WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



say, two years of observation, want to write down 

 a list of the birds inhabiting your district — and 

 you would thus be doing a real service to science 

 — it is important that you mention whether each 

 bird breeds there, passes through spring and au- 

 tumn, or is only a winter visitor. 



Perhaps there is no animal in the world that 

 comes nearer to man's heart and seems more 

 akin than the bird, because of its beautiful home- 

 life and the loving care with which it anticipates 

 and provides for its brood. There is a charm 

 about the nest of a bird that does not linger about 

 the hive of the wild bees, the burrow of the wood- 

 chuck, or the dome of the muskrat. It is more a 

 home than any of them. The situation varies 

 as much as the birds themselves. Trees, how- 

 ever, form the most common support; among the 

 tip-top branches of them warblers fix their tiny 

 cradles; to the outer drooping twigs of them 

 orioles and vireos can swing their hammocks; 

 upon their stout horizontal limbs the thrushes 

 and tanagers may come and build; against the 

 trunk, and in the great forks, hawks and crows 

 and jays will pile their rude structures; and in 

 the cracks and crannies, titmice, nuthatches, and 

 woodpeckers clean out old holes, or chisel new, 



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