They run along the
branches and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of
invisible flies and moths. All the time they keep unfolding and
furling their rounded tails, spreading them out and waving them and
closing them suddenly, just as the Cuban girls manage their fans.
In fact, the redstarts are the tiny fantail pigeons of the forest.
There are other things about the birds, besides their musical
talents and their good looks, that the fisherman has a chance to
observe on his lucky days. He may sea something of their courage
and their devotion to their young.
I suppose a bird is the bravest creature that lives, in spite of its
natural timidity. From which we may learn that true courage is not
incompatible with nervousness, and that heroism does not mean the
absence of fear, but the conquest of it. Who does not remember the
first time that he ever came upon a hen-partridge with her brood, as
he was strolling through the woods in June? How splendidly the old
bird forgets herself in her efforts to defend and hide her young!
Smaller birds are no less daring. One evening last summer I was
walking up the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at
Mowett's Rock, where my canoe was waiting for me. As I stepped out
from a thicket on to the shingly bank of the river, a spotted
sandpiper teetered along before me, followed by three young ones.
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