90 OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 
pleasant and what will make you love them. That is 
why we spoke a good word for the shrikes and the 
hawks and the owls. 
If a pair of birds have selected the limb of a tree 
upon which to build a cradle, they are not often driven 
from it by other birds. It seems to us that when a 
sparrow has put a piece of twine over a bough, it is as 
if she had written her name on it or got a deed for that 
particular bough. 
If you should wish to tame a pair of birds that are 
building their nest where you may watch them, wait 
until the nest is finished or until the first egg is laid. 
Sometimes it is better to wait for the little birds. A 
bird will desert an unfinished nest if she suspects you 
are watching her. But she dislikes to throw away all 
of her labor, and will often lay her eggs and hatch her 
young while you are looking at her, rather than begin 
her nest all over again. 
If you take just one egg from the nest of some birds, 
leaving all of the others, the parents will never go to 
it again. There are other timid, delicate birds who 
will leave their nest if you just go up softly and peep 
into it. The parent birds may not be in sight, and 
you may think they will never know. But they have 
been in hiding and have seen you steal up, and they 
will desert the place and the nest. Only a few birds 
will do this, however, and these are mostly those which 
live far away, in a quiet dell or on a hill where people 
seldom go. 
