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"This Warbler does not sing much of a song, even in nesting-time; but you will know him on the wing by the bright yellow spot on the rump, and if he perches near by perhaps you will also see the crown of gold on the head and a spot of yellow on each side of the breast. They say there was once a great king named Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold, he was such an avaricious old miser.
She establishes her galleries in firm soil, where there is no danger of landslips which would interfere with the work at nesting-time. In my garden, the well-levelled paths, made of a mixture of tiny pebbles and red clayey earth, suits her to perfection. Every spring she takes possession of it, never alone, but in gangs whose number varies greatly, amounting sometimes to as many as a hundred.
Coming together at nesting-time is so common with most birds that more examples are scarcely needed.
The droning of the busy swarms fills the flowery vault, while a snow of petals falls softly to the foot of the tree. Together with the population of harvesters there mingles another, less numerous, of mere drinkers, whose nesting-time has not yet begun. This is the colony of the Osmiae, those exceedingly pretty solitary bees, with their copper-coloured skin and bright-red fleece.
Listen: It is the wonder and the glory of the West; it is the most intoxicating, the most soul-stirring of bird voices in the land where thrushes are absent; it embodies the solitude, the vastness, the mystery of the mesa; it is the western meadow lark. This is his nesting-time, and we may be treated to his love-song, the exquisite, whispered aria he addresses to his mate.
It is curious that in places where blindworms are often seen their innocuous nature should not be generally known. They are even called adders sometimes. At the farm below, the rooks have been down and destroyed the tender chickens not long hatched; they do not eat the whole of the chicken, but disembowel it for food. Rooks are very wide feeders, especially at nesting-time.
If they eat those weed-seeds and do not need insects they can live here all winter can't they, uncle?" "Certainly; they gather in flocks after their nesting-time, which you see is very late. Then the males shed their bright-yellow feathers, and look exactly like their wives and children.
After the young house-mistress settled herself to her sitting, she often lifted her head above the edge of her nest, and uttered a strangely thrilling and appealing cry, which I think is only heard in the nesting-time. He always replied instantly, in tenderest tones, and came at once, sometimes from the other side of the orchard, singing as he flew, and perched in the apple-tree.
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