A PRETTY BIRD STORY FROM MICHIGAN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3184, 12 September 1881, Page 4

A PRETTY BIRD STORY FROM MICHIGAN.

While strolling through the woods at Goguac F alee on the 13th June, I suddenly came across half a dozen birds of the variety known as the brown thrush or mocking bird. They were all busy working at some object on the ground, and did not notice my intruding till I was upon them, when, with a shrill cry, they flew off a short distance, and perched on the trees to watch my movements. Having my curiosity aroused, I went to examine what I supposed was a neet of young birds, when to my surprise I found the dead body of a female thrush, ■which had been killed by a shot from some hunter's gun. and had fallen -where it lay. The birds which I noticed about it had been covering it over with leaves, sticks, little tufts ot grass, &c\, until only its feet stuck out. Immediately the story of the 'Babes in the Wood ' covered with leaves by robins came to my mind, and all seemed real as the time when in childhood I had read the story and believed it to be true. Anxious to see what the birds would do, I stepped back of a large tree to a little distance and watched them. lowly the birds came back one by one, and continued the work of burying the dead bird. While engaged hopping about after leaves and grass, they would chirp in a low melancholy key, what I took to be the dirge no f es of the little bird's funeral. I did not have it in my heart to disturb them, and watched them until the dead bird was completely buried. —Chicago Tribune.