talking, and she delivered the playful peck or push as reply. Now, too, in his desire to manifest his affection, he could not always wait for worms, but picked dainty bits from the food-dish, and tendered them in the same pretty way. She always accepted, though often she went at once to the food-dish and ate for herself; for with all this sentiment and love-making her appetite did not fail. Once she was outside and he inside the cage, when he began to call and offer her something out of his mouth. She did not wish to go in, so she flew to a perch that ran through the cage, and stood close to the wires, while he went to the same perch inside, and fed her through the wires. About this time, too, the bluebird talk nearly ceased, and instead of it the lovely song of three notes was heard all day, and a little change they made in it--throwing in a "grace note" between the second and third--greatly added to its charm. Now, too, spring had really come, and I waited only for warm days to let them go and set up their homestead in freedom. The first mild day in May the window was opened for them. The female flew first to a tree in front of the house, where she was greeted in the rudest manner by the bird-tramps which infest our streets,--the house-sparrows. They began to assemble around her, no doubt prepared for attack, when she gave a loud cry of distress, and out flew her valiant knight to her aid. After a moment's pause by her side, they both flew, and we saw the gentle pair no more. This true chronicle began with a quotation from Lanier; it shall end with one from Harriet Prescott Spofford:-- "A bit of heaven itself, he flew, When earth seemed heaven with bees and bloom, South wind, and sunshine, and perfume; And morning were not morn without him. Winging, springing, always flinging, Flinging music all about him." THE GOLDEN-WING. The high-hole flashing his golden wings. WALT WHITMAN. VI. THE GOLDEN-WING. One of the special objects of my search during a certain June among the hills of northern New York was a nest of the golden-winged woodpecker; not that it is rare or hard to find, but because I had never seen one and had read attractive stories of the bird's domestic relations, the large number of young in the nest, and his devotion and pride. Moreover, I had become greatly interested in the whole family, through my attachment to an individual member of it in my own house.