WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



"You need a half-hour's outing," I suggested, for the gravel 

 pit was only a mile away and my horse was at the door. The 

 cashier happened to be the head of my family, so the matter was 

 easily arranged and Mr. Hale and I at once drove to his farm. 



The spot was beautiful, just the place for birds of all kinds. 

 Gravel for two railroads had been taken from one little hill, the 

 presence of which in this stretch of low country was hard to ex- 

 plain, for on the east lay the river, south the Limberlost, west 

 the great ditch draining it, and north more swampy lowland. A 

 great basin had been shoveled out from the main bed of gravel, 

 and then veins running through it in different directions had been 

 followed up as long as pay dirt was found. Heavy rains and 

 drainings from the swamp had transformed these into a small 

 lake and canals. As it all happened twenty years ago, the high 

 parts were covered now with tall poplars and maples, the low with 

 a beautiful fringy -leaved variety of willow, the canal and lake 

 surrounded by cattails, bullrushes and tall swamp-grasses, and 

 everywhere there grew luxuriant vines, and almost impenetrable 

 thickets of wild rose, button -bush and all kinds of swamp under- 

 brush. The river was only a quarter of a mile away and solid 

 swamp covered the intervening space. 



The back wall of the old pit was twenty feet high and 

 faced east; about a foot and a half from the surface was the 

 opening which had attracted Mr. Hale and his little daughters 

 during their Sabbath walk. We cut a willow and measured the 

 tunnel, finding it to be six feet deep. We threw light into it 

 with a pocket mirror, but could see nothing. Mr. Hale was cer- 

 tain that the opening had not been there a week before, as he had 

 been about the pit much of late, ostensibly entertaining the 

 children, in reality, from the number of locations to which he led 

 me, hunting bird-nests for me. I was sure that the work was 

 fresh, for a little heap of sand and gravel that had been pushed 



