ZERO BIRDS 27 



and the wild-folk use its hidden bed like one of their 

 own trails. Foxes pad along its rain-washed course, 

 and rabbits and squirrels hop and scurry across its 

 narrow width, while in spring and summer wild 

 ginger, ebony spleenwort, the blue-and-white porce- 

 lain petals of the hepatica, and a host of other flowers 

 bloom on its banks. The birds too nest there, from 

 the belted gray-blue and white kingfisher, which has 

 bored a deep hole into the clay under an overhanging 

 wild-cherry tree, down to the field sparrow, with its 

 pink beak and flute-song, which watches four speck- 

 led eggs close-hidden in a tiny cup of woven grass. 



To-day we followed the windings of the road, until 

 we came to the vast black oak tree which marks the 

 place where Darby Road, after running for nearly 

 ten miles, stops to rest. Beyond stretched the un- 

 broken expanse of Blacksnake Swamp, bounded by 

 the windings of Darby Creek. The Band seated 

 themselves on one of their favorite resting-places, 

 a great log which lay under the trees. Above us a 

 white-breasted nuthatch, with its white cheeks and 

 black head, was rat-tat-tatting up and around a 

 half -dead limb, picking out every insect egg in sight 

 from the bark. As the bird came near the broken 

 top of the bough, out of a hole popped a very angry 

 red squirrel exactly like a jack-in-the-box. The red 

 squirrel is the fastest of all the tree-folk among the 

 animals, but a nuthatch on a limb is not afraid of 

 anything that flies or crawls or climbs. He can run 

 up and down around a branch, forward and back- 

 ward, unlike the woodpeckers, which must always 



