in summer coat. Within the lodge, on a large centerpole, with a trifork in the top, rested the thunder bird's nest. With mallet and hatchet an assistant was busy carving below the fork a crescent turned upside down, and three feet still lower another crescent turned up. Between the

two was fashioned the thunder bird with outstretched wings, whose flappings caused the thunder and produced the rain. The lower crescent was to catch the rain and carry it down through a trough to the bottom of the pole, where was carved the buffalo's head.

The Medicine Lodge was thirty-six feet across, circular in shape and had a close screen of cherry brush fencing off an eight-foot aisle around one side. Behind this, at sunset, twenty-one almost naked braves took their places with faces and bodies grotesquely painted. Each held a small shrill-sounding eagle-bone whistle in his mouth and a portion of an eagle's wing in each hand. At one end, in a separate stall, were four women, who, with the men, were ready to fulfill some vow for favors already shown by the Great Spirit. From sunset, Wednesday, until high noon, Friday, they were to keep their places, with

neither food nor water. Standing with outstretched chin and eyes riveted on the thunder bird's nest, they must bend their knees, flap their wings, and blow their whistles with sort of a double beat, in imitation of young thunder birds, and in time with the musicians. When the singers stopped, the dancers dropped behind the hedge to rest until the musicians resumed. The rest periods averaged three-fourths of a minute, and the singing three and one-half minutes. By sunset the lodge was filled with Indians eager to take part in the singing.

Old Nozey then placed braided strands of sweet grass on the ground at the foot of the centerpole, where they were soon to be burned, in the hope that the incense, arising, might reach the nostrils of the sleeping buffalo and bring him back to them. Then coals of fire were scattered along the ground from the singers to the pole and on to the raw hide that the women had prepared. This they had folded along the ridge of hair and Nozey, taking it fore and aft, ushered it along the fiery trail, at times retreating like a frightened beast and finally throwing it over within the circle of musicians, who

then pounced upon it with their drumsticks, crying madly in their glee at this symbolic return of the buffalo. Hereafter, all during the Sun Dance, they pounded upon this hide in place of the tom-toms. At intervals of the dance the Indians exchanged gifts, as in the Grass Dance. A spirit of geniality pervaded all save those who were essentially doing penance. In the old days the ceremony extended over four days and nights, with greater privations and physical tortures. In "making a brave," parallel slits were cut in each breast, skewers run through and attached. by strings to the thunder bird's nest. Then, stepping back, the strings were drawn taut, until the skewers finally broke through their tough hides. Of recent years the religious aspect has largely given way to one of amusement, for most participants take naps during the ceremony and even steal away to their tepees for food.

On Thursday evening a terrific wind. and rain drove all the visitors to their tents and stripped the Medicine Lodge of its cover. The naked Indians deserted old Nozey to a man, and fled to their lodges to find shelter. At eleven o'clock the storm had passed. Then Nozey, with one

or two others, came out and urged the dancers to return, predicting dire calamity if the vows were not made good. But the threats and entreaties were unavailing, and at one o'clock in the morning the Sun Dance was declared off.

Friday was rather a blue day, owing to a mistake made by the Indians which called down upon them the censure of the agent. That night there was very little doing, so the cowboys and the Indian maidens gave a white man's dance.

On Saturday the Indians had regained their spirits somewhat and were again

Major Logan telling the Indians that the festivities must stop within ten minutes. Without the slightest dispute the Indians dispersed for their lodges.

one

racing on their horses and making merry with the Grass Dance. At noon the major appeared and informed them that an hour later all the festivities must cease, the camp be broken, and each family leave. for its own home. A second warning was given fifty minutes later and at o'clock, without the slightest dispute, all the Indians scattered to their lodges. Two hours afterwards there was not a trace of life over the whole campground, where during the previous week had been presented the most remarkable Indian exhibitions of modern ti:nes.

NE day I crossed the road below the Yellow throat's garden, broke through the thick fringe of maples and syringa brush and then crawled along on my hands and knees under the canopy of tall ferns. The earth was soft and loamy. The dog-wood saplings, the hazel and arrow - wood bushes grew so thick that each vied with the other in stretching up to catch the life-giving light of the sun's rays. Underneath, the blackberry reached out its long, slender fingers and clutched the tallest ferns to hang its berries where they might catch a glint of the sun, for the beams only sifted through

in places. I was in the thicket of the Grosbeaks.

For several years I have watched a pair of Grosbeaks that spend their summer on the side hill in this clump. The same pair, no doubt, has returned to the thicket for at least three or four years. It seems I can almost recognize the notes of their song. If our ears were only tuned to the music of the birds, could we not recognize them as individuals, as we know our old friends?

The Black-headed Grosbeak is one of the birds of my childhood. As long ago as I can remember, I watched for him in the mulberry trees and about the elder-berry bushes when the fruit was ripe. I could tell him from other birds by his high-keyed call note long before I knew his name.

One day, when I stopped to look for a bird that was caroling in one of the maples along the creek, I saw the Grosbeak mother singing her lullaby as she sat on her eggs. It looked to me so like a human mother's love; few, if any other birds, sing in the home; they may often long to, but are afraid. It has grown to be a habit of the Grosbeak.

Last year, I found three spotted eggs

in a nest, loosely built, among the leaves of the dog-wood limbs. When I had seen the father carrying a stick in his mouth, he dropped it and looked as uneasy as a boy, who had just been caught with his pockets full of stolen apples.

This year, the nest was twenty feet down the hill from the old home. They came nearer the ground and placed the thin frame-work of their nest between the two upright forks of an arrow-wood bush. We had never bothered them very much with the camera, but when they put their home right down within four and a half feet of the ground, it looked to me as if they wanted some pictures taken. It was too good a chance for us to miss. The ferns grew almost as high as the nest, and it was such a good place to hide the camera, when it was focused at the home.

When I waded through the ferns and pressed aside the bushes, the nest was brimful. Above the rim, I could see tiny plumes of white down, wavering in a breath of air I could

not feel. I stole up and looked in. The three bantlings were sound asleep. Neither parent happened to be near, so I crawled back and hid well down in the bushes twelve feet away. The father came in as silently as a shadow and rested on the nest-edge. He was dressed like a prince, a jet-black hat, black wings crossed with bars of white, and the rich red-brown of his vest shading into lemon-yellow toward his tail. He crammed something in each wide open mouth, stretched at the end of a wiggling, quivering neck.

The mother followed without a word and sat looking carefully about. She treated each bobbing head in the same way. Then, with head cocked on the side, she examined each baby, turning him gently with her head,