NESTING EPISODES NEAR HOME 105 



was before, this was too much for his nerves, but he 

 sang from a distance to encourage his mate. After 

 I put the young ones back in the nest, both the par- 

 ents resumed feeding. 



Just across the road from where I found the first 

 vireo's nest was a farm-house, near which were sev- 

 eral promising subjects. One of these was the nest 

 of a flicker, or " yellow-hammer," a hole dug into a 

 cedar tree close to the road. The old birds were fre- 

 quently returning to feed their young, ignoring the 

 numerous autos. Fortunately the hole was only five 

 feet from the ground, so I set up my camera against 

 the fence, focused on the nest, and by pulling a thread 

 from a distance each time the bird returned, easily 

 secured a good series of photographs. 



A little boy who lived on the farm became inter- 

 ested in my proceedings and showed me two blue- 

 birds' nests with young in the pasture near-by, one in 

 a low hollow of the tree, the other in a hole in a 

 stump. The birds did not mind the camera set on 

 a tripod near the nest, and I took pictures of their 

 various family operations of feeding the young and 

 cleaning the nest. There was also a song sparrow's 

 nest in a low thorny clump of barberry bushes 

 browsed short by the cattle. I set up the camera near 

 it, covering it with sumach sprouts. These birds also 

 were good to me and learned to run fearlessly before 

 the camera and enter the nest by the little thorny 

 tunnel to feed their young. The boy had as a pet 

 a beautiful male rose-breasted grosbeak that he had 



