212 Twelve Months With 



robin ever managed to carry it into the tree is a 

 mystery. 



Almost every catbird's nest by the roadside has 

 scraps of paper interlaid with the sticks and other 

 building material, perhaps for the same reason 

 that the building contractor inserts paper between 

 the supporting walls of man's habitation. 



I once found a small mummified hyla in an old 

 thrush's nest. It was impossible to tell by what 

 means he had come to his untimely end. These 

 little tree frogs frequently make an hibernaculum 

 under the leaf mold in winter, and as it was only 

 late autumn, perhaps he had hopped into the 

 abandoned nest as a temporary abode until winter 

 should come, and through some mishap it had 

 become his tomb. 



In old shrikes' nests I have sometimes found 

 the small bones of little birds which have been 

 carried to the shambles by these feathered canni- 

 bals, and slaughtered without mercy. 



Many deserted nests in winter are found full of 

 the hulls of grain, nuts and acorns, where mice 

 and squirrels have dined. Other nests have nuts 

 and acorns tucked away among the twigs, where 

 they have been stored for the future use of some 

 thrifty inhabitant of the woodlands. Both field 

 mice and squirrels sometimes appropriate old 

 birds' nests and roof them over with grass and 

 leaves, and after building an addition or two along 

 the lines of mouse or squirrel architecture, pro- 



