90 EVERYDAY BIRDS 
and now, in the middle of October, 1900, they 
are still in daily attendance. Perhaps there were 
a few weeks of midsummer when they stayed 
away, but I think not. One pair built a nest 
somewhere in the neighborhood and depended 
on us largely for supplies, much to their con- 
venience and our pleasure. As soon as the red- 
capped young ones were able to fly, the parents 
brought them to the tree and fed them with the 
suet (it was a wonder how much of it they could 
eat), till they were old enough to help them- 
selves. And they act, old and young alike, as if 
they owned the place. If a grocer’s wagon hap- 
pens to stop under the tree they wax indignant, 
and remain so till it drives away. ven the 
black cat, Satan, has come to acknowledge their 
rights in the case, and no longer so much as 
thinks of them as possible game. 
I have spoken, I see, as if these three species 
were all; but, not to mention the blue jays, 
whose continual visits are rather ineffectively 
frowned upon (they carry off too much at once), 
we had last winter, for all the latter half of it, a 
pair of red-bellied nuthatches. They dined with 
us daily (pretty creatures they are), and stayed so 
late in the spring that I began to hope the handy 
food-supply would induce them to tarry for the 
summer. They were mates, I think. At any 
