98 HOMING ^YITH THE BIRDS 



had dripped from the eaves, wetting his tail. As 

 the night advanced and grew colder, ice formed, 

 freezing the tail to the pipe. In the early morning 

 when the woman looked to see if the bird was 

 there she saw only his tail fast to the pipe. She 

 had taken a step-ladder and secured the feathers. 

 She wanted to know whether losing the tail would 

 kill the bird, and she also stated in her letter that 

 he did not again return to his former perching 

 place. 



I had another letter concerning a cardinal. This 

 bird was reported to have visited a certain western 

 window every afternoon about four o'clock and 

 in repeated instances fought with his own reflection 

 on the glass for an hour at a time. I had had this 

 same experience in a limited degree. Three differ- 

 ent times in one afternoon a blackbird put his 

 bill against the glass of my bedroom window and 

 tried repeatedly to walk through it, not seeming 

 to understand why he could not. My bird did 

 not seem to be pugnacious, merely inquisitive. 

 The window was rather heavily covered with a 

 wild rose bush, and the glass had only that morning 

 been highly polished during the course of spring 

 house-cleaning. At the third appearance of the 

 bird I went outside to see what his view would 

 mean to me. The late sun in travelling 

 around to the west shone obliquely across the 

 window, which faced due south, and what I 

 saw where the bird had been appeared to me 



