Mr. Torrey found a vireo on her nest, and by gentle ways got her to let him stroke her. Next day he took some rose leaves with aphides on them, and holding one of the insects on his finger, he offered it to the bird on the nest. She took it, and then another and another, till finally she began to be very eager for them, and he could hardly feed her fast enough. Then he took a teaspoon full of water up to her, and she drank. Another gentleman--Mr. Hoffmann--did still more. He coaxed a YELLOW-THROATED VIREO till she took food out of his lips. Black ants and cankerworms were the things he fed her. She preferred the ants, and would scold him a little at first when he offered the worms, though she took them at last. This bird was so tame she would let a man lift her off her nest and put her on his shoulder while he looked at the eggs. She would stay there till he put her back. The yellow-throat, besides making a pretty hanging basket, covers the outside with lichens of different colors, green, dark and light, yellow, and almost black. It is said that these pretty things are put on by the male while his mate is sitting. A pair was once watched at their building. The female was lining and shaping the inside, and her mate working silky-looking strips from plants into the framework, and then covering the whole with lichens. He was so happy, he sang as he worked. The one of this family most widely spread over the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is the WARBLING VIREO. His song is the most agreeable of the vireo songs, being truly a warble of six or eight notes, of which one does not get tired. The dress of the Western warbling vireo is a little paler, but the habits and manners are about the same as those of his Eastern brother. Vireos were once common in the shade-trees of our city streets, and are still in some places where English sparrows have not taken everything, and boys are not allowed to throw stones or shoot. I know one city in Massachusetts where trees are very lovely and musical with yellow-throats. We can still have these and other birds in our yards--we who do not live in the middle of a big city--by protecting them from cats and bad boys, and furnishing good places to nest. Mr. Lloyd Morgan tells of a garden near his own where there were fifty-three nests, besides swallows'. The owner planted thick bushes, and some cone-bearing trees. He put bird-boxes and old flower-pots and other things suitable to build in, in convenient places in the trees. The birds appreciated all this and came and stayed with him. FOOTNOTE: [10] See Appendix, 9. XII THE SHRIKE FAMILY (_Laniidæ_)[11] A SHRIKE is a pretty gray bird with white and black trimmings. He is nearly as large as a robin, and has a bill slightly hooked on the end. This is to help catch living prey, for he eats mice and other little mammals, besides grasshoppers, crickets, and sometimes small birds.