204. KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



moments kitty owned defeat and dashed into the rasp- 

 berries for protection. 



So it went all day long. A hawk could not appear in 

 sight, a crow come nearer than two hundred yards, or even 

 a blue jay come closer than two or three hundred feet with- 

 out being attacked at sight. For the six or seven years 

 Jerry nested in this tree we never had a chicken caught by 

 a hawk or a crow, and the cats entirely forsook the back 

 yard in the daytime. 



One year another kingbird determined to nest in our 

 orchard. He located fully a hundred yards from Jerry's 

 home, but nevertheless Jerry claimed this territory as 

 his own. The two birds were fighting almost constantly 

 for a week. Finally Jerry triumphed, and his defeated 

 rival went to the monstrous Pippin tree in the old or- 

 chard, a quarter of a mile away. Probably he was glad 

 afterward that he moved for he found himself within a 

 hundred yards of the migrant shrike's nest and the shrike 

 was following his custom of sticking insects on thorns. The 

 kingbird was not long in finding this out, and it was a 

 favorite pastime of his to collect every insect he found 

 sticking on the thorns. 



Tho Jerry would never tolerate another kingbird's nest- 

 ing in what he considered his own private ground, no bird 

 was more careful in the protection of his mate and of 

 his young. He left his lookout during the period in 

 which his mate was sitting only when he felt it necessary 

 to satisfy his own hunger or to catch food for her, but he 

 always managed to see that she was well fed tho at this 

 time they dined pretty freely on bees. In fact, that waslhe 

 only time we had reason to complain of his onslaught upon 

 the bee yard, and with nearly a hundred colonies of bees, 



