After about ten days of watching the wren family, we lost their lively chirpings, the witching song ceased, the place seemed empty of wren life, and our charming acquaintance with them a thing to be remembered only. At least so we sadly thought, till nearly the end of July, when, on sauntering through the old paths for almost the last time (for me), we heard once more the familiar music, as full, as fresh, as bewitching, as in the spring. We sought the singer, eager to see as well as hear. After a tramp over underbrush and through a swamp, we saw him,--the same delightful bird, so far as we could tell; certainly he had sung the exact song that charmed us in early June. He had probably trained and started out in life his five babies, and now had time as well as inclination to sing again. During the three days that were left of my stay I heard the enchanting voice every time I went into the woods, "Chaunting his low impassioned vesper-hymn, Clear as the silver treble of a stream." V. WHIMSICAL WAYS IN BIRD-LAND. "O irritant, iterant, maddening bird!" One lovely evening in May, I was walking down a quiet road, looking, as usual, for birds, when all at once there burst upon the sweet silence a loud alarm. "Chack! chack! chack! too! too! t-t-t! quawk! quawk!" at the top of somebody's loud resonant voice, as if the whole bird-world had suddenly gone mad. I looked about, expecting to see a general rush to the spot; but, to my surprise, no one seemed to notice it. A catbird on the fence went on with his bewitching song, and a wood thrush in the shrubbery dropped not a note of his heavenly melody. "They have heard it before; it must be a chat," I said; and lo! on the top twig of a tall tree, brilliant in the setting sun, stood the singer. Never before had I seen one of the family show himself freely; and while I gazed he proceeded to exhibit another phase of chat manners, new to me,--wing antics, of which I had read. He flew out toward another tree-top, going very slowly, with his legs hanging awkwardly straight down. At every beat of the wings he threw them up over his back till they seemed to meet, jerked his expressive tail downward, and uttered a harsh "chack," almost pausing as he did so. "Not only a chat, but a character," was my verdict, as I turned back from my stroll. [Sidenote: _AN ECCENTRIC BIRD._]