there. The wild winds tore it away the 

 green wound grew at last to this yawning 

 dry one. Sound wood rimmed it about 

 sound still, though life has so long left the 

 parent trunk. Queer tenants house them in 

 it. Woodpeckers have flown in and out 

 since dawn. A blue-bird is aperch, too, in 

 the hollow of one gnarled lip. He sits mo- 

 tionless in the sun, heedless that his mate 

 calls shrilly to him from the near hedge- 

 row. 



A little higher you see a round tunnel- 

 mouth in the wood. That is due to Sir Red- 

 head one of his choicest bits of engineer- 

 ing. There he kept house, and fed his clam- 

 orous younglings in the time of cherries. He 

 would be there still, but that Master Screech- 

 Owl fancied snug winter -quarters, and has 

 entered in to possess them. See ! the hunts- 

 men have scraped away the snow, and built 

 a fire of dead branches at the tree's root. 

 It must be some flaw or cranny runs up 

 to Master Owl's snug chamber he dashes 

 out of it, falls blind and panting on the 

 snow. 



Use him delicately. In Nature's economy 

 he has his place. What a clown he looks, 

 to be sure, flying blindly this way and that, 

 as he is set atop of a near bush, falling prone 



