A Bird Apartment House 157 



selected sites in this branch with the Hawk family. However, the Sparrow 

 Hawk, like the Red-shouldered Hawk, is not so bad as he is painted, and busies 

 himself catching grasshoppers, field-mice, etc., only occasionally catching a 

 sick or maimed bird easily run down. 



The unmistakable alarm note of the Bluebird was in evidence, although 

 the Sparrow Hawks made their share of noise. The brooding Flicker seemed 

 anxious to return again to her nest, which would indicate that there was a 

 clutch of eggs about to give up their tiny contents. When she left the nest 

 and alighted upon a nearby fence-post, the male bird would appear and give 

 her something in the nature of a scolding; whereupon, back she would fly 

 to the tree, and, after assuring herself that I would not harm her, she would 

 move sidewise around the trunk to the entrance of the nest and disappear 

 within. 



It was my ambition to get photos of all three tenants at their doors, but 

 in this I was unsuccessful in so far as the Sparrow Hawk was concerned ; for, 

 unlike the Bluebird and the Flicker who posed for me often, they would not 

 approach their home while I was near. 



The illustrations will serve to show the apartment, even though the images 

 of the birds are not what they might be. 



Since the above experience, it has been my pleasure to find a two-tenement 

 house occupied by English Starlings and Flickers, the latter having excavated 

 a new home beneath the one from which they were driven, no doubt, by the 

 Starlings, who have by the observations of many been proved to be genuine 

 usurpers. 



At another time, when the opportunity came to me to revisit the nesting- 

 site of a Flicker in an apple orchard, to make some photographs, my surprise 

 was great when, instead of a Flicker head appearing at the entrance, an 

 English Starling flew out with a rush. 



