37 



would come to our windows to feed. Many other jays, also, 

 finding here a comparatively safe retreat and some food always 

 at hand, made the place their winter quarters. In the mean 

 time, the crows also had increased largely. They bred mainly 

 in the woods of a neighboring farm, but fed much about our 

 place. As time passed and they were not molested, they be- 

 came more and more bold, taking eggs and chickens from the 

 poultry yards, and cautiously searching among the trees, appar- 

 ently for eggs and young birds. They did this persistently, but 

 kept their movements so well covered that they would hardly 

 have been noticed except for the cries of the parent birds, and 

 their habit of pursuing the crows which came near their nests. 

 A few birds beside the robin and the chickadee were able to 

 raise their broods in 1901, but in 1902 the chickadees, pine 

 warblers and Maryland yellowthroats were the only birds smaller 

 than a towhee that were known to raise any young. 



Kingbirds, robins, brown thrashers, towhees and birds of this 

 size were able, though much persecuted, to raise some young; 

 but, so far as we could discover, nearly all the smaller birds, 

 such as warblers, sparrows and vireos, failed to raise any, while 

 several species made no attempt to breed here, but left, pre- 

 sumably for safer quarters. The nests of all these small species 

 were persistently robbed. Most of them never hatched an egg. 

 In some places their eggs were stolen before the full complement 

 was laid. The chipping sparrows in a small apple tree by the 

 house, having lost their first and second set of eggs, built a nest 

 on a branch of a tall pine, only to lose the eggs as before. A 

 pair of vireos changed the location of their nest, with similar 

 results. The ground-breeding birds suffered less. A pair of 

 song sparrows, as before stated, were able to hatch their young. 

 Towhees hatched and reared at least two broods. The nests 

 of the oven-birds seemed to escape the marauders, but no 

 young birds were seen later in the woods. No doubt the par- 

 tial immunity of these ground-breeding birds from the attacks of 

 their bird enemies lies in the fact of the careful concealment of 

 their nests. They are more likely to be found, however, by their 

 four-footed enemies. 



Robins, brown thrashers, blackbirds, kingbirds, orioles and 

 jays seemed better able than the smaller birds to protect them- 



