Part 1

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IN NESTING TIME

OLIVE THORNE MILLER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1893

Copyright, 1888, BY H. M. MILLER.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

"Very few people have the least idea what wild creatures are like. Their notion generally is to shoot them, and then pick them up for examination; which is the same thing as if some being of superior race, seeing children at play, were to shoot a few at long range, and then turn them over and describe them and consider himself learned in their structure, habits, and appearance."--JEAN INGELOW.

INTRODUCTORY.

The sketches of bird manners and customs in this little collection are the record of careful observation, and scrupulously true in every particular. The facts may not all be new to Science, but since they are genuine studies from life, and each bird whose acquaintance I make is as truly a discovery to me as if he were totally unknown to the world, I venture to hope that lovers of birds may find in these pages real, live, individuals in feathers, honestly "brothers of ours."

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. BABY BIRDS 1

Purple Crow Blackbird. Quiscalus quiscula. Redwing Blackbird. Ageloeus phoeniceus. Yellow-Throated Warbler. Dendroica dominica. Baltimore Oriole. Icterus galbula. White-Bellied Nuthatch. Sitta carolinensis. American Robin. Merula migratoria. Phoebe. Sayornis phoebe.

II. BIRD-STUDY IN A SOUTHERN STATE 19

Great White Heron. Ardea occidentalis. Bald Eagle. Haliæetus leucocephalus. Wilson's Tern. Sterna hirundo. Ring Plover. Ægialitis hiaticula.

III. THE MOCKING-BIRD'S NEST 33

Mocking-Bird. Mimus polyglottos.

IV. A TRICKSY SPIRIT 65

Mocking-Bird. Mimus polyglottos.

V. THE "WISE BLUEBIRD" 95

Bluebird. Sialia sialis.

VI. THE GOLDEN-WING 113

Golden-Wing Woodpecker. Colaptes auratus.

VII. A STORMY WOOING 129

Orchard Oriole. Icterus spurius.

VIII. FLUTTERBUDGET 145