Fish, frogs, and crawfish make up our diet, and as we have very healthy appetites it takes a great many of them to make a meal.
Like some other birds I have more than one name. ”

“ The Heron's food consists of fishes, frogs, crawfish, and the like, large quantities of which must be sacrificed to appease its voracious appetite, as many as ten good-sized fishes having been disgorged at one time by a Heron that was in haste to get away, a happy provision of nature which often enables this family of birds to escape from the squirrel hunters and irresponsible gun-carriers.
The eggs of this species are plain greenish-blue and three or four in number. The young are without plumes, which develop gradually with maturity. ”

“ The Stilt is an inhabitant of temperate North America, from New Brunswick, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon southward; south in winter to Peru, Brazil, and West Indies. It is rare in the middle and western provinces, except Florida, also along the Pacific coast; breeding in suitable localities and in abundance in western Texas, southern Colorado, Utah, eastern Colorado, and southern Oregon. Extensive as is the range of the Stilt, we wonder how many of our readers have ever had the pleasure of seeing even a picture of one. ”

“ Now it happened, as is common, that the miller's wife had set a number of Duck eggs under a hen, which in due time were incubated; and of course the ducklings, as soon as they came forth, ran with natural instinct to the water, and the hen was in a sad pucker—her maternity urging her to follow the brood, and her instinct disposing her to keep on dry land. ”

“ Nearly every large house in Chicago, dealing wholly or in part in millinery goods, was visited by a member of the Audubon Society, says the Tribune. One man who sells nothing but millinery declared that the bird protective association was nothing but a fad, and that it would soon be dead. ”

“ In awakening the musical sensibility of the child, we are rescuing it from probable loss of appreciation for the noble, and true, and fine. This loss is shown by such as are pleased with the trash of the "popular" tunes of a day—tunes which express nothing worthy of the great gift of expression. ”

“ If an Osprey be shot along any coast, all the herring and mackerel will immediately disappear. If the Hen-harrier, which only hunts by twilight, is missed from its accustomed raptorial haunt, some evil spirit is said to be hovering about the locality. When Water-ousels appear in the spring time in unusual numbers in any unfrequented locality, it is a sign of abundance of fresh-water fish, but also a token of the approach of malignant disease. On the west coast in the early spring the poor fisherman watches early and late for the Gannet. ”

“ It is easily imitated, and often, thinking a companion calls us, we swim in the direction of the sound, when "bang" goes a gun and over flops one or more Pin-tails.
We have other enemies beside man, and have to keep a sharp lookout all the time. Way up north one day, a Fox stood on the borders of a lake and watched a flock of Ducks feeding among the rushes. ”

“ The Parrot builds no nest. The female selects a deep hollow in the highest tree trunk and there lays two eggs. This occurs about the first of May. The young are hatched about the 15th of June, ten days elapse before they can open their eyes, and several weeks must be allowed for the young birds to outgrow their squab state and gain sufficient strength to be removed from the care of their parents. The Parrot is a wily and wise bird. ”

“ Then we return to our feeding grounds, and nose around in the water for our supper.
It does sound odd to hear a bird of my size talk about flying, doesn't it? But in truth my body is very light, weighing between four and five pounds. I am long from bill to tail, and my wings are very long and curving.
My legs? Oh that is a matter I dislike to talk about. They certainly speak for themselves.
A FOSTER BROTHER'S KINDNESS.
YOUNG Oriole was rescued from the water where it had evidently just fallen from the nest. ”

“ It is a matter of congratulation, then, to the members of the Audubon Society to know that their efforts in Chicago have not been wholly fruitless, inasmuch as the majority of dealers in women's headgear are willing to confess that they have felt the effect of the bird protective crusade. ”

“ The milliners all agree that the Snowy Egret is doomed to extermination within a short time, its plumes, so fairy-like in texture, rendering its use for trimming as desirable in summer as in winter.
As to the birds of prey, people interested in our feathered friends are as desirous of saving them from destruction as they are to shield the song birds. There are only a few of the Hawks and Owls which are injurious, most of them in fact being beneficial. ”

“ The ladies must have them to trim their hats and bonnets, so the plume hunters visit our "rookeries" when our mates are on their nest, and kill hundreds and hundreds of us.
Our nests are great flat, bulky affairs, made of sticks and lined with grasses. We build them in high trees along the rivers, or way back in the swamps, a dozen or more in one tree. ”

“ The forests in this region abound in all kinds of birds in rich plumage. Parrakeets are so abundant that what with the screeching and cawing of the Parrots it is sometimes impossible to hear one's own voice. Hunters do not trouble themselves to secure them, however, as they are not worth carrying to market. There is apparently a profit only in the Double Yellow-head, for which the hunters get as much as $20.00. ”