60 BIRD STUDIES WITH A CAMERA 



ten efforts at building card houses, which, when 

 nearly completed, would be brought to ruin by an 

 ill-placed card. How many times each Chickadee 

 tumbled or fluttered from his perch I can not say. 

 The soft, elastic net, spread beneath them, preserved 

 them from injury, and bird after bird was returned 

 to his place so little worse for his fall that he was 

 quite ready to try it again. Finally, eight birds 

 were induced to take the positions assigned them ; 

 then, in assisting the ninth to his allotted place, the 

 balance of a bird on either side would be disturbed, 

 and down into the net they would go. 



These difficulties, however, could be overcome, 

 but not so the failure of the light at the critical time, 

 making it necessary to expose with a wide open lens 

 at the loss of a depth of focus. 



The picture presented, therefore, does not do the 

 subject justice. Nor can it tell of the pleasure with 

 which each fledgeling for the first time stretched its 

 wings and legs to their full extent, and preened its 

 plumage with before unknown freedom. 



At the same time they uttered a satisfied little 

 dee-dee-dee, in quaint imitation of their elders. 

 When I whistled their well-known phe-be note, they 

 were at once on the alert, and evidently expected to 

 be fed. 



The birds were within two or three days of leav- 

 ing the nest, and, the sitting over, the problem came 

 of returning the flock to a cavity barely two inches 

 in diameter, the bottom of which was almost filled 

 by one bird. 



I at once confess a failure to restore anything 

 like the condition in which they were found, and 





