On the following day, after repeating such amenities as I had previously indulged in, I put forth my hand as if to stroke the bird's plumage; seeing which, she raised her beak threateningly and emitted a very faint deprecatory note, which would have been inaudible at the distance of a few yards. At the same time she opened and shut her bill, not snappishly, but slowly,--a nervous action, simply, it seemed to me.
Twenty-four hours later I called again, and was so favorably received that, besides taking hold of the nest, as before, I brushed her tail feathers softly. Then I put my hand to her head, on which she pecked my finger in an extremely pretty, gentle way,--more like kissing than biting,--and made use of the low murmuring sounds just now spoken of. Her curiosity was plainly wide awake. She stretched her neck to the utmost to look under the nest, getting upon her feet for the purpose, till I expected every moment to see her slip away; but presently she grew quiet again, and I withdrew, leaving her in possession.
By this time a daily interview had come to be counted upon as a matter of course, by me certainly, and, for aught I know, by the vireo as well. On my next visit I stroked the back of her head, allowed her to nibble the tip of my finger, and was greatly pleased with the matter-of-fact manner in which she captured an insect from the side of the nest, while leaning out to oversee my manœuvres. Finally, on my offering to lay my left hand upon her, she quit her seat, and perched upon a twig, fronting me; and when I put my finger to her bill she flew off. Even now she made no outcry, however, but fell immediately to singing in tones of absolute good-humor, and before I had gone four rods from the tree was back again upon the eggs. Of these, I should have said, there were four,--the regular complement,--all her own. Expert as cow-birds are at running a blockade, it would have puzzled the shrewdest of them to smuggle anything into a nest so sedulously guarded.
Walking homeward, I bethought myself how foolish I had been not to offer my little _protégée_ something to eat. Accordingly, in the morning, before starting out, I filled a small box with leaves from the garden rose-bush, which, as usual, had plenty of plant-lice upon it. Armed in this manner, as perhaps no ornithologist ever went armed before,--I approached the nest, and to my delight saw it still unharmed (I never came in sight of it without dreading to find it pillaged); but just as I was putting my hand into my pocket for the box, off started the bird. Here was a disappointment indeed; but in the next breath I assured myself that the recreant must be the male, who for once had been spelling his companion. So I fell back a little, and in a minute or less one of the pair went on to brood. This was the mother, without question, and I again drew near. True enough, she welcomed me with all her customary politeness. No matter what her husband might say, she knew better than to distrust an inoffensive, kind-hearted gentleman like myself. Had I not proved myself such time and again? So I imagined her to be reasoning. At all events, she sat quiet and unconcerned; apparently more unconcerned than her visitor, for, to tell the truth, I was so anxious for the success of this crowning experiment that I actually found myself trembling. However, I opened my store of dainties, wet the tip of my little finger, took up an insect, and held it to her mandibles. For a moment she seemed not to know what it was, but soon she picked it off and swallowed it. The second one she seized promptly, and the third she reached out to anticipate, exactly as a tame canary might have done. Before I could pass her the fourth she stepped out of the nest, and took a position upon the branch beside it; but she accepted the morsel, none the less. And an extremely pretty sight it was,--a wild wood bird perched upon a twig and feeding from a man's finger!