SEEING WHAT YOU CAN SEE. 15 



turning her head from side to side, as if asking 

 what my business was. I tapped the trunk of 

 the tree with my cane, but she would not fly 

 from the hole. Of course, it was her nest, and 

 she was not going to desert it. The tree was 

 not more than two rods from the end of the 

 electric railway. Here, where hundreds of pic- 

 nickers often came, this bird had chiseled out 

 her nursery and was rearing her brood. 



One who has a mania for birds can scarcely 

 take a ramble even to the adjacent field with- 

 out witnessins: some incident worth recordinsr. 

 More than that, the birds that one has studied 

 for years are constantly performing new tricks, 

 so that one can never become weary of the 

 study of them. 



Here is an example. In one of my strolls 

 my familiar little friend, the black-capped 

 chickadee, was tilting about in the willows at 

 the border of the swamp. It seemed scarcely 

 worth while to spend any time with him, for I 

 had studied him so much that surely none of 

 his performances could surprise me. Still, I 

 decided to tarry a few minutes and watch him. 

 Good thing I did. The little fellow darted 

 from the willow withes to the fence near at 

 hand, and alighted on the upper side of the 

 second rail from the top. The top rail was a 



