Walking homeward, I bethought myself how foolish I had been not to offer my little protégée something to eat. Accordingly, in the morning, before starting out, I filled a small box with leaves from the garden rose-bush, which, as usual, had plenty of plant-lice upon it. Armed in this manner, as perhaps no ornithologist ever went armed before,—I approached the nest, and to my delight saw it still unharmed (I never came in sight of it without dreading to find it pillaged); but just as I was putting my hand into my pocket for the box, off started the bird. Here was a disappointment indeed; but in the next breath I assured myself that the recreant must be the male, who for once had been spelling his companion. So I fell back a little, and in a minute or less one of the pair went on to brood. This was the mother, without question, and I again drew near. True enough, she welcomed me with all her customary politeness. No matter what her husband might say, she knew better than to distrust an inoffensive, kind-hearted gentleman like myself. Had I not proved myself such time and again? So I imagined her to be
reasoning. At all events, she sat quiet and unconcerned; apparently more unconcerned than her visitor, for, to tell the truth, I was so anxious for the success of this crowning experiment that I actually found myself trembling. However, I opened my store of dainties, wet the tip of my little finger, took up an insect, and held it to her mandibles. For a moment she seemed not to know what it was, but soon she picked it off and swallowed it. The second one she seized promptly, and the third she reached out to anticipate, exactly as a tame canary might have done. Before I could pass her the fourth she stepped out of the nest, and took a position upon the branch beside it; but she accepted the morsel, none the less. And an extremely pretty sight it was,—a wild wood bird perched upon a twig and feeding from a man's finger!
She would not stay for more, but flew to another bough; whereupon I resumed my ramble, and, as usual, she covered the eggs again before I could get out of sight. When I returned, in half an hour or thereabouts, I proffered her a mosquito, which I had saved for that purpose. She took it, but presently
let it drop. It was not to her taste, probably, for shortly afterward she caught one herself, as it came fluttering near, and discarded that also; but she ate the remainder of my rose-bush parasites, though I was compelled to coax her a little. Seemingly, she felt that our proceedings were more or less irregular, if not positively out of character. Not that she betrayed any symptoms of nervousness or apprehension, but she repeatedly turned away her head, as if determined to refuse all further overtures. In the end, nevertheless, as I have said, she ate the very last insect I had to give her.
During the meal she did something which as a display of nonchalance was really amazing. The eggs got misplaced, in the course of her twisting about, and after vainly endeavoring to rearrange them with her feet, as I had seen her do on several occasions, she ducked her head into the nest, clean out of sight under her feathers, and set matters to rights with her beak. I was as near to her as I could well be, without having her actually in my hand, yet she deliberately put herself entirely off guard, apparently without the slightest misgiving!
Fresh from this adventure, and all aglow with pleasurable excitement, I met a friend in the city, a naturalist of repute, and one of the founders of the American Ornithologists' Union. Of course I regaled him with an account of my wonderful vireo (he was the man to whom I had half promised the nest); and on his expressing a wish to see her, I invited him out for the purpose that very afternoon. I smile to remember how full of fears I was, as he promptly accepted the invitation. The bird, I declared to myself, would be like the ordinary baby, who, as everybody knows, is never so stupid as when its fond mother would make a show of it before company. Yesterday it was so bright and cunning! Never was baby like it. Yesterday it did such and such unheard-of things; but to-day, alas, it will do nothing at all. However, I put on a bold face, filled my pen-box with rose-leaves, exchanged my light-colored hat for the black one in which my pet had hitherto seen me, furnished my friend with a field-glass, and started with him for the wood. The nest was occupied (I believe I never found it otherwise), and, stationing my associate in
a favorable position, I marched up to it, when, lo, the bird at once took wing. This was nothing to be disconcerted about, the very promptness of the action making it certain that the sitter must have been the male. The pair were both in sight, and the female would doubtless soon fill the place which her less courageous lord had deserted. So it turned out, and within a minute everything was in readiness for a second essay. This proved successful. The first insect was instantly laid hold of, whereupon I heard a suppressed exclamation from behind the field-glass. When I rejoined my friend, having exhausted my supplies, nothing would do but he must try something of the kind himself. Accordingly, seizing my hat, which dropped down well over his ears, he made up to the tree. The bird pecked his finger familiarly, and before long he came rushing back to the path, exclaiming that he must find something with which to feed her. After overturning two or three stones he uncovered an ant's nest, and moistening his forefinger, thrust it into a mass of eggs. With these he hastened to the vireo. She helped herself to them
eagerly, and I could hear him counting, "One, two, three, four," and so on, as she ate mouthful after mouthful.
Now, then, he wished to examine the contents of the nest, especially as it was the first of its kind that he had ever seen out-of-doors. But the owner was set upon not giving him the opportunity. He stroked her head, brushed her wings, and, as my note-book puts it, "poked her generally;" and still she kept her place. Finally, as he stood on one side of her and I on the other, we pushed the branch down, down, till she was fairly under our noses. Then she stepped off; but even now, it was only to alight on the very next twig, and face us calmly! and we had barely started away before we saw her again on duty. Brave bird! My friend was exceedingly pleased, and I not less so; though the fact of her making no difference between us was something of a shock to my self-conceit, endeavor as I might to believe that she had welcomed him, if not in my stead, yet at least as my friend. What an odd pair we must have looked in her eyes! Possibly she had heard of the new movement for the
protection of American song-birds, and took us for representatives of the Audubon Society.