Audubon's Resting Place 



By Jennie Pendelton Erving 



The cold spring morning wears an icy lace, 

 The climbing sun will scarcely coax away 



Till noon from these long slopes, where still a trace 

 Of winter's white is lurking, shrunken, gray 

 Among the mossy shafts that rise to show 

 That hundreds dream below. 



For this calm pleasance is a burial place. 

 Today no prudent daffodil will blow, 



And yet the birds chirp on with saucy grace ; 



A sturdy robin with a russet breast, 



A flock of blackbirds darkening the trees, 

 Their feathers rufifled by the holden breeze, 



And all so bold — so quick to stow a nest 



In these bare crotches. Though there roars about 



The clang of city streets, the birds fear naught. 

 What instinct could have taught 

 Each wee sharp brain and ear 

 That 'neath this pillar, wrought 

 With chiseled bird and beast, flung quaintly out. 

 Their friend, their gossip, Audubon lies here? 



Bush-Tlt {Psaltriparus minimus and sub-species) 



Length : From 4 to 4^ inches. 



Range : Pacific coast from southern British Columbia to the Cape Region 

 of Lower California, and eastward to the interior of Oregon and California; 

 nests generally throughout its range. 



This pigmy among birds has many of the characteristic habits of the chick- 

 adee family, of which it is the smallest member. Extremely sociable, bush-tits 

 move about in large flocks, occasionally in company with other birds, generally 

 without. One moment you are alone, the next moment the trees and bushes 

 are full of these diminutive little busy-bodies that scan you with their curious 

 bead-like eyes as they hurry on in quest of food, keeping up the while a con- 

 stant calling and twittering. Their pendant nests, often attached to oak trees, 

 suggest the well-known structure of our hang-bird or Baltimore oriole, and 

 are excellent specimens of bird architecture. 



The few western states favored by the presence of this bird are to be 

 congratulated, as more than half its animal food consists of insects and spiders, 

 nearly all of which are harmful. Among the insects are many tree bugs, 

 Hc.niptcra, which contain our most dreaded insect pests, such as the black olive 

 scale and other scales equally destructive. 



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