It is generally known that when either the wild turkey or domestic turkey begins to lay, and afterwards to sit and rear the brood, she secludes herself from the male, who then, very sensibly, herds with others of his sex, and betakes himself to haunts of his own till male and female, old and young, meet again on common ground, late in the fall.  But rob the sitting bird of her eggs, or destroy her tender young, and she immediately sets out in quest of a male, who is no laggard when he hears her call.  The same is true of ducks and other aquatic fowls.  The propagating instinct is strong, and surmounts all ordinary difficulties.  No doubt the widowhood I had caused in the case of the woodpeckers was of short duration, and chance brought, or the widow drummed up, some forlorn male, who was not dismayed by the prospect of having a large family of half-grown birds on his hands at the outset.

I have seen a fine cock robin paying assiduous addresses to a female bird as late as the middle of July; and I have no doubt that his intentions were honorable.  I watched the pair for half an hour.  The hen, I took it, was in the market for the second time that season; but the cock, from his bright, unfaded plumage, looked like a new arrival.  The hen resented every advance of the male.  In vain he strutted around her and displayed his fine feathers; every now and then she would make at him in a most spiteful manner.  He followed her to the ground, poured into her ear a fine, half-suppressed warble, offered her a worm, flew back to the tree again with a great spread of plumage, hopped around her on the branches, chirruped, chattered, flew gallantly at an intruder, and was back in an instant at her side.  No use,—­she cut him short at every turn.

The denouement I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by her ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight.  It may not be rash to conclude, however, that she held out no longer than was prudent.

On the whole, there seems to be a system of Women’s Rights prevailing among the birds, which, contemplated from the standpoint of the male, is quite admirable.  In almost all cases of joint interest, the female bird is the most active.  She determines the site of the nest, and is usually the most absorbed in its construction.  Generally, she is more vigilant in caring for the young, and manifests the most concern when danger threatens.  Hour after hour I have seen the mother of a brood of blue grosbeaks pass from the nearest meadow to the tree that held her nest, with a cricket or grasshopper in her bill, while her better-dressed half was singing serenely on a distant tree or pursuing his pleasure amid the branches.