120 THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 



pact still holds. Other things have occurred since to 

 threaten it, however. Among them, an article in a 

 recent number of an out-of-door magazine, of wide 

 circulation. Herein the chipmunk family was most 

 roundly rated, in fact condemned to annihilation be- 

 cause of its wicked taste for birds' eggs and for the 

 young birds. Numerous photographs accompanied 

 the article, showing the red squirrel with eggs in 

 his mouth, but no such proof (even the red squirrel 

 photographs, I strongly believe, were done from a 

 stuffed squirrel) of Chipmunk's guilt, though he was 

 counted equally bad and, doubtless, will suffer with 

 Chickaree at the hands of those who have taken the 

 article seriously. 



I believe that would be a great mistake. Indeed, 

 I believe the article a deliberate falsehood, concocted 

 in order to sell the made-up photographs. Chipmunk 

 is not an egg-sucker, else I should have found it out. 

 But of course that does not mean that no one else 

 has found it out. It does mean, however, that if 

 Chipmunk robs at all he does it so seldom as to call 

 for no alarm or retribution. 



There is scarcely a day in the nesting-season when 

 I fail to see half a dozen chipmunks about the walls, 

 yet I have never noticed one even suspiciously near 

 a bird's nest. In an apple tree, scarcely six jump? 

 from the home of the family in the orchard wall, a 

 brood of tree swallows came to wing this spring ; 

 while robins, chippies, and red-eyed vireos not to 



