Part 3

"I suppose," said she, resting at length on the limb of a maple tree, "that you have been flying about, eating and drinking and talking with the other Mr. Wrens, and not looking for a house at all. That is the way with your sex generally, when there is any work to be done."

"Oh, it is?" said Mr. Wren, his feathers ruffled in a minute. "That's my reward for staying about this house and the grounds all the time, is it? My whole time has been taken up in house hunting, let me tell you, Mrs. Wren, and in keeping my eye on one particular apartment which is to let up there."

"Where?" chirped Mrs. Wren, her bright eyes traveling up and down the side of the house before them. "I don't see a box or crevice anywhere."

"Oh, you don't?" said Mr. Wren, mimicking her tone and air, "not a single box or crevice anywhere. Who said anything about either, I'd like to know?"

"Why, you did, Mr. Wren," said Mrs. Jenny, every feather on top of her head standing on end. "You did, as plain as could be."

"I said nothing of the sort," retorted Mr. Wren, "I never mentioned a box or crevice once."

"Then what did you say," returned Mrs. Wren with a little cackling sort of a laugh, "what kind of a house is up there to let anyway?"

"Talk about females being as sharp as we males," muttered Mr. Wren, "I never saw so stupid a creature in my life"--then aloud, "don't you see that tin tea-pot hanging on a nail under the porch, Mrs. Wren?"

"A tin tea-pot!" scornfully. "Do you think a bird born and bred as I was would go to housekeeping in an old tea-pot, Mr. Wren? You forget, surely that my father was a----"

"Oh, bother your father," ungallantly retorted Mr. Wren. "I'm tired and sick of that subject. If you don't like the looks of that house up there say so, and I'll take you to see several others."

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Wren, who all the time had thought the tea-pot just the cutest little apartment in the world, "I'll fly up there and examine it. Maybe it will do."

"It's just lovely," she announced, flying back to the tree, and for a minute or two they chattered and sang, and fluttered about in such a joyful manner that some of their bird neighbors flew over, curious to hear and see.

"Still," remarked Mrs. Jenny the next day, when fetching material for the nest, "I had hoped, my dear, that you would have followed my father's example in selecting a house for your family."

"Still harping on 'my father,'" groaned Mr. Wren, dropping on the porch the straws he had fetched in his bill. "Well," cheerfully, "how did he do, my dear?"

"As a bird of courage would, Mr. Wren. He never looked for a _vacant_ house, not he! From place to place, from tree to tree he flew, and when he espied a nest which pleased him, off he chased the other bird and took possession. Bluebird or Martin, it was all the same to him. Ah, indeed, my father was a great warrior."

"Hm, yes!" said Mr. Wren, who didn't like to be thought less brave than another. "That accounted for his one eye and lame leg, I presume."

"The scars of battle are not to be laughed at, Mr. Wren," loftily said Mrs. Jenny, "Papa's one eye and crooked leg were objects of great pride to his family."

"The old scoundrel," muttered Mr. Wren, who looked upon his father-in-law as no better than a robber, but to keep peace in the family he said no more, and with a gush of song flew off to gather some particularly nice sticks for the nest.

For some days Mr. and Mrs. Wren were too busy to pay much attention to their neighbors. Mr. Wren, unlike some birds he knew, did not do all the singing while his mate did the work, but fetched and carried with the utmost diligence, indeed brought more sticks, Mrs. Wren told her friends, than she had any use for.

"Such a litter, ma'am," said Bridget the next morning to the mistress of the house, "as I do be afther sweepin' up from the porch ivery day. A pair of birds, I do be thinkin', are after building a nest in that owld tin pot on the wall. It's this day I'm goin' to tear it down, so I am. Birds are nuisances anyway, and it's not Bridget O'Flaherty that's goin' to be clanin' afther them, at all, at all."

"Oh don't!" chorused the children, "we want to see with our own eyes how the birds go to housekeeping in the Spring. It's ever so much better than just reading about it. Tell Bridget, mamma," they pleaded, "to leave the pot alone."

Mamma, who found bird-life a delightful study, was only too willing to give the desired command, and thus it chanced that Mr. and Mrs. Wren grew quite accustomed to many pair of eyes watching them at their work of building a nest, every day.

"Do you know," said Mrs. Wren, placing a particularly fine feather in the nest one day, "that I have a notion to name our birdlings, when they come out of their shell, after our landlady's family? I think it is not more than fair, since we have got a cute apartment and no rent to pay."

"A capital idea!" chirped Mr. Wren, "her children have such pretty names, too."

"And pretty manners," returned Mrs. Wren, who, being of such genteel birth, was quick to recognize it in others. "Let me see, there's just six. Pierre, Emmett, Walter, Henry, Bobby, and that darling little fair-haired girl, Dorothy. I had my head tucked under my wing the other evening, but all the same I heard her speaking a piece that she said she had learned at school that day."

"Yes," said Mr. Wren, tilting his tail over his back and singing loudly, "I think we are very fortunate to have such a family for our neighbors. You can pick up so many things their mamma says to the children, and teach our birdies the same lessons, you know."

"Of course," said Mrs. Wren, standing on the edge of the pot and eyeing her work with great satisfaction, "I had thought of that before. I already have some of her sayings in my mind. But come, we musn't be standing here chattering all day. The nest must be ready to-morrow for the first egg."

"Hm! You don't say?" replied Mr. Wren, beginning to count his toes, "why, bless me, to-morrow is the twelfth day. Well, well, how time flies when one is busy and happy," and off they both flew, singing as they went for very joy.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

SUMMARY.

Page 6.

#CROWNED PIGEON.#--_Columbidae goura._

RANGE--New Guinea and the neighboring islands.

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Page 10.

#RED-EYED VIREO.#--_Vireo olivaceus._

RANGE--Eastern North America, west to Colorado, Utah, and British Columbia; north to the Arctic regions; south in winter, from Florida to northern South America. Breeds nearly throughout its North American range.

NEST--Pensile from horizontal branches of trees, five to twenty feet above the ground; made of vegetable fibres and strips of pliable bark, lined with fine round grasses, horse hairs, and the like.

EGGS--Three or four, pure white, sparsely sprinkled with fine, dark reddish-brown dots, chiefly at the larger end.

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Page 14.

#FOX SPARROW.#--_Passerella iliaca._

RANGE--Eastern North America, west to the plains and Alaska, and from the Arctic coast south to the Gulf states. Winters chiefly south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers.

NEST--Of grass and moss, lined with grass and fine feathers; on the ground, concealed by the drooping branches of evergreens.

EGGS--Four or five, pale bluish green, speckled, spotted, and blotched with reddish-brown, or uniform chocolate brown.

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Page 18.

#BOB WHITE.#--_Colinus virginianus._

RANGE--Eastern United States; west to the Dakotas, Kansas, Indian Territory and eastern Texas; north to southern Maine and Southern Canada; south to the Atlantic and Gulf States.

NEST--On the ground, of grasses, straws, leaves, or weeds.

EGGS--Fifteen to twenty-five, often only twelve, but usually about eighteen, of pure white.

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Page 23.

#PASSENGER PIGEON.#--_Ectopistes migratorius._ Other name: "Wild Pigeon."

RANGE--Eastern North America, from Hudson Bay southward, and west to the Great Plains, straggling thence to Nevada and Washington. Breeding range now mainly restricted to portions of the Canadas and the northern border of the United States, as far west as Manitoba and the Dakotas.

NEST--In trees; a mere platform of sticks.

EGGS--Usually one, never more than two, pure white, and broadly elliptical in shape.

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Page 27.

#SHORT-EARED OWL.#--_Asio accipitrinus._ Other name: "Marsh Owl."

RANGE--Entire North America; nearly cosmopolitan.

NEST--On the ground in the matted grass of marsh land, of a few sticks, soft grasses, and some of its own feathers.

EGGS--Four to seven, white, and oval in shape.

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Page 31.

#ROSE COCKATOO.#--_Cacatua Leadbeateri._

RANGE--South Australia.

NEST--In holes of decayed trees, or in fissures of rocks.

EGGS--Two, of pure white.

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Page 35.

#MOUNTAIN PARTRIDGE.#--_Oreortyx pictus._ Other name: "Plumed Partridge."

RANGE--Pacific coast from San Francisco north to Washington.

NEST--On the ground, consisting of a bed of dead leaves, under a bush or tuft of grass or weeds.

EGGS--Six to twelve, of a cream color with a reddish tint.