io6 What Birds Have Done With Me 



finds its way to the table, I never succeeded in 

 running down any sufficient proof to convince me 

 that any human hyena had ever devoured Chick- 

 adees, though such may be the fact. Without the 

 excuse of starvation, staring him in the face, the 

 libel on God's creatures, who would do a thing 

 like that ought to be Anathema Maranatha. 



As Mr. Chickadee never had an enemy, and 

 isn't of value for food, it would look as though 

 in their relation he never had any valid reason 

 to distrust man; but that is far from the truth, 

 for he, in common with all other birds, has had 

 good reason to fear "the relentless, remorseless 

 bird-skin collector." To kill a Chickadee for any 

 purpose seems almost next to the murder of an 

 infant for the coral on its neck, in fact the Chick- 

 adee is the real Peter Pan of the bird kingdom. 

 He has never grown up, but from first to last is 

 a dear goo-gooing baby; guileless, confiding, care- 

 free, with close relations to all our happy yester- 

 days and vitally connected with all our longed-for 

 to-morrows; the Alpha and Omega of bird life. 



Adolph Buzze had about the right notion with 

 regard to the blessed Chickadee. When he was 

 building his cabin in the woods, in zero weather, 

 they came in great numbers, and I was astonished 

 beyond measure to find wild birds so intimate with 

 a human creature. He picked out yellow worms 

 from between the bark and the log he was hew- 



