A-Birding on a Bronco

en took a gallop at the foot of the hills to visit a gigantic old tree, the king of the valley. One

the morning that, when I chirrupped to him, shaking the reins on his neck, he quickly broke into a lope and his ringing hoofs beat time to my song as we sped down the valley, past vineyards and orchards and yellow fields of ripening grain. The free swift motion was a delight in itself, and after days and weeks given to the details of nest-making, shut away from

rmly planted, had battled for its ground; and now, as a conqueror, stood with arms uplifted to meet the ocean gales. I had never before apprecia

ranches stretched out horizontally so far that, between the body of the tree and the tips that hung to the earth, there was a wide corridor where one could promenade on horseback. In fact, the tree spanned, from the tip of one branch to the tip of the

IG SY

on the underside of the big limbs, about half way up the tree, where the bark was rough. They built so close together that the nests made a solid mass of mud. For several seasons, it was said, "they had bad luck." They began

big bee-birds flew down from their nest in the treetop and saved themselves trouble by lunching at this convenient ground floor restaurant. As I sat on Billy, facing the nest, one of the pair swept down over the mouth of the hole, caught a bee and

gs and, giving a loud cry,-as a child shouts when pushing off his sled at the top of a steep hill,-he would sail obliquely down from the treetop to the foot of the hillside beyond. When looking for his material he would hover over the field like a ph?be. Then, on returnin

nd in against meeting bigger boys than he! When coming with material, one of the bee-birds got caught in a heavy rope of cobweb that dangled from the nest, and had to flutter hard to extricate itself. About their nests these birds seemed as home-loving as any others. Their domesticity quite surprised me; they had always seemed such harsh, scolding, aggressive birds! When on

ate sat facing him, lengthwise of the limb. He calmly fluffed out his feathers and preened himself, while his meek spouse watched him. She fluttered her wings, teasing him to feed her, but he kept on dressing out his plumes. Then she edged a little closer, and almost

er should have known it had I not seen them go to it to feed their young

he fourteenth story might have afforded a home for the pretty dear without any one's being the wiser, unless it were the bee-bird in the attic. A family of bush-tits flew about in the sycamore top, looking like pin-heads in a grove of trees. A black ph?be sometimes lit on the fence posts under the branches-i

the tree was fairly alive with blackbirds and doves-what a deafening medley the blackbirds made! In the fields near the sycamore flocks of redwings went swinging over the tall gleaming musta

the swamp grass to drink near the sycamore, and the blackbirds wound in and out among them. I had been in a dry land so long it was hard to believe there was actual water in the marsh till I saw it drip from their chins and heard the sucking sound as they laboriously dragged their feet out of the

e so that he started to run up the hill across the road from the sycamore. Romulus followed hard at his heels till they got well up the hillside, when the coyote felt that he was on his own ground and turned on the dog, who fled back to his master with his tail between his legs. The lad, clapping his hands, set the dog

them up a h

d them do

But one day, seeing a pair of rare blue grosbeaks fly down into the tangle, I turned Billy right in after them, though holding his head well up in consideration of the snakes. The birds vanished, so we stood still to wait. Suddenly I heard a slight sound as of something slipping through the weeds at Billy's feet, and looking down saw a snake marked like a rattler; and as it slid by Billy's hoof I noticed with horror that the

d, and as he drove he sang in a deep rich voice one of the beautiful melodies of his fatherland. Screened by the branches, I listened quite unmindful of my work till my

at he would be on his guard. Seeing my glasses and note-book, he asked if I were studying birds. When told that I was, from his seat on the mowing-machine he took off his hat and bowed with the air of a lord, saying in broke

ades gleamed in the evening light, and the sun warmed the sides of the line of buff Guernseys wading in procession through the high swamp grass to their out-door milking stand. Beyond, a load of hay was crossing the meadows with sun on the reins and the pitchforks the men carried over their shoulders; and beyond, at the head of the valley, t