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No characteristic of the young kingbirds was more winning than their confiding and unsuspicious reception of strangers, for so soon as they began to frequent other trees than the one the paternal vigilance had made comparatively sacred to them, they were the subjects of attention. The English sparrow was first, as usual, to inquire into their right to be out of their own tree.
So he ran round to the shop, and, having procured an ax, he went up to the tree, and dealt it a heavy blow. The next moment the woodpecker flew out, and the kingbirds were after him in an instant They followed him until he reached the woods, and then returned to the cottage. A 'Coon-Hunt.
The air is sweet with their calls at this moment, and once in a while some father of the flock lets his happiness run over in song. One cannot go far now without finding the road full of chipping sparrows, springing up in their pretty, characteristic way, and letting the breeze catch them. The fences and wayside apple-trees are lively with kingbirds and phoebes.
Almost all the others brown thrushes, bluebirds, song sparrows, kingbirds, hen-hawks, nighthawks, whip-poor-wills, woodpeckers, etc. simply tried to avoid being seen, to draw or drive us away, or paid no attention to us. We used to wonder how the woodpeckers could bore holes so perfectly round, true mathematical circles. We ourselves could not have done it even with gouges and chisels.
What about the sandhill crane? Could he whip that long-legged, long-billed fellow? "A crane never goes near kingbirds' nests or notices so small a bird," he said, "and therefore there could be no fighting between them." So we hastily concluded that our hero could whip every bird in the country except perhaps the sandhill crane. We never tired listening to the wonderful whip-poor-will.
During the space that I watched him so closely he had many little adventures and escapes. He was once severely handled by a sparrowhawk, and often he was chased and worried by kingbirds. Not that these did him much harm, but they were such noisy pests that he avoided their company as quickly as possible, just as a grown man avoids a conflict with a noisy and impudent small boy.
I sat watching the world go past through a sort of golden haze the sun made. When a pair of kingbirds and three crows chased one of my hawks pell-mell across the sky, I looked on and didn't give a cent what happened. When a big blacksnake darted its head through sweet grass and cattails, and caught a frog that had climbed on a mossy stone in the shade to dine on flies, I let it go.
The kingbirds did not follow beyond their own borders, and the robin soon returned to the nearest tree, where she kept up the taunting "he! he! he!" a long time, seemingly with deliberate intention to insult or enrage her pursuers, but without success; for unless she came to their tree, the kingbirds paid her not the slightest attention.
"Riot of roses and babel of birds, All the world in a whirl of delight," when the three baby kingbirds opened their eyes to the June sunlight. Three weeks I had watched, if I had not assisted at, the rocking of their cradle, followed day by day the patient brooding, and carefully noted the manners and customs of the owners thereof. At last my long vigil was rewarded.
Ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka! Larkin saw tracers zipping past the nose of the plane. He side-slipped, out of the line of fire, and glanced back. Two more kingbirds coming to the relief of the fleeing eagle. Ta-ka-ta-ka the Spandaus again began their monotonous, metallic stutter. Into the cockpit of Larkin's plane streamed a half dozen deadly pellets.
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