MY WOODLAND INTIMATES 



the more confirmed and grounded his seclusion 

 the wider and more familiar becomes the circle 

 of his social environment, until at length, like a 

 very dryad of old, the birds build and sing in his 

 branches and the ' wee wild beasties ' nest in his 

 pockets." * 



To the hut come birds and squirrels and cot- 

 tontails, as well as hosts of other little creatures 

 much more difficult to enumerate than are these 

 well-known everyday folk. Sometimes the guests 

 perch upon the window-sills or halt at the thresh- 

 old, but the more fearless enter the little dwell- 

 ing and calmly investigate its furnishings, among 

 which they evidently include both the little dog- 

 gie and myself. 



A house-wren gave away her secret a few days 

 ago by chattering at me from the roof, and from 

 the top of the outward-opening side door of the 

 hut. Her nest is in the cabin's little sham chim- 

 ney, the summit of which was a favorite halt- 

 ing-place for robins, song-sparrows, cat-birds, 

 thrushes, flickers, and other feathered gentry in 

 former summers, but it is not patronized by them 

 since the wren's appropriation of the snug little 

 box. Birds of all - these families, and I cannot 

 * Mr. W. Hamilton Gibson, in My Studio Neighbors. 



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