Bird -Lore 



copse, endears it to all. All through the long, drear}- winter, with 

 its short da}-s and perpetual snow and ice, they are the same 

 sprightly, contended little fellows, and refreshing it is to meet and 

 visit with them at such times as they come ' chick-a-de-dee '-ing 

 right into 30ur very presence in their familiar, confiding way. 



Springtime finds them with a 

 mellow, long-drawn love whistle 

 of two notes and thoughts of 

 home and home likethings. Soon, 

 down by the lake or brook-side, 

 or in some moist woodland glade, 

 where birch and willow trunks 

 long since dead and soft with 

 age stand sheltered among the 

 growing trees, the little Black- 

 cap and his chosen mate pick 

 out a cozy retreat. This, per- 

 haps, is some deserted Wood- 

 pecker den. decayed knothole, 

 or more often it is a burrow of 

 their own making, and here they 

 assume the delights and cares of 

 wedded life. A snug, warm nest 

 of rabbit's hair or fern down is 

 quickly built, and in this soft- 

 est of beds the five or six rosy 

 white, finely speckled little eggs are laid. Before very many days, 

 eight or ten at most, the old stump exhibits unmistakable signs 

 of being animated within, and in a wonderfully short time the 

 little nestlings are as large as their parents, and full, indeed, is 

 this family domicile. Owing to the cleanly habits and care of the 

 old birds, the dresses of the youngsters are cleaner and brighter 

 than those of their hard-worked, food-carrying parents. It was 

 just at this stage in their progress that the little family, whose 

 portraits are here shown, was discovered one late June da\-, snugly 

 ensconced within the crumbling trunk of a long since departed 

 willow tree. With a bird-loving companion, Mr. Leslie O. Dart, 

 the writer was drifting idly in a little boat through one of the man}- 

 channels of the Mississippi river, which cut up into innumerable 

 islands, the heavily wooded bottomland of eastern Houston county, 

 Minnesota. Being in search of the nests of numerous Prothonotary 

 W^arblers, wJiich were flashing hither and thither across the channel, 

 we skirted the shore closely, tapping on all likely-looking stubs. 



