

68 WINTER 



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of poetry in Chickadee's soul, something fine, that f 

 leads him into this exquisite harmony into this / 

 little gray house for his little gray self ? 



Explain it as you may, it is a fact that the little , 

 bird shows this marked preference, makes this delib- 

 erate choice ; and in the choice is protection and 

 poetry, too. Doubtless he follows the guidance of a 

 sure and watchful instinct. But who shall deny to 

 him a share of the higher, finer things of the imagi- r ! 

 nation? 



His life is like his home gentle and sweet and 

 idyllic. There is no happier spot in the summer 

 woods than that about the birch of the chickadees ; / 

 and none whose happiness you will be so little liable ( 

 to disturb. 



Before the woods were in leaf last spring I found " L \ 

 a pair of chickadees building in a birch along the / 1 

 edge of the swamp. They had just begun, having ^..4 

 dug out only an inch of the cavity. It was very in- j$ 

 teresting to discover them doing the excavating ^ 

 \ themselves, for usually they refit some abandoned y 

 \ chamber or adapt to their needs some ready-made^ 

 M hole. 



The birch was a long, limbless cylinder of bark, 

 ;"j broken off about fourteen feet up, and utterly rot- 

 ten, the mere skin of a tree stuffed with dust. I 

 could push my finger into it at any point. It was so j 

 [ weak that every time the birds lighted upon the top 

 the whole stub wobbled and reeled. Surely they I 



