216 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



is good for a man's bird-list as well as for 

 his soul. 



An oven-bird is declaiming, a blue yel- 

 low-back is practicing scales, and a field 

 sparrow is chanting. And even as I pencil 

 their names a nuthatch (the very one I have 

 been hearing) flies to a maple trunk and 

 alights for a moment at the door of his nest. 

 Without question he passed a morsel to 

 his brooding mate, though I was not quick 

 enough to see him. Yes, within a minute 

 or two he is there again ; but the sitting 

 bird does not appear at the entrance ; her 

 mate thrusts his bill into the door instead. 

 The happy pair! There is much family 

 life of the best sort in a wood like this. 

 No doubt there are husbands and wives, 

 so called, in Franconia as well as in other 

 places, who might profitably heed the old 

 injunction, " Behold the fowls of the air." 



