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It was calm; the sun was bright; the stars glittered; and all the time he longed to stretch himself, to close his eyes, to smite the air with his wings, and to croak with an unreasoning joy. The birdlings flew away in the autumn. The old birds and the young bade adieu for ever with indifference. Rain came, mists swept by, the sky hung lowering over the earth. The nights were dreary, damp and dark.
A blue-jay is just approaching the wood pewee's nest in the burr oak, but the doughty husband does battle with the fierceness of a kingbird and chases him away. Three tiny birdlings, covered with hairs soft and white as the down of a thistle, are in the nest, which is saddled snugly to the fork of a horizontal tree. In another nest, near by, the three eggs have only just been laid.
Mary had followed the fugitive with sparkling eyes, and she now began peering among the leaves, expecting to find a nest full of darling little birdlings chirping for food. For aught she knew, poor alley-bred child, the birds built nests and filled them with eggs all the year round.
They are soft and shimmery in their tints, these shingles, as a dove's breast; some are dark, some light, but all are feathery in effect; and altogether The Moorings, with its gables, and porches, and bow windows, and balconies and wide verandahs, gives the effect of a huge, ruffly and motherly grey bird with her wings spread wide to shelter her birdlings.
We looked at the birdlings; we walked on till we came to the place where we turned from the path to see the warbler's little domicile. My friend passed along. I lingered a moment, for it was a lovely spot, attractive to birds as to bird-lovers, and high up in the air on the upturned roots of a fallen tree "an elder or two Foamed over with blossoms white as spray."
The doctor, who knew each one of them, being, as it happened, family physician to their respective households, was just about taking leave and was standing in the hall talking to Mrs. Rush. "Hallo!" he said, his kindly face beaming upon the smiling flock who trooped in when Starr opened the door for them. "Hallo! what a bevy of birdlings! But how comes it that you are not at Miss Ashton's?
The children are disciplined by freedom, as well as healthful restraint. In this sand-garden they are free. With their little wooden shovels and spoons, and with their hands, they revel in the sand, as all healthy children do. They were no more abashed by our presence than tamed and petted birdlings would be to feed from the hand of those they had learned to love and trust.
No greedy birdlings opened their mouths or rather their heads at the approach of a great white-winged thing, with outstretched neck and legs, bearing a dangling something for their breakfast. The long-bills were far away, picking up food on African shores, and before they would return in the spring, Ben's visit to the land of dikes would be over.
They have raised several broods of birdlings, much to their own enjoyment, and of Mrs. Dudley's bird-loving family. Our robin has been a keeper-at-home ever since those four bluish-green eggs demanded her attention.
Nestlings cradled near the ground seem to be spared the long period in the nest endured by birdlings who must be able to fly before they can safely go. Young veeries and bobolinks, song sparrows and warblers, who build low, apparently take leave of the nursery as soon they can stand up.
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