flig-ht that the bird's body swung .ironnd the wire strand two or three times, a 

 fact shown by the twisted condition of the tendons. The hawiv was dead when 

 discovered, but whether the shock of the impact killed it or whether it died as the 

 result of the fierce struggle to free itself cannot be told. There was no wound 

 save that of the broken wing and torn skin and tendons, a circumstance that 

 shows that the bird was not shot and afterward impaled upon the wire. Doubtless 

 some meadow mouse is still congratulating itself on the narrowest escape of its 

 life, and on the death of one of its implacable enemies. 



Recently the undoubtedly wise and humane members of the Illinois legisla- 

 ture granted the right hitherto denied, to shoot during certain months of the 

 year the mourning-dove, the emblem of peace and of all gentleness. I am chari- 

 table enough to doubt if any member of the state body would have voted for 

 such a provision of the game law if he could have seen the exhibition of cour- 

 age and devotion to duty by a dove that once came under my notice. A pair 

 of the birds had built a nest about four feet from the ground in a little evergreen 

 tree on a side hill. The nesting site was in the outskirts of one of Chicago's 

 suburbs. The month of the nest building, April, had been unusually dry; the 

 fallen oak leaves and the grass where the tender green had not yet sprung were 

 as dry as chips. A fire, started by a spark from a passing engine, spread rapidly 

 and ran along the hillside toward the dove's nest. I knew the location of the 

 bird's home and I watched the mother dove all through the subsequent ordeal. 

 The jflames reached the tree upon which the frail nest was placed, and though 

 the fire mounted high enough for the dove to feel the intensity of the heat, 

 she lifted not a wing to leave her charge. The flames swept under her and passed 

 on, but for fully five minutes thereafter the devoted mother was shrouded in 

 smoke. The bird's courage was of little avail, however, for some creature, 

 man or beast, robbed the nest the day after the fire. 



The jay is unquestionably a good deal of a rascal, but he is one of the most 

 mteresting creatures that fly. I confess to a liking for him though he does steal 

 eggs once in a while and is the common scold of every bird neighborhood. I 

 watched a pair of jays once while they Imilt their nest in a small fir tree in 'the 

 dooryard of a hotel at Highland Park. The birds built the bulkiest jay's nest I 

 had ever seen. When the structure was about two-thirds completed I heard a 

 loud jay conversation in the lane back of the hotel and I looked over the fence 

 to discover the cause. The two jays were on an ash pile, and were having an 

 animated discussion about a very dirty paper collar which lay between them. 

 It was apparent that one of the birds doubted the utility of the collar as nest- 

 making material, while the other was an advocate of trying it if for no other 

 reason than that it was something new. Womanlike. Madame Jay finally had her 

 way (I suppose it was the madame), and into the wall of the nest the paper 

 collar went. When the home was completed six egg?, were deposited, one more 

 than I had ever before found in a jay's nest. Mother jay staid on the nest con- 



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