48 BEYOND THE PASTURE BARS 



to get into every large city, though there simply 

 seems not enough room even with crowding. 



That is not so of the wide open country. There 

 is plenty of room in the country for every bird 

 to have a nest tree all to himself, you would think. 

 Yet here is the picture of a fish-hawk's nest down 

 along the shores of Delaware Bay, in which live, 

 besides the fish-hawks, a small community of crow- 

 blackbirds, and two families of English sparrows. 



Now it happens that this nest tree of the fish- 

 hawks is the only tree close around that particu- 

 lar spot, but there are other trees in sight, a whole 

 forest in fact. It is not because there is no room 

 in the neighborhood that the blackbirds and spar- 

 rows have moved in with the fish-hawks. 



Moreover, this huge nest of the hawks, planted 

 firmly upon the very top of a tall oak that stands 

 almost alone on the edge of a vast salt-marsh, is 

 not the natural nesting-place for blackbirds and 

 sparrows. This marsh-land is the range of the 

 hawks. They are at home here. The blackbirds 

 and sparrows, for some reason, have broken away 

 from the inland. The blackbirds have nested 

 here, to my knowledge, for thirteen years; the 

 sparrows discovered the great nest only a year 

 ago. 



