THE MISSING TOOTH 



severe cold, heavy storms, high winds 



91 



f tides. I have known the nests of a whole colony of 



^ gulls and terns to be swept away in a great storm ; 



-while the tides, over and over, have flooded the inlet 



'marshes and drowned out the nests in the grass 



those of the clapper rails by thousands. 



I remember a late spring storm that came with 



(the returning redstarts and, in my neighborhood, 



r ^killed many of them. Toward evening of that day 



' \ one of the little black-and-orange voyageurs fluttered 



-.against the window and we let him in, wet, chilled, 



,- ^and so exhausted that for a moment he lay on his 



- >back in my open palm. Soon after there was another 



4 soft tapping at the window, and two little redstarts 

 J -were sharing our cheer and drying their butterfly 



;. -wings in our warmth. Both of these birds would 

 have perished had we not harbored them for the 

 i Anight. 



r '} The birds and animals are not as weather-wise as 

 *^we ; they cannot foretell as far ahead nor provide as 

 ( , certainly against need, despite the popular notion to 

 f '^ J^the contrary. 



C We point to the migrating birds, to the muskrat 



\ -.houses, to the hoards of the squirrels, and say, 



/ " How wise and far-sighted these Nature-taught chil- 



} dren are ! " True, they are, but only for conditions 



that are normal. Their wisdom does not cover the 



. unusual. The gray squirrels did not provide for the 



unusually hard weather of last winter. Three of them 



5 



i 



