84 ON FAIR CASCO BAY 



sparrow to be found there, for either of these 

 dear, troublesome birds can spoil the study 

 of a whole day. Let him once take it into 

 his obstinate little head that one is too much 

 interested in the ways of birds, and there- 

 fore, from his point of view, dangerous, and 

 he never tires of proclaiming the fact with 

 loud insistent voice to whom it may concern. 

 All birds understand and hasten to conceal 

 themselves, while carefully keeping the sus- 

 pected under observation. It is hopeless to 

 try to tire out a robin who has set out to mob 

 one, for one bird will relieve another at the 

 work, and to reduce them to silence would 

 be to exhaust the whole robin population. 



Swiftly and silently, then, from the orchard 

 I entered what might, from its prevailing 

 inhabitants, be called a Eedstart Nook. It 

 was a spot perhaps one hundred feet square, 

 filled with old spruces surrounded by the 

 rising generation, making ready to take their 

 places in the world. The ground was fairly 

 covered with young trees, from infants of 

 two or three inches with top twig already 

 pointed straight up the way it intended to 

 go, to the tall old patriarch far above one's 



