CHICKADEE 



73 



passing might have knocked it down. Perhaps a 

 hundred persons had brushed it in going by. How 

 many dogs and cats had overlooked it no one can 

 say ; nor how many skunks and snakes and squirrels. 

 The accident that discovered it to me had happened 

 apparently to no one else, so here it stood still safe,y 

 but only by the grace of Luck ! 



Cutting a tiny window in the bark just above the v v , 

 eggs, I looked in upon the little children every day. ^V 

 I watched them hatch, grow, and fill the cavity and \.\ 

 hang over at the top. I was there the day they forced " 

 my window open ; I was there the day when there > 

 was no more room at the top, and when, at the call 

 of their parents, one child after another of this large, 

 sweet bird family found his wings and flew away 

 through the friendly woods. 



