Our intercourse was nearing its end. It was already the 10th of June, and on the 12th I was booked for a journey. During my last visit but one it gratified me not a little to perceive that the wife's example and reproof had begun to tell upon her mate. He happened to be in the nest as I came up, and sat so unconcernedly while I made ready to feed him that I took it for granted I was dealing with the female, till at the last moment he slipped away. I stepped aside for perhaps fifteen feet, and waited briefly, both birds in sight. Then the lady took her turn at sitting, and I proceeded to try again. She behaved like herself, made free with a number of insects, and then, all at once, for no reason that I could guess at, she sprang out of the nest, and alighted on the ground within two yards of my feet, and almost before I could realize what had occurred was up in the tree. I had my eyes upon her, determined, if possible, to keep the pair distinct, and succeeded, as I believed, in so doing. Pretty soon the male (unless I was badly deceived) went to the nest with a large insect in his bill, and stood for some time beside it, eating and chattering. Finally he dropped upon the eggs, and, seeing him grown thus unsuspicious, I thought best to test him once more. This time he kept his seat, and with great condescension ate two of my plant-lice. But there he made an end. Again and again I put the third one to his mouth; but he settled back obstinately into the nest, and would have none of it. For once, as it seemed, he could be brave; but he was not to be coddled, or treated like a baby--or a female. There were good reasons, of course, for his being less hungry than his mate, and consequently less appreciative of such favors as I had to bestow; but it was very amusing to see how tightly he shut his bill, as if his mind were made up, and no power on earth should shake it. If any inquisitive person raises the question whether I am absolutely certain of this bird's being the male, I must answer in the negative. The couple were dressed alike, as far as I could make out, save that the female was much the more brightly washed with yellow on the sides of the body; and my present discrimination of them was based upon close attention to this point, as well as upon my careful and apparently successful effort not to confuse the two, after the one which I knew to be the female (the one, that is, which had done most of the sitting, and had all along been so very familiar) had joined the other among the branches. I had no downright proof, it must be acknowledged, nor could I have had any without killing and dissecting the bird; but my own strong conviction was and is that the male had grown fearless by observing my treatment of his spouse, but from some difference of taste, or, more probably, for lack of appetite, found himself less taken than she had commonly been with my rather meagre bill of fare.