1 88 NATURE STUDY. 



proves a welcome feast for the smaller birds that remain 

 with us and live upon the minute insects and still smaller 

 eggs that are concealed in the crevices of bark. Wood- 

 peckers will leave their tapping for worms and peck for a 

 while at the suspended suet ; nuthatches will make regular 

 excursions to the outdoor lunch room and greedily help 

 themselves ; while the little chickadee, dearest of all the 

 birds, will gratefully use it to replenish his scant}- larder. 



Did 3'ou ever notice the difference between the pecking 

 of a chickadee and that of a nuthatch ? The formei 

 swings his head only ; the latter, accustomed to hammer- 

 ing in harder material, works his whole body. The force 

 of habit is .strong in the so-called lower animals as well as 

 in the movements of us superior beings. Several pieces 

 of suet in a tree in the 3'ard of the writer are daily visited 

 by the birds just mentioned as well as the neighboring 

 sparrows that are in the tree almost continually. More 

 than once chickadees, woodpeckers and nuthatches have 

 been seen in the tree at the same time feeding at the differ- 

 ent places. 



It is not too late now to begin and put a lunch for the 

 birds in a tree. If it is in sight of your window 5'ou will 

 be repaid manj^ times over for your trouble before the wnn- 

 er is over. 



The}^ [the flowers] have accumulated within us, since 

 our childhood, and even before in the .soul of our fathers, 

 an immense treasure, the nearest to our joys, upon which 

 we draw each time that we wish to make more real the 

 clement minutes of our life. The}^ have created and spread 

 in our world of sentiment the fragrant atmosphere in which 

 love delights. That is why I love, above all, the simplest, 

 the common-est, the oldest and most antiquated; those 

 which have a long human past behind them, a long array 

 of kind and consoling actions ; those which have lived 

 with us for hundreds of years and which form part of our- 

 selves, since they reflect something of their grace and the 

 joy of life in the soul of our ancestors. — Maetc?'linck, in the 

 Outlook. 



