of 



you may be sure that some woodpecker built the house, 

 not this short-billed, soft-tailed little tit. He lacks 

 both the bill-chisel and the tail-brace. Perhaps the 

 explanation of his fondness for birch trees lies here : 

 they die young and soon decay. 



The birds were going down through the top, not 

 by a hole in the leathery rind of the sides, for the 

 bark would have been too tough for their beaks. 

 They would drop into the top of the stub, pick up a 

 wad of decayed wood, and fly off to the dead limb of 

 the pine. Here, with a jerk and a snap of their bills, 

 they would scatter the stuff in a shower so thin and 

 far around that I could neither hear it fall nor find a 

 trace of it upon the dead leaves of the ground. This 

 nest would never be betrayed by the workmen's 

 chips. 



Between the pair there averaged three beakfuls of 

 excavating every two minutes, one of the birds regu- 

 larly shoveling twice to the other's once. They looked 

 so exactly alike that I could not tell which bird was 

 pushing the enterprise ; but I have my suspicions. 



There is nothing so superior about his voice or 

 appearance that he should thus shirk. He was doing 

 part of his duty, apparently, but it was half-hearted 



84 



