building their house upon the sand. Any creature 

 without wings would have known that. Birds, how- 

 ever, seem to have lost the sense of such insecu- 

 rity, often placing their nests as if they expected 

 them also to take wings and fly to safety when the 

 rains descend and the winds come. 



This shaking stub of the chickadees was standing 

 directly beneath a great overshadowing pine, where, 

 if no partridge bumped into it, if two squirrels did not 

 scamper up it together, if the crows nesting overhead 

 did not discover it, if no strong wind bore down upon 

 it from the meadow side, it might totter out the nest- 

 ing season. But it didn't. The birds were leaving 

 too much to luck. I knew it, and should have pushed 

 their card house down, then and there, and saved the 

 greater ruin later. Perhaps so, but I was too inter- 

 ested in their labor. 



Both birds were working when I discovered them, 

 and so busily that my coming up did not delay them 

 for a single billful. It was not hard digging, but it 

 was very slow, for chickadee is neither carpenter nor 

 mason. He has difficulty in killing a hard-backed bee- 

 tle. So, whenever you find him occupying a clean- 

 walled cavity, with a neat, freshly clipped doorway, 



83 



