In these late summer days the singer punctuates his song often and long, for he must recuperate for his autumn journey. More than this, he must protect his young ones. He therefore loses the shyness of spring, and follows the juveniles about, feeding them and teaching them to shift for themselves, and protecting them with word and sign. His whole care is for his family, and hard is a cruel world indeed whose human inhabitants can molest him. His scarlet cloth is forgotten. He will follow his young even into captivity, and there feed them through bar or window. But not a fascinating prisoner is the tanager; one grows accustomed to his bright coat, and as it is seen against the pane in winter-time, contrasting with the whiteness of the snow, seems to reproach the hand that imprisoned it. When one stops to think of it, scarcely a bird in captivity, unless it be the canary to the manner born, gives the satisfaction and amusement anticipated. It is the going and coming of the wild birds that make more than half the fun. The sudden surprise of spring; the reluctant departure of autumn, with the hope of intermediate days--there is charm in all this keeping of Nature's order. Well, good by, sweet scarlet tanager. Sing us back your farewell note of "Wait, wait." We shall see you again when the early cherries are ripe, if not sooner. The beetles and bumbles and the grasshoppers will be watching out for you, and the terrible hornet shall double his armor-plate to suit the strength of your strong beak. It will be of no avail for the big black beetle to hide beneath the iron kettle he carries on his back, and the bum of the big, yellow bumblebee will serve only as its call-note, while the broad sword of the hornet will have no time to unsheath itself at sight of you. Good by, tanager. CHAPTER XII THE MEADOW-LARK Hark! the lark! Shakespeare. Think, every morning when the sun peeps through The dim, leaf-latticed window of the grove. How jubilant the happy birds renew Their old, melodious madrigals of love. And when you think of this, remember too 'Tis always morning somewhere, and above The awakening continents from shore to shore, Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. Longfellow. Never did any lark "lean its breast against a thorn" and sing. That was the poet's sorry fancy. Larks are not in the habit of leaning their breasts against anything when they sing. They stand tiptoe on a stout grass stem or a fence-post or the highest bough, or sing as they fly, or warble a simple ditty while running on the ground.