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.
Frightened at first, the mother flew out a few feet over the water.
But the piperlings could not fly, having no feathers; and they crept
under a crooked log. I rolled the log over very gently and took one
of the cowering creatures into my hand--a tiny, palpitating scrap of
life, covered with soft gray down, and peeping shrilly, like a
Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was transformed. Her fear
was changed into fury. She was a bully, a fighter, an Amazon in
feathers. She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself almost
into my face. I was a tyrant, a robber, a kidnapper, and she called
heaven to witness that she would never give up her offspring without