Trouble Among the Birds 161 



their predatory foes. In a tall sycamore tree standing 

 alone at the fringe of a piece of woodland, sparrow hawks, 

 red-breasted woodpeckers, and nuthatches, a pair of each, 

 had set up their household gods. The tree was still 

 bare of foliage, for it had few branches, and the season 

 was early spring. It was evident, too, that the hawks 

 were watching for an opportunity to assault their neigh- 

 bors, to. whom they often gave chase. Yet the wood- 

 peckers had in some way contrived to hew out their 

 arboreal nursery, which was almost, if not quite, finished. 

 It was a freshly chiseled cavity, as could be seen plainly 

 from below. The mother nuthatch was feeding her young. 

 She would fly to the tree with an insect in her bill, calling 

 ' Yank, yank," or " Ha-ha, ha-ha," as if to announce her 

 arrival, then glide around the branch, scurry down its 

 sloping wall, swing to the underside where the nest hole 

 was, and jab the juicy morsel into the chirruping throat 

 of one of the bantlings within. The bloodthirsty hawk 

 dashed at her several times, but she deftly dodged around 

 to the other side of .the branch, and let him glide harm- 

 lessly by, flinging after him a taunting " Ha-ha, ha-ha," as 

 much as to say, " Missed your aim again, didn't you!" 

 However, it was a pretty picture the nuthatch made, hold- 

 ing in her bill a large beetle with silvery wings, sometimes 

 holding it straight out from the bark as she glanced 

 around to see whether the coast was clear and at the same 

 time calling her nasal' 'yank," so full of woodsy suggestion. 

 A trying experience for many birds comes at bedtime. 

 They grow quite nervous as night begins to settle over 



