consequently less appreciative of such favors as I had to bestow; but it was very amusing to see how tightly he shut his bill, as if his mind were made up, and no power on earth should shake it.
If any inquisitive person raises the question whether I am absolutely certain of this bird's being the male, I must answer in the negative. The couple were dressed alike, as far as I could make out, save that the female was much the more brightly washed with yellow on the sides of the body; and my present discrimination of them was based upon close attention to this point, as well as upon my careful and apparently successful effort not to confuse the two, after the one which I knew to be the female (the one, that is, which had done most of the sitting, and had all along been so very familiar) had joined the other among the branches. I had no downright proof, it must be acknowledged, nor could I have had any without killing and dissecting the bird; but my own strong conviction was and is that the male had grown fearless by observing my treatment of his spouse, but from some difference of taste,
or, more probably, for lack of appetite, found himself less taken than she had commonly been with my rather meagre bill of fare.
This persuasion, it cannot be denied, was considerably shaken the next morning, when I paid my friends a parting call. The father bird, forgetful of his own good example of the day before, and mindless of all the proprieties of such a farewell occasion, slipped incontinently from the eggs just as I was removing the cover from my pen-box. Well, he missed the last opportunity he was likely ever to have of breakfasting from a human finger. So ignorant are birds, no less than men, of the day of their visitation! Before I could get away,—while I was yet within two yards of the nest,—the other bird hastened to occupy the vacant place. She knew what was due to so considerate and well-tried a friend, if her partner did not. The little darling! As soon as she was well in position I stepped to her side, opened my treasures, and gave her, one by one, twenty-six insects (all I had), which she took with avidity, reaching forward again and again to anticipate
my motions. Then I stole a last look at the four pretty eggs, having almost to force her from the nest for that purpose, bade her good-by, and came away, sorry enough to leave her; forecasting, as I could not help doing, the slight probability of finding her again on my return, and picturing to myself all the sweet, motherly ways she would be certain to develop as soon as the little ones were hatched.
Within an hour I was speeding toward the Green Mountains. There, in those ancient Vermont forests, I saw and heard other solitary vireos, but none that treated me as my Melrose pair had done. Noble and gentle spirits! though I were to live a hundred years, I should never see their like again.
The remainder of the story is, unhappily, soon told. I was absent a fortnight, and on getting back went at once to the sacred oak. Alas! there was nothing but a severed branch to show where the vireos' nest had hung. The cut looked recent; I was thankful for that. Perhaps the "collector," whoever he was, had been kind enough to wait till the owners of the house were done
with it, before he carried it away. Let us hope so, at all events, for the peace of his own soul, as well as for the sake of the birds.